House Appropriations Committee leaders are calling for a federal review of psilocybin policy, utilizing hemp as an alternative to Chinese plastics and letting researchers study marijuana from dispensaries in new spending bill reports. At the same time, several GOP members are complaining about separate language on freeing up cannabis advertising—but an amendment to strike those protections was defeated in the panel.
The report for the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS), released June 27, contains a novel section that specifically concerns psilocybin, calling for a Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis on barriers to state, local and tribal programs for the psychedelic.
This comes amid a rapidly growing psilocybin reform movement that has emerged in localities and state legislatures across the country.
The GAO report, the committee says, should look at the impact of the federal Controlled Substances Act enforcement in jurisdictions allowing for psilocybin, barriers to accessing the psychedelic for medical use, recommendations on how to remove research blockades and more.
Ongoing federal prohibition of psilocybin is significant as more states enact policies allowing for use of the psychedelics in certain circumstances. Oregon voters, for example, approved a ballot measure in 2020 to allow service providers to offer psilocybin for use in supervised sessions, and Colorado voters could potentially see two far-reaching psychedelics reform measures on their ballots this November.
Meanwhile, the congressional panel also has two separate but similar sections on alternatives to plastics—one in the CJS report and another in an updated version of a spending report for the Department of Defense. Both specifically talk about transitioning to more environmentally friendly alternatives like hemp.
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In a similar vein, senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) filed a bill in 2020 that that’s meant to promote recycling beverage containers—and it explicitly included marijuana and hemp drink bottles as one of a handful of qualifying categories.
Another section of the new CJS report talks about conducting research to create an “objective standard to measure marijuana impairment to ensure highway safety,” and appropriators said a key to accomplishing that goal would be to liberate cannabis research, in part by allowing scientists to access cannabis products that are available in commercial markets.
The passage recognizes that President Joe Biden signed an infrastructure bill in 2022 that includes provisions aimed at allowing researchers to study the actual marijuana that consumers are purchasing from state-legal dispensaries instead of having to use only government-grown cannabis. The committee said in the CJS report that it wants an update on the Transportation Department’s interim progress to that end within 60 days of the spending bill’s enactment.
There’s also familiar language on combating unauthorized marijuana grow operations in states that have legalized cannabis. Appropriators are asking for a report from the Justice Department on the prevalence of the illicit activities, associated crimes and steps that could be further taken to coordinate federal, state and local enforcement.
Another part of the CJS report also reiterates that federal Byrne JAG formula grant funding for local and state police departments can be used to support “expungement and record clearing initiatives,” though it doesn’t explicitly talk about marijuana-related relief.
The committee further recommended appropriating $110 million for the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) to help states, territories and tribes effectively complete and maintain criminal records so that they are more effectively able to facilitate record sealing.
This appropriations cycle for Fiscal Year 2023 funding of various agencies has touched on a wide range of drug policy issues. And already, some GOP members are balking at certain marijuana provisions.
On June 24, for example, anti-legalization Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) filed an amendment during a committee markup for the Financial Services and General Governance (FSGG) spending bill that would have significantly watered down a provision of that legislation preventing the Federal Communications Commission from using federal funds to penalize TV or radio broadcasters for airing cannabis ads in jurisdictions that permit the sale of such products.
“Section 512 opens wide the barn doors to cannabis and cannabis-related products with no restrictions on that advertising. No guardrails,” Harris said during the markup.
A key guardrail, of course, is that the advertising provision would only apply in jurisdictions that have already legalized marijuana in some form and where limited advertising outside of FCC-regulated broadcasting is generally permitted.
The amendment from Harris would have required the director of the National Institute on Diseases of Addiction to certify that any given cannabis-related broadcast ad is “scientifically accurate and poses “no risk to individual or public health.”
Members of the committee defeated the proposal in a 21-33 vote.
At the June 24 markup, Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee, separately listed the marijuana advertising section as among the “controversial policies” she hopes to see “dropped” from the final package.
Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) separately voiced opposition to language in the FSGG spending legislation that would provide safeguards from financial institutions that work with state-legal marijuana businesses against being penalized by federal regulators.
“There are many serious public health issues that need to be addressed before changing these regulations,” Rogers said. “I hope we can work together to in a bipartisan way to address these issues as we move through the process in this bill.”
There are other notable cannabis provisions that have been included in recently released spending bills and attached reports, including one that would encourage sports regulators to push international officials to “change how cannabis is treated” when it comes to suspending athletes from competition over positive tests.
The FSGG report also more broadly addresses drug-testing requirements for federal workers, as previous versions have done in the past. But this time, there’s a new line that specifically urges the executive branch to apply drug-testing standards with “consistency and fairness.”
Meanwhile, in an education spending bill, there’s again a section that would prevent the Department of Education from penalizing universities simply because the institutions are conducting research into marijuana.
The House Appropriations Committee also released other spending bills and reports, with lawmakers pushing multiagency coordination to create guidance on hemp manufacturing, better guidance on the marketing of CBD, updates on research into medical marijuana for veterans and investigations into “alternative treatments” for post-traumatic stress disorder such as psychedelics.
Those provisions came out of Fiscal Year 2023 spending legislation for subcommittees on agencies including Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs.
It remains to be seen whether the Senate will accept any of the House-led drug policy proposals.
To the disappointment of advocates and lawmakers, the CJS base bill itself did not include requested provisions to protect all state and tribal adult-use marijuana programs. Rather, it simply maintained a longstanding riders preventing the Justice Department from using its appropriated funds to intervene in the implementation of state-legal medical cannabis and hemp programs.
This means supporters will again need to make their case for the broader protections’ inclusion as amendments—either in committee or on the House floor, as in past years.
In 2019 and 2020, the House attached the sweeping state and tribal protections to its version of the appropriations legislation as amendments adopted on the floor, but they’ve yet to be incorporated into any final package enacted into law. CJS legislation didn’t end up making it to the floor in 2021, but supporters had planned an amendment that year as well.
For the new Interior appropriations base bill, there’s a section on tribal marijuana protections (with some new caveats that have raised questions about tribes potentially being held to a different standard than states).
In a related development, a Senate committee recently held a listening session that explored cannabis issues for Native Americans, touching on areas such as tribal sovereignty in the marijuana space, agreements with state governments and taxation.
A coalition of nine US senators also sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland in March, urging him to direct federal prosecutors to not interfere with marijuana legalization policies enacted by Native American tribes.
Importantly, it remains to be seen whether the Senate will accept any of the House-led cannabis and drug policy proposals. Senate appropriators have not yet released their spending bills for FY23, and typically wait until after the House has acted, so it’s not yet clear which issues will ultimately get reconciled by the two chambers and adopted into law.
Photograph via New York State
This story was originally published by Marijuana Moment, which tracks the politics and policy of cannabis and drugs. Follow Marijuana Moment on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for its newsletter.