Apr 3, 2019 | News
Stores throughout Ohio continue to sell cannabidiol, commonly known as CBD, months after the state’s board of pharmacy ruled that the cannabis extract can only be sold in medical marijuana dispensaries.
CBD has something of a cult following, and its users believe it can treat a variety of conditions.
The pharmacy board cited the Ohio Revised Code in its August decision, which defines marijuana as any product derived from cannabis.
But CBD distributors say they believe the pharmacy board overstepped its boundaries, and that selling CBD is legal.
Lucky’s Market in Clintonville and several Fresh Thyme locations throughout the state still have special sections for CBD oils. And the Columbus Botanical Depot, a boutique shop in Clintonville, sells CBD products almost exclusively.
Josh Hendrix, president of hemp production for San Diego-based CBD distributor CV Sciences, said the company’s products are protected under federal law because they come from hemp. The 2018 Farm Bill removed hemp, which is derived from cannabis and lacks the intoxicating effects of marijuana, from a list of controlled substances and defined it as a commodity, opening the door for states to legalize it. Ohio has yet to do so.
“There is no list of controlled substance that includes CBD,” Hendrix said. “It’s a naturally occurring compound within a legal plant.”
Hendrix said that his company has educated lawmakers and law enforcement officials on CBD in other states, and has helped change laws in states like Indiana.
An effort is afoot to legalize CBD in Ohio.
Senate Bill 57, which was recently passed by the Ohio Senate, would legalize hemp and give retailers the right to sell CBD.
Enforcement of the current law is left to the Ohio Department of Agriculture, which responds to complaints, director Dorothy Pelanda said.
In January, the department embargoed a CBD oil sold by Jungle Jim’s International Market at their Fairfield and Cincinnati locations after the owner of a different store asked the state if he could legally offer the product, Pelanda said. Agency employees banned the oil because they were unable to determine its origin, she said. The grocery store removed the oil from its shelves.
Representatives of Jungle Jim’s did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Pelanda said she wasn’t aware of any other complaints regarding CBD.
Grove City police told Midwest Vapors, a Stringtown Road vape shop, to remove CBD products from its shelves in April. Grove City police Lt. Doug Olmstead said officers spotted the CBD during a routine check.
Retailers say they continue to sell the products because it helps their customers. The benefits of CBD, however, are disputed.
Employees of the Columbus Botanical Depot tell customers that CBD will treat everything from anxiety, to trouble sleeping, to ADHD.
“We’re not doctors and we can’t make a diagnosis, but we can speak to our experiences and the experience of our customers,” General Manager Max Kamer said.
CV Sciences, which distributes the CBD products found on store shelves in Ohio, sells their product as a dietary supplement rather than a drug, which means they can’t make any claims about its health benefits. But Hendrix said that customers use CBD to treat a variety of conditions.
Researchers say claims about the medicinal qualities of CBD are at best premature.
The FDA has approved the CBD-based drug Epidiolex to treat seizures in rare forms of childhood epilepsy, and limited studies suggest other benefits.
“But we really still do not know where CBD can be helpful outside of seizures,” said Anup Patel, section chief of neurology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. His research aided the approval of Epidiolex. “There is not well-done scientific literature showing the benefits of CBD for conditions other than epilepsy,” he said.
Patel hopes that the approval of Epidiolex will open the doors for further study.
In the meantime, “I would ask the public to proceed cautiously, and not accept every claim without rigorous scientific evidence backing it up,” Patel said.
The perceived benefits of CBD could be a placebo effect, said Dr. Robert Carson, an assistant professor of neurology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt, who holds both a medical degree and a PhD. It isn’t a bad thing if someone uses CBD oils and it makes them feel better, he said.
“But in virtually every situation,” it’s best to take the proven medication, Carson said.
Dr. Daniel Neides, president and CEO of the Northeast Ohio health clinic Inspire Wellness, is a rare doctor who recommends CBD, saying his patients report symptoms of chronic pain and anxiety improving with its use. Neides acknowledged that their experiences are largely anecdotal, but said his plethora of anecdotes must indicate some beneficial qualities.
Dec 4, 2015 | Blog, Komorn Law Blog, Legalization, News
According to the latest Gallup poll, 58% of Americans think marijuana should be legal. Surveys conducted in March and October found that most Ohioans agree. So why did Ohio voters overwhelmingly reject Issue 3, which would have legalized marijuana for medical and recreational use, in yesterday’s election? Two reasons spring to mind.
Ohio voters do not like crony capitalism.
The campaign against Issue 3, dubbed Ohioans Against Marijuana Monopolies, focused on the initiative’s most controversial feature: a cannabis cultivation cartel that would have limited commercial production to 10 sites controlled by the initiative’s financial backers. As I explained here last week, that aspect of the initiative caused consternation even among people who otherwise support marijuana legalization. Two leading drug policy reform groups, the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), were conspicuously neutral on Issue 3. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) issued a decidedly ambivalent endorsement under the headline “Investor-Driven Legalization: A Bitter Pill to Swallow.” The Republican Liberty Caucus of Ohio and the Libertarian Party of Ohio were opposed.
If your marijuana legalization initiative turns libertarians against marijuana legalization, you probably have done something wrong. As DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann noted last week, “a constitutionally mandated oligopoly for an agricultural product…seems un-American” and “sticks in the craws of both liberals and conservatives.” The ballot description highlighted this aspect of Issue 3, saying the initiative “grants a monopoly for the commercial production and sale of marijuana for recreational and medicinal purposes” and would “endow exclusive rights for commercial marijuana growth, cultivation, and extraction to self-designated landowners who own ten predetermined parcels of land.”
Worse, Issue 3 appeared on the ballot right after Issue 2, a measure that was designed to block marijuana legalization by prohibiting the use of initiatives to insert economic privileges into the state constitution. Issue 2 was described as an “anti-monopoly amendment” that “protects the initiative process from being used for personal economic benefit.” It received support from 52% of voters. A Kent State University survey commissioned by WKYC, the NBC station in Cleveland, found that Issue 2 was popular even among supporters of legalization.
The Atlantic’s David Graham rightly highlights voters’ “concerns about monopoly control” but wrongly conflates those concerns with opposition to “Big Marijuana,” the favorite bogeyman of the anti-pot group Project SAM. While anti-corporate attitudes may help explain some progressives’ opposition to Issue 3, conservatives and libertarians who oppose prohibition but nevertheless had qualms about the initiative were not troubled by the prospect that businesses would make a lot of money by producing and selling marijuana products. They were troubled by the prospect that the market would be rigged. Opposition to Issue 3’s crony capitalism should not be confused with opposition to cannabis capitalism.
Ohio State law professor Douglas Berman sees a silver lining for antiprohibitionists in the successful campaign against Issue 3. “That reinforces my sense that actually it’s very hard to defend prohibition on the merits, but it’s much easier to attack any particular plan to get away from prohibition,” Berman told Graham. “To me, the reform community has to be ecstatic to see that even in a purple state like Ohio, the advocacy against reform wasn’t, ‘Marijuana is this evil weed.’ It was, ‘Don’t trust those monopolists to legalize weed.’”
Voters who participate in off-year elections are not very keen on legalization.
The Kent State survey, which was conducted in the first week of October with a sample of 500 registered voters, put support for Issue 3 at 56%. But the pollsters warned that the result could be misleading, since people who cast ballots in years when voters are not electing a president “tend to be older and more Republican than the eligible electorate.” That’s relevant to the fate of Issue 3 because Republicans and older voters tend to oppose legalization. In the Kent State survey, only 45% of Republicans, 46% of 61-to-70-year-olds, and 29% of respondents older than 70 favored Issue 3.
A Bowling Green State University (BGSU) poll conducted in mid-October reinforces the point that off-year elections are not favorable to marijuana legalization. Unlike the Kent State survey, the BGSU poll focused on “likely” voters, and it found less support for Issue 3: 44%, with 43% opposed and 13% undecided. In the end, Issue 3 got just 36% of the vote.
Disappointments like that one convinced Rob Kampia, MPP’s executive director, that legalizers should focus their efforts on presidential election years. His group is backing legalization measures in five states next year: Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada. “When voters in Nevada or Massachusetts get to the ballot box one year from now, they are not going to be thinking about what happened in Ohio a year earlier,” says Mason Tvert, MPP’s communications director. “They are going to be thinking about the problems marijuana prohibition has caused their states for so many years and the benefits of replacing it with a more sensible system. These initiatives will also benefit from heightened voter turnout during a presidential election year. The more voters that turn out, the more support we tend to see for marijuana policy reform.”
While that’s exactly what you would expect a legalization activist to say, that does not mean it isn’t true. Voters have endorsed legalization in four states and the District of Columbia so far, and given trends in public opinion—in particular, the association between prohibitionism and old age—there is no reason to think that will be the end of it.
Although his side won yesterday, Project SAM’s Kevin Sabet is the one who seems to be whistling past the graveyard. “We’ve proven that legalization, even by popular initiative, can be stopped,” he says, “and we intend to build on this momentum.” The fact that anti-pot activists are crowing about winning one out of six battles over legalization—a situation that would have seemed fanciful just a few years ago—tells you all you need to know about the future of marijuana prohibition in America.
Nov 4, 2015 Jacob Sullum – Contributor
See Original Article Here
