Letter to Medical Cannabidiol Board

Letter to Medical Cannabidiol Board, February 4, 2023

I see you have leg­is­la­tion on the agen­da for the meet­ing next Fri­day.  I was hop­ing to see com­pan­ion bills in both cham­bers for imple­men­ta­tion of the board’s eight rec­om­men­da­tions from the board’s 2022 annu­al report.

The only rec­om­men­da­tion that made it into a bill is the one I’ve been work­ing on with the board and the depart­ment for the past five years, and that one is Sen­ate File 69.  Sen­a­tor Zaun filed it and he says it will become a com­mit­tee bill with a dif­fer­ent num­ber.  Sen­a­tor Zaun also filed Sen­ate Con­cur­rent Res­o­lu­tion 102 for me last year (89th Gen­er­al Assem­bly, 2021–2022), and it was approved in com­mit­tee but died at that point.  SF 69 is obvi­ous­ly a much bet­ter bill than SCR 102 was.

I see Sen­a­tor Zaun has also filed Sen­ate Study Bill 1113 (SSB 1113) to add raw flower in vapor­iz­able form and increase the num­ber of dis­pen­saries in Iowa to ten.  At the board’s meet­ing in Novem­ber, I heard raw flower was going to be on the agen­da for next Friday’s meet­ing, and I see it is on the agen­da.  So, I’m curi­ous to know if the board was aware that SSB 1113 was going to be intro­duced this leg­isla­tive ses­sion.  I assume that is the case.  It is a study bill and the board’s opin­ion should obvi­ous­ly be a fac­tor in what hap­pens with it.

But, I can’t explain why all of the board’s rec­om­men­da­tions haven’t been intro­duced as leg­is­la­tion.  I did con­tact all 150 leg­is­la­tors and remind them the board made eight rec­om­men­da­tions, as well as send­ing them all of the board’s rec­om­men­da­tions over the past five years (because it shows some con­ti­nu­ity).

https://carl-olsen.com/mcb/

The Feb­ru­ary 10 meet­ing sounds like it will be inter­est­ing and I’ll be there.  I can’t think of any­thing I want to present at that meet­ing, but I would like every­one to keep the focus on the absolute fail­ure of every state pro­gram to even both­er seek­ing com­pli­ance with fed­er­al drug law by seek­ing an exemp­tion under 21 U.S.C. § 822(d).  That would trig­ger the exemp­tion under 21 U.S.C. § 822©(3) for end users and resolve the fed­er­al fund­ing issue with edu­ca­tion­al and long-term health­care facil­i­ties, along with oth­er prob­lems like bank­ing, hous­ing and employ­ment, and the exor­bi­tant fed­er­al tax penal­ty under 26 U.S.C. § 280E that dri­ves the cost up expo­nen­tial­ly.  Approach­ing this half-heart­ed­ly as it has been is a huge mis­take.

Your busi­ness­es won’t say any­thing, because they are com­pet­ing for those lim­it­ed num­ber of licens­es.  Your patients won’t say any­thing because they are fight­ing for their lives.  I say some­thing because I’m not com­pro­mised.  I’m not a sell­er, dis­trib­u­tor, or user, so I can speak the truth.  I asked for the board’s sup­port, because we share that sta­tus of being out­side observers.

It’s the same for leg­is­la­tors.  Leg­is­la­tors are not vio­lat­ing any law by throw­ing every­one under the bus, because they don’t par­tic­i­pate direct­ly in vio­lat­ing fed­er­al law.  Leg­is­la­tors have a seat on that bus.

I can’t thank you enough for help­ing me with this.  This board was the best idea the leg­is­la­ture has ever come up with, but I hope the leg­is­la­tors will pay more atten­tion to what the board is telling them.