Will Joe Biden Hand the Marijuana Industry to Big Pharma?

Image source: A 2009 article in Hemp News entitled "Big Pharma Eyes Medical Marijuana." They've had their eye on this market for a while.

by Thomas Neuburger

According to recent reports, Joe Biden's plan for marijuana decriminalization calls for expunging criminal records of those convicted of marijuana use (a good and necessary thing), but it also calls for moving marijuana from the Schedule I drug list, which includes cocaine and heroin, to the Schedule II list, which treats it like penicillin and your asthma inhaler.

The offered reason for the shift is that this would "allow the government to research" marijuana according to a senior Biden campaign official, "who briefed reporters on his plan."

The problem with this proposal is that it hands control of marijuana production and distribution to the same people who control the production and use of all other Schedule II drugs — the pharmaceutical industry.

What could go wrong? Vox writer Cliff Roberts explains:

Would making weed Schedule II—intended only for strictly controlled pharmaceutical drugs, and not recreational nor wellness products, the rubrics under which cannabis is often marketed and sold to Americans—make more sense? It might, but here's the catch: Drugs listed under Schedule II (which include cocaine and methamphetamine as well as prescription opiates like fentanyl) are available legally but only under strict Food and Drug Administration controls. That is, only with a doctor's prescription, only after a lengthy FDA-overseen approval process that can include years of clinical trials (and then sold only via a licensed pharmacy), and only for limited applications.

In other words, there are no Schedule II drugs grown, processed, and sold in the way cannabis is brought to market in the United States, either—so that label, too, is probably inadequate. More to the point, if strictly enforced to the letter, Biden's marijuana policy could rip cannabis away from its current producers and sellers and hand over control of commercial weed to corporate interests instead.

"If the federal government actually enforced the CSA [Controlled Substances Act] Schedule II [on cannabis in a Biden administration], then almost all current state-legal activities would be banned and could be shut down," said Jonathan Caulkins, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College who has served as co-director of the nonpartisan RAND Corporation's Drug Policy Research Center.

Needless to say, "weed entrepreneurs are worried. Some seemed downright terrified."

Would a Joe Biden administration actually hand Big Pharma total control over the growth and distribution of marijuana? Would he actually give such a large and unpopular gift to corporate America?

Given his extensive record of giving large and unpopular gifts to corporate America, why should anyone think he wouldn't?