In this post from Marijuana.com, Barry Bard highlights a revolutionary bill that will cater to the urgent need for CBD-rich strains to be allowed to cross state lines.
On Tuesday, three Senators introduced a bi-partisan bill that would effectively end the federal war on medical marijuana. The revolutionary bill, entitled The CAREERS Act (that’s short for “The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States Act), has gone viral and given the cannabis community legitimate optimism that the war on weed is nearing its final end.
Here’s what that bill would do
The bill, entitled The CARERS Act, sponsored by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), would reschedule marijuana (away from its Schedule 1 status), allow banks to provide financial services to state-legal cannabis businesses, lift restrictions on marijuana research, allow for the interstate importation of CBD-rich strains and allow V.A. doctors to recommend medical cannabis to military veterans, among other changes.
Every aspect of this bill would drastically change the national landscape of medical marijuana and ultimately, free up the weed once and for all. The bill is monumental on all accounts, and one that hopefully facilitates major change.
But while each aspect of this bill tackles an important, current government evil, one aspect of this bill trumps all others in a landslide: allowing for the interstate importation of CBD strains.
The crux of the CBD issue goes like this: over 10 states in America have legislation that makes non-psychoactive CBD-oil totally legal (but not THC). In every one of these states–from Wisconsin to New York to (yes really) South Carolina.
But all of these states have the same issue: there is not a single farm producing CBD-rich (or THC) plants in these states. Likewise, zero patients in any of these states with “legalized CBD” can actually access the medicine they need.
And the consequence is a dire one: children with epilepsy are dying as they wait for the cure. In Wisconsin, South Carolina, and New York, multiple children waiting for CBD died within a month’s time last year.
It’s all so pointless. Why not let a non-psychoactive, clinically proven cure reach those who need it so badly? Considering 3 million Americans currently live with epilepsy…that’s a lot of people unable to try the only medicine that gives them relief and, in some cases, allows them to keep on living.
If every other aspect of this bill gets shot down or nullified, hopefully the federal government will take a moral approach when evaluating CBD crossing state lines. Allowing more children and epileptic individuals to suffer when a clearcut aid and cure is available just isn’t right.
via The Urgent Need for CBD to Cross State Lines | Marijuana.