
New DEA Rule Says CBD Oil Is Really Illegal - cwilson
https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/new-dea-rule-says-cbd-oil-really-truly-no-joke-illegal
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rubyn00bie
As the article says, there's nothing really new here. It's more so just making
it formal instead of letting people know by having the DEA knock down their
door to find out.

From the article:

"There is no major change in law brought about by the Register item. Rather,
it serves to clarify and reinforce the DEA’s position on all cannabis
extracts, including CBD oil."

I was shocked people were selling CBD oils thinking it was okay; that's the
only news here for me.

Disclaimer: I think marijuana is great and am from a state where it's
blissfully legal ;)

~~~
steve-howard
CBD has absolutely no recreational appeal, so if you followed intuition rather
than calling a lawyer it would make sense that it didn't fall under rules that
consider marijuana a drug with a high potential for abuse.

That said, I'd hope anyone extracting and selling the stuff as a business
would do their due diligence.

~~~
rubyn00bie
Mostly for clarification, I was thinking as a government entity which
classifies marijuana as a schedule 1 offense and turns public health issues
into criminal ones.

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shams93
They sure looked the other way when it came to opiates like oxyconton, they
are a part of the opiate crisis by focusing on the harmless substance when was
the last time they made a major heroin bust for example.

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marsrover
God, I fucking hate the DEA.

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1024core
I am so fucking tired of the DEA and the joke it has become. And I will also
blame Obama for continuing this mess: as someone who smoked pot heavily in his
youth (and still turned out OK), for his administration to continue this lie
that cannabis is some super gateway drug and has no medicinal value, is
shameful.

Science, bitches! Put aside your religious biases and ask: What does science
say?

/rant

~~~
chimeracoder
> And I will also blame Obama for continuing this mess

He didn't just continue it; he doubled down on it.

For some reason, Obama receives credit for relaxing laws on medical marijuana,
but the reality is the opposite. Obama actually _increased_ the rate of
crackdowns on dispensaries in states with medical marijuana, and spent far
_more_ on enforcing federal marijuana laws in these states than either Bush or
Clinton did[0].

After Amendment 64/Initiative 501 passed in CO and WA respectively, it's true
that he didn't take as strong action against them as he _could_ have. But
that's a really low bar to apply to the president who said he "inhaled
frequently - that was the point", promised to let states decide their own
marijuana laws, and (when he ran for Senate in 2004) advocated
decriminalization of marijuana laws.

[0] [https://www.greenrushdaily.com/2016/02/24/dispensary-
raids-r...](https://www.greenrushdaily.com/2016/02/24/dispensary-raids-rise-
obama-regime/)

~~~
TenOhms
Follow the money. Pharma has a lot of it, and they're willing to invest in
politics to keep what they have and get even more.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Follow the money. Pharma has a lot of it, and they're willing to invest in
> politics to keep what they have and get even more.

I don't think it's so simple. Big Tobacco also has a lot of money, and they
have even _more_ of an incentive for the federal ban on marijuana to be
lifted. They can't really touch it while it's in this grey zone, but it's a
huge amount of money that they're itching to get their hands on.

~~~
Retric
Tobacco is small compared to Pharma. The average american spends over 1,000$
per year on prescription drugs.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Tobacco is small compared to Pharma. The average american spends over 1,000$
> per year on prescription drugs.

Yes, but medical marijuana is a lot less important to pharmaceutical companies
than recreational marijuana is to tobacco companies. Pharmaceutical companies
care less about medical marijuana these days than you might think.

And it's not so simple, because it's not so easy to see how money gets
directed. For example, Altria is a massive, diversified company (albeit less
so since Kraft Foods was split off). They likely see their investment in
smokeless tobacco ("e-cigarettes") as a lateral move to help them corner the
marijuana market once it's legalized. They also see it as a hedge against the
decades-long drop in tobacco usage. But _which_ is it? The answer is "both" \-
weighing those against each other is tough. And it gets even more tough when
you try to consider how much they would have considered the loss of the
tobacco business to be a threat back in 2006, when their business also
included production of cookies and macaroni & cheese.

These incentives are oftentimes conflicting _even within the same company_ ,
so from the outside, we can't just say "well, industry $X is larger than
industry $Y, so they will get their way". They have to decide that the issue
at hand is actually more important to them, which isn't so obvious, and that's
even before you get into the fact that those industries may actually
_overlap_.

~~~
pmoriarty
I really don't see why the alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies
can't themselves move in to production and sale of marijuana, once it becomes
legal.

In fact, I'd bet this is exactly what will happen. They're even likely to come
to dominate the market, much like Google did the phone market once they came
out with Android, and Microsoft did the console market once they came out with
the Xbox.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I really don't see why the alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies
> can't themselves move in to production and sale of marijuana, once it
> becomes legal.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The tobacco industry would _love_ to leverage
their existing assets into a lateral move into the marijuana industry. But
until it's legal, they have to sit by and watch their lunch get eaten by
smaller firms with larger risk appetites because they have less to lose if
things blow up in their faces. That's what's already happening.

