Congressional lawmakers were recently presented with a unique argument in favor of expanding therapeutic access to cannabis and rescheduling marijuana under federal law: Doing so could mitigate threats associated with Chinese Community Party (CCP) operatives.
At a hearing before the House Small Business Committee last month, members took expert testimony on a variety of challenges linked to CCP, including intellectual property theft, foreign investments and vulnerabilities in the supply chain that impact small U.S. companies.
The hearing—titled “Defending Main Street: Combating CCP Threats to America’s Small Businesses” Summary”—involved testimony from Sean Murphy, founder of the nonprofit organization Kompassion that focuses on palliative care and rare diseases afflicting children.
Murphy said his personal experience raising a child with a severe health condition as well as volunteering in veterans hospices informed his advocacy for cannabinoid research and reform. That includes a proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to “unlock research and healing, especially for rare diseases,” he said.
Rescheduling wouldn’t federally legalize cannabis, but it would remove certain Schedule I research barriers, while benefitting state-licensed marijuana businesses by allowing them to take federal tax deductions they’re currently barred from under an Internal
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