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The Justice Department took a significant step toward rescheduling marijuana Thursday, formalizing its process to reclassify the drug as lower-risk and remove it from a category in which it has been treated as more dangerous than fentanyl and meth...President Joe Biden announced the “major” move in a direct-to-camera video posted to his official account on X. “This is monumental,” Biden said in the message. “It’s an important move towards reversing long-standing inequities. … Far too many lives have been upended because of a failed approach to marijuana, and I’m committed to righting those wrongs. You have my word on it.”...The Biden administration has been signaling that it would move to reschedule the drug from Schedule I — a strict classification including drugs like heroin — to the less-stringent Schedule III, which would for the first time acknowledge the drug’s medical benefits at the federal level. The Drug Enforcement Administration submitted a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on Thursday afternoon, triggering a 60-day comment period that will allow members of the public to submit remarks regarding the rescheduling proposal before it is finalized...READ MORE

When Nevada legalized recreational cannabis, people expected the normal array of problems as Las Vegas tourists over-indulged...Legalized cannabis, however, has come with its own set of unique problems. First and foremost casino operators including the Las Vegas Strip's biggest operators...Since they're regulated by federal law, casino operators can't house dispensaries or Las Vegas's newly-approved cannabis lounges. That means that people not only have to leave their Strip or downtown resort in order to buy marijuana, but they also have to leave to legally smoke it...that quirk in the law keeps tourists from smoking and driving. That could change later this year when new rules allow dispensaries like Planet 13 to add consumption lounges to their locations...READ MORE

Over the past few years, Jonny Griffis has invested millions of dollars in his legal marijuana farm in northern Michigan, which produces extracts to be used in things like gummy bears and vape oils...But now that farm — like many other licensed grows in states that have legalized marijuana — faces an existential threat: high-inducing cannabis compounds derived not from the heavily regulated and taxed legal marijuana industry, but from a chemical process involving less strictly regulated, cheaply grown hemp...At the center of the issue is THC, marijuana’s main intoxicating component. While marijuana and hemp are the same plant — cannabis — the distinction between the two is a legal one, and comes down to the amount of THC in the plant, specifically the amount of a type of THC called delta-9...People exploiting what they see as a loophole in the law have taken that hemp, extracted a non-intoxicating compound called CBD, and chemically changed it — generally by the addition of solvents and heat — into various types of impairing THC...READ MORE

Federal health officials issued a national warning...against marijuana use by adolescents and pregnant women, as more states legalize the increasingly potent drug for medicinal and recreational use...Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Surgeon General Jerome Adams made the announcement, with Azar calling marijuana "a dangerous drug."...The warning comes as legal marijuana has grown into a $10-billion industry in the U.S. with nearly two-thirds of states legalizing it, mainly for medical uses. An increasing number of states and localities are also allowing personal, recreational use...Adams said science shows that marijuana is harmful to the developing brains of teenagers and to the human fetus. The drug has also gotten stronger, with a three-fold increase in the concentration of the active ingredient THC in cultivated plants over the last 20 years...READ MORE

Nevada Supreme Court justices are weighing arguments in a lawsuit that seeks to remove the Nevada Board of Pharmacy from its administrative role in regulating cannabis...The ACLU of Nevada originally filed the case in 2022 on behalf of the Cannabis Equity & Inclusion Community, a nonprofit group that advocates for policies beneficial to Nevada’s legal cannabis community, in Clark County District Court arguing the pharmacy board’s classification of cannabis as a Schedule I drug was unconstitutional...District Judge Joe Hardy ruled in favor of the ACLU, determining the pharmacy board’s classification as unconstitutional, but the board appealed the decision to the state’s top court. Arguments were heard Tuesday; it’s unknown when a decision will be handed down...READ MORE

After more than two decades of violating state law, the Nevada Board of Pharmacy must remove cannabis from a list of controlled substances deemed to be highly abused, a Clark County District Court judge ruled...The order followed a lawsuit brought forward in April by the Cannabis, Equity and Inclusion Community on behalf of Antoine Poole, a Las Vegas resident who was convicted of felony possession of a controlled substance for marijuana in 2017. The conviction occurred the same year recreational marijuana use became legal in Nevada...READ MORE

The U.S. government is barring federal dollars meant for opioid addiction treatment to be used on medical marijuana...The move is aimed at states that allow marijuana for medical uses, particularly those letting patients with opioid addiction use pot as a treatment, said Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, whose federal agency doles out money to states for treatment programs...“There’s zero evidence for that,” McCance-Katz said. “We felt that it was time to make it clear we did not want individuals receiving funds for treatment services to be exposed to marijuana and somehow given the impression that it’s a treatment.”...READ MORE

If a recommendation by the nation’s top health agency to reclassify marijuana is adopted, the drug could gain wider acceptance as a medical treatment, pot businesses could see their bottom line boosted and a path toward national legalization could be charted, experts said Thursday...
The Department of Health and Human Services this week recommended that marijuana be removed from the category reserved for the riskiest drugs, such as heroin and LSD, and moved to one for certain prescription drugs. The decision to reclassify marijuana ultimately resides with the Drug Enforcement Administration, which could take months to complete its evaluation...READ MORE

Cannabis is illegal federally – classified as a Schedule I controlled substance – but even state law, despite cannabis being legal to use in Nevada, maintains cannabis as a Schedule I drug alongside methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine...The Nevada State Board of Pharmacy continues to list cannabis as a Schedule I substance, and that listing prompted a lawsuit this week by the ACLU of Nevada seeking to get cannabis removed from the list...“For cannabis to be classified as a Schedule I substance, the Board of Pharmacy must find that it has no accepted medical use in treatment or it cannot be safely distributed to the public,” ACLU representatives said. “However, the Nevada Constitution explicitly allows for the ‘use by a patient, upon the advice of his physician, of a plant of the genus Cannabis for the treatment or alleviation of cancer, glaucoma, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome… or other chronic or debilitating medical conditions.’”...The ACLU alleges the pharmacy board’s classification continues to waste taxpayer dollars by continuing criminal convictions against those using and possessing cannabis...READ MORE

With greater patient access to CBD, pharmacists will need to be prepared to address potential drug interactions to help patients use these products safely. The FDA has issued numerous warning letters instructing various manufacturers to halt production of OTC CBD products since 2016...Regarding interactions, in vitro studies have illustrated multiple potential drug interactions for CBD. The lack of standardized products somewhat limits the ability to make definitive statements from available research, but there is evidence that CBD is an inhibitor of many CYP450 enzymes including 2D6, 3A4, and 3A5, as well as a potent p-glycoprotein inhibitor...Research also suggests CBD use enhances the effect of opiates, and exhibits other interactions with barbiturates, fluoxetine, sedatives, and antihistamines, as well as having synergistic effects with alcohol...READ MORE