Medical Cannabidiol Board Recommendations 2025

For sev­er­al years now, the Iowa Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board has rec­om­mend­ed chang­ing the name “Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Act” to “Med­ical Cannabis Act” in its annu­al reports to the Iowa Leg­is­la­ture.  The act requires the board to sub­mit annu­al reports to the leg­is­la­ture, Iowa Code § 124E.5(5):

On or before Jan­u­ary 1 of each year, begin­ning Jan­u­ary 1, 2018, the med­ical cannabid­i­ol board shall sub­mit a report detail­ing the activ­i­ties of the board.

The board has been rec­om­mend­ing renam­ing the act “Med­ical Cannabis Act” to be con­sis­tent with the def­i­n­i­tion of med­ical cannabid­i­ol, Iowa Code § 124E.2(10):

“Med­ical cannabid­i­ol” means any phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal grade cannabi­noid found in the plant Cannabis sati­va L. or Cannabis indi­ca or any oth­er prepa­ra­tion there­of that is deliv­ered in a form rec­om­mend­ed by the med­ical cannabid­i­ol board, approved by the board of med­i­cine, and adopt­ed by the depart­ment pur­suant to rule.

Cannabid­i­ol is just one of many cannabi­noids.  Call­ing that def­i­n­i­tion “med­ical cannabid­i­ol” is sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly inac­cu­rate and mis­lead­ing.  For sci­en­tif­ic accu­ra­cy, see USP Pol­i­cy Posi­tion Cannabis 2024, U.S. Phar­ma­copeia (USP), Jan­u­ary 14, 2024, at page 2 foot­note *:

*  Cannabis sati­va L. (cannabis) is a plant that con­tains over 100 dif­fer­ent nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring com­pounds called “cannabi­noids.”

Cannabis-derived com­pounds are com­pounds occur­ring nat­u­ral­ly in the plant, such as cannabid­i­ol (CBD) and delta-9-tetrahy­dro­cannabi­nol (THC), that are extract­ed direct­ly from the plant.

For the past sev­er­al years the board has asked the leg­is­la­ture to cor­rect the name of the act to accu­rate­ly describe the def­i­n­i­tion.  Here is that rec­om­men­da­tion from the last annu­al report, Decem­ber 31, 2024, rec­om­men­da­tion #1:

1.  Amend­ing the name of Chap­ter 124E to “The Med­ical Cannabis Act”

The Board rec­om­mends renam­ing Chap­ter 124E to be the “Iowa Med­ical Cannabis Act” to accu­rate­ly reflect that prod­ucts con­tain­ing THC are also autho­rized to be sold and man­u­fac­tured by the law, indi­cate sci­en­tif­ic real­i­ty via inclu­sion of all cannabi­noids, mit­i­gate con­fu­sion with pro­gram stake­hold­ers, and improve pro­gram edu­ca­tion.

The term “med­ical cannabid­i­ol” may have been rel­e­vant pri­or to HF2589 and Iowa using a 3% THC lim­it on prod­ucts, but Iowa remains the only state using this nomen­cla­ture.  As Iowa now allows prod­uct for­mu­la­tions sim­i­lar to those in oth­er med­ical cannabis pro­grams, it is con­gru­ent with the rest of the coun­try to update the name.  Addi­tion­al­ly, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of intox­i­cat­ing prod­ucts in the con­sum­able hemp pro­gram fur­ther exac­er­bates this mes­sag­ing issue.  Fol­low­ing the pas­sage of HF2589 in 2020, main­te­nance of the term “med­ical cannabid­i­ol” has pro­gres­sive­ly cre­at­ed a knowl­edge and edu­ca­tion bar­ri­er with law enforce­ment, health­care, and oth­er stake­hold­ers who are oth­er­wise unaware that high-THC prod­ucts are legal­ly avail­able in Iowa.  Under the new con­sol­i­dat­ed Bureau with­in HHS, the pub­lic fac­ing mes­sag­ing refers to the pro­gram as “med­ical cannabis.”

Why hasn’t any­one intro­duced a bill to imple­ment this rec­om­men­da­tion?  What pos­si­ble inter­est could there be in deceiv­ing the pub­lic about this?

The board also rec­om­mends bring­ing the act into com­pli­ance with fed­er­al drug law. 21 U.S.C. § 822(d). so Iowans are not required to vio­late fed­er­al drug law as a con­di­tion of receiv­ing health care.  Here is the text of 21 U.S.C. § 822(d):

(d)  Waiv­er

The Attor­ney Gen­er­al may, by reg­u­la­tion, waive the require­ment for reg­is­tra­tion of cer­tain man­u­fac­tur­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, or dis­pensers if he finds it con­sis­tent with the pub­lic health and safe­ty.

Here is that rec­om­men­da­tion from the last annu­al report, Decem­ber 31, 2024, rec­om­men­da­tion #8:

8.  Seek a Fed­er­al Exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram

The Board rec­om­mends that a task force of legal experts be autho­rized, sim­i­lar to the cur­rent board of med­ical experts, to assist the depart­ment in nav­i­gat­ing the legal issues involved with request­ing an exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram from nec­es­sary Fed­er­al agen­cies.  This is relat­ed to a rec­om­men­da­tion in the Board’s 2019 Annu­al Report and the pas­sage of HF2589 in June, 2020.

Here is that rec­om­men­da­tion from the 2019 annu­al report, Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, rec­om­men­da­tion #6:

6.  Devel­op Lan­guage to Pro­tect Schools, and Long-Term and Acute Care Facil­i­ties

Facil­i­ties that receive fed­er­al fund­ing are hes­i­tant to allow med­ical cannabid­i­ol prod­ucts to be admin­is­tered and stored at the facil­i­ties due to the cur­rent sched­ul­ing of Cannabis at the fed­er­al lev­el.  There are Iowa patients with­in these facil­i­ties who are unable to store their med­ica­tion at the facil­i­ty, or have their med­ica­tion admin­is­tered by facil­i­ty staff, because of con­cerns about adverse con­se­quences for the facil­i­ties.  Devel­op­ing lan­guage to pro­tect these facil­i­ties or seek­ing exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram from fed­er­al drug laws would ben­e­fit patients and facil­i­ties.

Why has­n’t any­one intro­duced a bill to imple­ment this rec­om­men­da­tion?  What rea­son could there pos­si­bly be for autho­riz­ing fed­er­al crime and putting the pub­lic at risk?