Cannabis Science and Policy Summit 2016

States continue to legalize—both for medical use and for general adult use—a drug whose production, sale, and possession remain illegal under federal law. Under the current administration, the Justice Department has chosen a path of accommodation. Congress has remained largely inactive, other than in efforts to protect state medical-marijuana regimes from federal enforcement. The result has been tensions between the states and the federal government and between some legalizing states and their non-legalizing neighbors.

What options does the federal government have in the face of state-level legalization? Should we regard state-to-state variation as the proper working of the states as policy laboratories, or as a problem?

What are the likely unintended effects of state-by-state legalization under continued federal prohibition?

Could federal administrative or legislative action guide the process of policy experimentation in a more beneficial direction?

Would rescheduling matter? If so, how? Should cannabis be moved to a lower schedule, moved to a new schedule to be created, or de-scheduled entirely? If it is de-scheduled, what federal regulatory framework might apply to it?

Moderator:

Brad Rowe, President & Managing Director, BOTEC Analysis

Speakers:

Earl Blumenauer, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives

John Hudak, Deputy Director, Center for Effective Public Management

Robert Mikos, Law Professor, Vanderbilt University Law School

Sarah Trumble, Senior Policy Counsel, Third Way

Sam Kamin, Vicente Sederberg Professor – Marijuana Law & Policy, University of Denver Sturm College of Law