New DEA Rule Says CBD Oil Is Really Illegal
49 points by cwilson 8 years ago | 52 comments- rubyn00bie 8 years agoAs 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 ;)
- DennisP 8 years agoThat may be the DEA's consistent position but whether it's a lawful position is in dispute. Also from the article:
Robert Hoban, a Colorado cannabis attorney and adjunct professor of law at the University of Denver, raised the notion that the rule itself may not be lawful. “This action is beyond the DEA’s authority,” Hoban told Leafly in an interview late this afternoon. “The DEA can only carry out the law, they cannot create it. Here they’re purporting to create an entirely new category called ‘marijuana extracts,’ and by doing so wrest control over all cannabinoids. They want to call all cannabinoids illegal. But they don’t have the authority to do that.”
- steve-howard 8 years agoCBD 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 8 years agoMostly 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.
- rubyn00bie 8 years ago
- 8 years ago
- DennisP 8 years ago
- shams93 8 years agoThey 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.
- marsrover 8 years agoGod, I fucking hate the DEA.
- 1024core 8 years agoI 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
- dang 8 years agoPlease don't post rage rhetoric to HN. Even if your underlying point is right, setting it on fire is bad for the neighborhood.
- xroche 8 years agoReason: the DEA will lose power with less regulated substances. The only goal of some bureaucrats is to collect power, not only because it allows to have a better pay, but because mediocre people are inherently attracted to power itself.
- jbob2000 8 years agoThey won't just lose power, the whole agency is dead if marijuana is legalized. 82% of illicit drug users are marijuana users (https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-...). If you legalize weed, there's 82% less work for the DEA to do.
- tammer 8 years agoThe elephant in the room regarding legalization is the overburdened prison system. As we saw with the recent Attica anniversary strikes, organized prisoner resistance is a huge threat to the security and economic status quo. Nothing would galvanize resistance like being incarcerated for a crime which is no longer illegal.
Therefore in a more liberal climate I would expect to see progressive access laws continue to be available to non-impoverished white populations, with the federal schedule remaining intact. Now, I simply expect a return to the old strategies for corralling free labor.
- tammer 8 years ago
- jbob2000 8 years ago
- chimeracoder 8 years ago> 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...
- TenOhms 8 years agoFollow 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 8 years ago> 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.
- chimeracoder 8 years ago
- maxerickson 8 years agoWere there enough state-legal marijuana business operating under Clinton to make that comparison interesting?
(Bush second term to Obama first term seems like it would be the better comparison available, unless there were titanic policy shifts in the middle of either or both administrations)
- TenOhms 8 years ago
- jliptzin 8 years agoAbout half of the voting public only cares about science when it confirms their existing beliefs.
- LordKano 8 years agoI agree but it's not just Obama.
Bill Clinton admits that he "tried" to smoke it, I don't think that anyone truly believes that he only made one attempt. George W Bush likely did and at the very least, socialized with people who did.
All three of the Boomer presidents are in the same boat and before them, George HW Bush's life was saved by hemp. It was used in the webbing of the parachute that he used during WWII.
- snomad 8 years agoThe shot at religion was unnecessary and does not help your point. FYI, I'm agnostic, but anti-religious bias and attacks is no better than racially or gender based attacks.
Also, science is pretty broad. I'm guessing you mean medical science. Social science, depending on area, may agree with the keep illegal stance.
- jliptzin 8 years agoI have to disagree with you on that. Attacking religious beliefs is strictly better than racial or gender based attacks. You can't choose your sex or race, but you can choose whether to join (or to leave) a cult and uphold the often ridiculous beliefs that go along with that. People should be berated when they attempt to force upon others the beliefs of their preferred religion which are founded on nothing more than blind faith, science be damned.
- 0xfeba 8 years ago> anti-religious bias and attacks is no better than racially or gender based attacks.
Why? Why does religion deserve a reserved spot against criticism that race and gender rightfully share?
It's one thing to berate a religious follower, but another to criticize the religion itself.
- jliptzin 8 years ago
- dang 8 years ago
- 1024core 8 years agoExactly! Yet another politician who goes against common sense and does the exact opposite of what he said on the campaign trail. And people wonder why Trump won?!?
Edit: Are there people on HN who'll downvote anything with the string "Trump" in it? Not that I care about downvotes (it's just an int in some volatile memory on some server), but I'm surprised people would downvote without even reading.
- dang 8 years agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13185671 and marked it off-topic.
- 0xfeba 8 years ago> And people wonder why Trump won?!?
The same Trump who's been back-tracking and 'reconsidering' all his campaign promises before he's even spent one day in office?
The same people who think that a billionaire placing other billionaires in his cabinet is somehow an "outsider" to the elites and going to help them?
- jklinger410 8 years agoIIRC Trump won before he started backing out of his campaign promises.
- delecti 8 years agoBut he started backing out of his campaign promises before even taking office.
- pasquinelli 8 years agoNo one has a reason to take trump's promises seriously.
- delecti 8 years ago
- imgabe 8 years agoSo, when he said these things during the campaign, they were horrible awful things that made him a lunatic idiot. But, now if he "reconsiders" these horrible idiotic things he's suddenly a backtracking flip-flopper?
- pjc50 8 years agoNot necessarily the same set of things. It's not clear whether he's reconsidered the "wall" yet, for example. He did run as an anti-establishment anti-Goldman Sachs candidate and then appoint lots of ex-GS people to his cabinet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38269257
- tobltobs 8 years agoOh, come on. This kind of cheap troll shit on HN is disgusting. But oh, for the case you really don't understand: He "reconsiders" his promises like "drawning the swamp" not his idiotic accusations and lies. You can try to spin this as hard as you want, but it is obvious that everybody who elected Trump for his promises is dumb.
- 0xfeba 8 years agoYes, both of those statements can be true at the same time. But in this case, yes, I'm glad he's backtracking, I expected it for most of his outlandish claims.
But now we have someone who says ridiculous things, does other ridiculous things, and none of them seem to line up. We just don't know what we're going to get.
Luckily, he's old, hasn't worked an 8 hour day in his life, and will likely be letting Pence run the show from behind the scenes, whom while I disagree with vehemently, he's at least predictable.
- Phlarp 8 years agoYes.
- pjc50 8 years ago
- jklinger410 8 years ago
- tobltobs 8 years ago"And people wonder why Trump won?!?"
Because they where so dumb to believe the rubbish Trump said?
- msandford 8 years agoObviously, but also very fed up with politicians who say "nice" things and then fail to follow through.
I suspect that a large part of why Trump got as much support as he did is that people thought "this guy is a loose canon, maybe stuff will actually happen"
- jdmichal 8 years ago> ... people thought "this guy is a loose canon, maybe stuff will actually happen"
There's a very real base of voters who will always vote for "change" until they see whatever they're looking for. They voted for Obama, who even used "hope and change" as a campaign slogan. Then they voted for Trump, because he was the candidate promising change while Clinton was going to be more of the same.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/us/politics/obama-donald-t...
- 0xfeba 8 years agoI'm very curious for a breakdown of the reasons for voting for Trump. Like, how much voters fall into something like:
1) Fanatical follower that believes he will do everything he says
2) A vote against the "system" though understands he says one thing and does another
3) "Just don't like Hillary"
4) etc.
- 1024core 8 years ago> Obviously, but also very fed up with politicians who say "nice" things and then fail to follow through.
Exactly what I meant, but apparently there are some on HN who'll downvote anything appearing to be complimentary of Trump, even if it is not.
I voted for Hillary, BTW.
- eli_gottlieb 8 years ago>I suspect that a large part of why Trump got as much support as he did is that people thought "this guy is a loose canon, maybe stuff will actually happen"
Oh, stuff will actually happen. Very extremely bad stuff, judging by the behavior and personnel appointments we're seeing out of this Administration so far.
- jdmichal 8 years ago
- digitalneal 8 years agoTrump also doesn't drink, so I don't see him being the leader in relaxing vice laws.
- msandford 8 years ago
- dang 8 years ago
- jug5 8 years agoNever go full retard.