Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Corey Booker (D-NJ) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) on Friday introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would remove the federal prohibition on medical marijuana and ease restrictions on cannabis research.

The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States (CARERS) Act was first introduced in 2015, but never got a hearing.

The bill’s provisions include:

• Amending the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to prohibit federal interference with state laws governing medical marijuana
• Transferring marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule II drug under the CSA
• Excluding cannabidiol from the definition of marijuana
• Providing access to banking services for legal marijuana businesses

Of the bill’s 19 co-sponsors, 3 are Republicans, 15 are Democrats, and one is an Independent. Senator Booker was the original sponsor of the bill in 2015.

Bitcoin is Helping the Pot Business Get Over Its Banking Problem

Cannabis companies are turning to the world’s most popular digital currency in an effort to get rid of all that cash.

The inability to access traditional financial institutions is one of the marijuana industry’s biggest impediments. Legal cannabis was a $6 billion industry last year and is expected to grow to $50 billion by 2026, according to Cowen & Co. But because pot is illegal under federal law, big banks and credit-card companies steer clear. That’s forced most merchants to accept cash only, a logistical headache and constant security threat.

Enter bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that consists of digital coins “mined” by computers solving increasingly complex math problems. At least two financial-technology startups, POSaBIT and SinglePoint, Inc., use the cryptocurrency as an intermediate step that lets pot connoisseurs use their bank-issued credit cards to buy weed.

Read more at Bloomberg.

Researchers Figured Out the Amount of Marijuana That Helps People Relax — and How Much Is Too Much

Marijuana and relaxation have always had a bit of a funny relationship.

On the one hand, nearly half of cannabis users say that their goal is to relax. Yet many people are also familiar with the marijuana freak-out, or have seen a paranoid friend disappear from a party because they “just can’t handle it, it’s too much, man.”

So what gives? The simple answer is that feelings of panic probably mean someone has had too much — especially if they pulled a Maureen Dowd and ate an edible without knowing what they were getting into.

Knowing how much is too much can be hard, and a new study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence shows just how easy it is to overshoot the target. The study investigates the amount of cannabis that can push someone from relaxed to anxious, and suggests that the quantity that helps people relax is actually pretty small.

Read more at Business Insider.

Can Marijuana Help Mitigate America’s Opioid Crisis?

Members of the President Donald Trump’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis [held] their first meeting [Friday, June 16].

The Commission is tasked with studying “ways to combat and treat the scourge of drug abuse, addiction, and the opioid crisis” — the latter of which was responsible for more than 30,000 overdose deaths in 2015.

Given the makeup of the commission — which includes a number of longtime drug warriors such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and former Office of National Drug Policy Control staffer Bertha Madras, who once opposed the use of opioid overdose rescue drugs like naloxone — it is unlikely that these discussions will include any talk of the potential role that cannabis can play in mitigating drug dependence, particularly opioid abuse.

That’s unfortunate because the available evidence shows that legal cannabis access is associated with reduced levels of opioid abuse and mortality, as well as declines in the use of other addictive substances.

Read more at The Hill.

Legal Marijuana Could Be a $5 Billion-Boon to California’s Economy

California is on the verge of creating a legal market for marijuana worth more than $5 billion that will help make the state a destination for pot-loving tourists, according to a new state-sponsored economic study.

But about 29% of all cannabis consumers may stay in the illegal market at first to avoid the cost of new regulations requiring the pot to be tested, tracked and taxed at 15% of its retail value, according to the study by the University of California Agricultural Issues Center.

State officials developing the regulations hope to gradually persuade the vast majority of cannabis users to go through the legal market, said Lori Ajax, director of the state Bureau of Marijuana Control, which hired the center to look at the economic impact of the new rules.

“It’s going to take some time,” Ajax said. “While it’s unlikely that everyone will come into the regulated market on Day One, we plan to continue working with stakeholders as we move forward to increase participation over time.”

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.

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