Regular readers of The Seed Investor know that cannabis is completely benign. For the benefit of new cannabis investors reading this, let’s review the facts one more time.
Cannabis is completely. Its active ingredients, cannabinoids, are produced naturally in the human body. They are essential to regulating and maintaining human health.
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a cannabinoid with no psychoactive properties of any kind, but with potent health-promoting and medicinal properties. In this respect, its properties are very similar to those of a vitamin.
It is also now 100% legal, if derived from hemp, which was legalized nationally in the 2018 Farm Bill.
NASA attempts to disguise its anti-cannabis ignorance as prudence:
The substance has "increased in popularity as a result of the claims that it is a natural remedy for common ailments such as chronic pain and anxiety," the NASA bulletin says.
But even though CBD and other hemp-derived compounds are no longer federally controlled substances under the 2018 Farm Bill, the space agency is putting its employees on notice that because there are currently "no standards governing the manufacturing of products containing" cannabidiol, they could also be unwittingly ingesting enough THC to trigger a positive drug test.
It's not CBD we fear/don’t understand, says NASA, its THC. The Marijuana Boogeyman.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the cannabionid with mildly pyschoactive properties is also completely safe.
Congress is currently holding hearings on ending federal Prohibition of cannabis and its ludicrous status as a Schedule 1 narcotic. Not if it should legalize cannabis, only how. Several competing proposals are already on the table. Back to NASA.
NASA claims that its concern is to help prevent its employees from accidentally test positive for cannabis. This is a substance that is about to become legal nationally and is already fully legal in 11 states and partially legal in 33 others.
NASA’s position is a very good argument as to why it should eliminate testing for cannabis as part of its drug testing program. It is a very, very weak argument for banning its employees from using CBD, because they might also consume small quantities of THC.
At best, this would justify NASA in not allowing employees to consume CBD products while at work. Instead, NASA has buried its head in the hand sand and chosen to wallow in its own anti-cannabis phobias.
When it comes to cannabis, rationality goes out the window for many people. No matter how smart you are. That’s the product of roughly 100 years of cannabis Prohibition – and the anti-cannabis propaganda that has accompanied it.
NASA will be comforted by the fact that’s not alone at the federal level in continuing to wallow in anti-cannabis ignorance, as noted in the Forbes article.
The NASA memo comes as several other federal agencies are warning personnel against using cannabis-derived products.
These agencies include the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard.
The great irony here is that cannabis is now frequently prescribed as medication to treat the PTSD that is now an epidemic among those serving in the U.S. military.
It was U.S. courts that originally forced states to start providing access to cannabis as medicine. Otherwise cannabis Prohibition would still reign supreme.
Today cannabis normalization is a juggernaut that cannot be stopped. Cannabis products are rapidly becoming a popular consumer trend among Americans, precisely because of the benign and healthy properties of cannabis.
It’s time for the various agencies of the U.S. federal government to stop living in the past.