The Drug Report
The Drug Report
FDA's Role in THC-Infused Edibles
Can the FDA really pull THC-infused edibles off the shelves? We'll take you inside a gripping congressional hearing where FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods, James Jones, found himself in the hot seat, interrogated by Congresswoman Kathy McMorris-Rogers. Unravel the complexities of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and understand the real-world implications of the Blumenauer Amendment, which ties the FDA's hands when it comes to medical marijuana dispensaries that also sell recreational products.
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Yes or no? Do you believe nicotine is not addictive?
Speaker 2:I believe nicotine is not addictive. Yes, Congressman, cigarettes and nicotine clearly do not meet the classic definitions of addiction.
Speaker 1:I don't believe that nicotine for our products are addictive. I believe nicotine is not addictive. I believe that nicotine is not addictive.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone.
Speaker 1:this is Luke Neferatos. I am your host of the Drug Report Podcast. Thank you for joining us for another week and sharing your time with us. Before I get started, I want to thank our co-sponsoring organizations, sam and FDPS, leading the country and really the world in drug policy, from marijuana policy onto opioids and everything else. Check out learnaboutsamorg, as well as gooddrugpolicyorg, and then you can sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter of all the stories you need to hear from the drug policy research and science world at thedrugreportorg. Well, I have Jordan Davidson back, our head of federal affairs, to join us and talk about a really interesting development that happened last Tuesday. There was a hearing in Congress where members of the FDA were being questioned and we learned some interesting news related to marijuana policy. So I want to bring Jordan in, who flagged this, to kind of break it down. So, jordan, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me on Luke Great, so tell us what happened last Tuesday.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So last Tuesday, in front of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives, which is one of the most powerful committees in Congress, they put forth the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods, james Jones, and he was being questioned by members of Congress on that committee.
Speaker 2:Now the chairwoman of that committee, who again is one of the most powerful members of Congress, is Kathy McMorris-Rogers from the state of Washington, where they have legal marijuana, and she's actually been a little bit more active than I've ever seen before on the marijuana issue, having sent a letter, you know, really concerned about marijuana rescheduling just, I believe, a couple of months ago. But then on Tuesday she was asking this deputy FDA commissioner about THC and kind of what the FDA's power is. She was concerned about students in schools that she was seeing eating THC-infused edibles in her district and she asked him what the FDA's power is here and what happens when an FDA inspector goes into a convenience store and sees THC. And the deputy commissioner said what we at Sam have known for a very long time but haven't really been publicly discussed within the FDA. He said quote we can certainly remove those products from the market. And so you know, wait, hang on.
Speaker 1:So that is a big deal.
Speaker 1:Let's stop right there, because so this is something that, for anyone who's been following Sam or knows Kevin or myself over the last nearly a decade now, we have been saying for a very long time that we don't need let's say this again, we do not need to legalize marijuana in regulate it. In order to get that done, the FDA has powers today to deal with these nefarious actors. In whether it's state legal or not state legal, they can deal with these products and these horrible companies that are targeting kids and their terrible products that are clearly appealing to them, and we've been saying that for a long time. It's time for the FDA to step into its role and deal with these companies and these products. And people always say, well, the FDA doesn't have jurisdiction, they can't do it. We have to legalize it for them to do it. No, we don't. Okay, continue Jordan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know they, you know specifically right, they have the FD&C Act, the Federal Food, drug and Cosmetics Act, and, like THC is an unapproved, quote, unquote, adulterant right so they can remove these products from the market, they can pull these products from the shelves.
Speaker 2:The kind of flip side, the other side of the coin on this is that the FDA did say I'm reading, quote like verbatim here, quote we do not have even remotely the same presence in communities as local law enforcement do. These products, these ingredients used in food make the food adulterated. We have opportunity periodically to take them off the market, but again, we're not going to have the same presence. Basically, and he was saying basically kicking the can down the road, kicking it over to local law enforcement, saying that we can't do anything or we won't do anything even though we can. But he did say that there's quote, definitely joint jurisdiction and we would work with our federal law enforcement colleagues. Now I think there's kind of another interesting layer to this where the, because of an appropriations rider that's been in every appropriations bill for almost the last decade the FDA or, sorry, department of Justice, doj cannot go into specifically medical marijuana dispensaries and disrupt those operations.
Speaker 1:And just for those of you who don't follow Congress, a rider is basically says no funds from this bill can go towards whatever's been specified. So in this case it was Blumenauer right. Who did this rider?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Blumenauer amendment. Yeah, so in this case it was Blumenauer right, who did this rider?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Blumenauer Amendment. Yeah, so this rider was put in place many years ago to say no funds, that fund the Department of Justice may be used to enforce laws against medical marijuana. So, in other words, it kind of, in a very awful and anti-democratic and not a great government way, legalized medical marijuana in terms of restricting enforcement.
Speaker 2:Anyway, and they've tried to do that and yeah, and they've tried to do this with recreational as well, and that has, you know, like, passed the House in certain cases to expand that. But the key is the reason that this matters is that for a lot of these dispensaries selling these products and a lot of them, by the way, are joint operations Some of these medical facilities also sell recreational, so that's a great area. Most of them do so. Most of them do the DOJ. They're kind of hamstrung by congressional appropriations to be able to kind of execute their job.
Speaker 2:Local law enforcement is overwhelmed by a lot of different things and so the FDA is kind of unique because they're not under the DOJ and so the FDA has this power that's been established here and they're able to use it and they don't have the same federal restrictions because of this rider that the DOJ has. And so hopefully, what we're going to be doing and we're already working to do this is to work with this committee chairwoman and with that committee and see what kind of oversight we can have over the FDA, see what we can do to push and encourage them to take more action than they've ever taken before To actually get particularly these kid-friendly, really dangerous high-potency gummies and chocolates and sodas and things like that off the market and things like that off the market, yeah, so I think it's really interesting because what it seems to me like it requires is something that we have been asking for, which is that, whoever is in power, our current administration should make this a priority, should direct the FDA to do its job.
Speaker 1:I think the FDA treats the biggest fire that's raging, the squeakiest wheel is going to get the grease, and that's really how it works in government, and so there needs to be a lot more outcry, I think, from people to say look, this needs to be a priority. Yes, fda has a strapped budget, needs to prioritize things. This needs to be a priority because these companies are, which are federally illegal, are doing this all over the place. They're doing this all across the country, and if the FDA took its role more seriously in this matter and knew that this is something that was an administrative priority, they would start taking some of these actions, and so I think that's a good takeaway point right there. The other thing is knowing that DOJ, as you mentioned, is defunded by this rider. Fda is not limited by that. Fda's funding does not come through that funding, so they have funding that is unrestricted and they can use their role to hold these companies accountable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And it's almost a little bit sad because they've taken some action, but it's so weak that it's almost not even worth it. They've only focused. By the way, it's actually kind of funny if you look at it. They've sent warning letters right to some dispensaries, but they focus those warning letters on the intoxicating hemp products, the places that are selling the Delta-8. And look, hey, we tackle Delta-8. We want Delta-8 off the shelves. I'm not trying to say better or worse, it's all bad. But it's almost funny how these products, which are technically federally legal and, yes, we're trying to change that, fda is focused on that but products that like squarely illegal, with no ifs, ands or buts at the federal level they have clear jurisdiction to do this they don't even try and touch. So it's just quite weird. And so the only enforcement action they've taken is saying hey, can you please stop this in a letter when they can do a lot more.
Speaker 2:And I'll say the kind of last thing I'll add from a direct quote here is you know, when this deputy commissioner was asked straight up, the chairwoman said when the FDA is inspecting convenience stores or working with states to do so, if an inspector sees food marketed that contains THC, what is the inspector instructed to do? And he said quote that he would well have to check with the field office, but quote I expect that they would ultimately issue a report that would then be followed by a compliance action. So I don't think we've seen any compliance action. I don't know what reports they're filing, but I think this opens the door, this kind of committee questioning, for us, along with kind of allies in Congress, to do a little bit more, to say, okay, let's see what compliance actions you've taken, let's see you know if you've taken any. How can we expand that? What can we do to work together to make that happen? I have a feeling that they won't be able to produce that many compliance action reports.
Speaker 1:But maybe we can introduce some more Right, exactly that we can Right Exactly.
Speaker 2:That's the takeaway here.
Speaker 1:So this is just an interesting kind of tidbit and also, when you have somebody like Morris Rogers, you know who's got so much power and she is starting to ask these questions. I think that's showing that there's some appetite in Congress to try to make this a priority and let FDA know that this should be a priority, and I think that's pretty exciting. Yep, very exciting, yep, very exciting. So before we let folks go, there was a little bit of news over the weekend on President Nixon, some remarks he made. He basically said in a he was, I think, that what was this? A recording, or this was like an audio clip or something.
Speaker 2:It was a recording that was discovered.
Speaker 1:So he essentially said that you know, marijuana was not that he. He basically acknowledged that marijuana was not that dangerous and so that they were making some hay of that online. Jordan, I don't know if you want to add anything else to that, but that was essentially the gist of the story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, you know. It was just interesting because a lot of the, as you said, hay that was made was about him saying that marijuana was not that dangerous. Of course, we say this all the time. When President Nixon was in office, it was that Woodstock weed, which, of course, had its harms, but it isn't even close to what's being sold on the market today. When you think about public health and public safety harms, well, what I think is funny about it.
Speaker 1:One thing I'll just add real quick. What I think is funny about it is everyone, you know all the legalizers say well, you know, the only reason marijuana was prohibited was because of reefer madness. You know everyone thought it was just this horrible, horrible, you know the devil's weed and whatever. And it's just so funny how there was clearly a more reasonable intent behind this. It wasn't the intention behind prohibiting marijuana and other drugs wasn't because marijuana is the worst drug ever and we think that it's just ruining society and therefore we need to make it illegal. It was never something so ridiculous as that, clearly. But it's funny because the evidence that there was more reason to the decision they're saying oh, we'll see this proves that he never wanted it, it shouldn't have been illegal, it had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1:Anyway, continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I guess my thoughts on this are just right. I think that the two things that stuck out most to me actually weren't even about how dangerous marijuana is, even or not dangerous, that was kind of the headline. But he was talking about criminal penalties, right. He said you know, I've heard of some cases in which people got a long prison sentence or whatever happened for marijuana and he thought that that was extreme and so he actually favored in this private recording that was unearthed, you know, altering some of those criminal penalties, which is what Sam supports, right, like that's kind of the position we've taken and I think it just shows that there was more nuance in a lot of these circles and spaces to these issues. Obviously, you know all sides of all issues try and make things black and white, sometimes right, that just comes with the territory of policy, but it wasn't the case.
Speaker 2:And also I think here that was interesting which we've talked about for a while, was at that time and era and within the Nixon administration. You know there were good things or bad things, but you know his emphasis on getting people to treat and that was one of one of his advisors that was quoted here there was a lot more emphasis on treatment back then actually than people understand today. So I think of course you know, I think we all recognize that there were certainly missteps, misguided actions, you know rhetoric that was extreme and kind of flared up on all sides of this issue. But there are lessons learned that we can take from all these different areas and for me the lesson learned is okay, we can do kind of decreasing penalties without legalizing marijuana, commercializing it, and we need to make an even bigger effort today, as people favored even back then, to get more people into treatment. And I think that's something important and just shed some more nuance and light on this issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, like you said, maybe there's a little more science and reason to these laws after all. Maybe it's not all just hysteria or whatever, whatever other hyperbole legalizers want to throw out there. So very interesting stuff, jordan. Thank you, as always, for joining us. To all of our listeners, thank you for joining us. Please leave us a five-star rating that helps immensely, and a written review if you have time. Always appreciate it. Have a wonderful rest of your week.