The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has raised concerns over marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 drug amid efforts to remove the plant from the government’s list of controlled substances.
“The Committee is concerned that restrictions associated with Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act effectively limit the amount and type of research that can be conducted on certain Schedule 1 drugs, especially marijuana or its component chemicals and certain synthetic drugs,” the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in a new report, Forbes first reported Tuesday.
“At a time when we need as much information as possible about these drugs, we should be lowering regulatory and other barriers to conducting this research,” committee members wrote in a report attached to a bill funding the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services for Fiscal Year 2019.
The report was filed by members of the Republican-led committee last Thursday, a day after the Senate’s top Democrat, Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, proposed a bill that would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, effectively decriminalizing the plant at the federal level and eliminating the restrictions in questions.
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