Article On Bill Clinton’s CBD Comments Deleted (Then Reposted) Following Alleged Pressure From Former President’s Team

Update: Following the initial publication of Marijuana Moment’s story below, Cannabis & Tech Today reposted their Clinton article despite having taken it down earlier.

Former President Bill Clinton has apparently been hearing a lot about the therapeutic potential of CBD products for pain management lately, and, according to a now-deleted media report, said at a recent conference appearance that broad interest in the topic should spur regulators to develop standards for the cannabinoid.

An article covering Clinton’s on-stage conversation with CNN medical expert Sanjay Gupta at the Impact Forum in Orlando appeared in Cannabis & Tech Today last week, quoting the former president as saying there is some evidence that cannabidiol can help “combat pain.”

But the story was taken down at the writer’s request after the outlet allegedly faced pressure from Clinton’s public relations team.

“It was all quoted accurately and live—it was pressure from the Clinton camp PR team that the comments were supposed to be closed to the press—so we respected the writers request,” a Cannabis & Tech Today editor wrote to Marijuana Moment in a Twitter direct message.

That said, the publication told Marijuana Moment that they “never want to retract a story and stand by the quotes” included in the story as reported by the journalist Sara Brittany Somerset.

A representative of the Impact Forum told Marijuana Moment in an email that the event “is private and we do not issue transcripts, audio or video.”

“No press were authorized to attend this panel,” she said. “We cannot verify how the content was obtained nor confirm quotes.”

Clinton’s team did not reply to repeated requests for comment from Marijuana Moment, nor did Gupta’s.

#BreakingNews: During the #ImpactForum in Orlando, Florida, Former #President Bill Clinton came out full force in #support of CBD plus a small amount of THC for pain management. https://t.co/4UEvCQ1ljj#news#cannatechtoday#breaking#thc#florida#orlando#clinton#cbd#pain

— Cannabis & Tech Today (@cannatechtoday) February 24, 2022

Clinton reportedly said at the event that he’s heard from people about how low-THC cannabis products can help in pain management, and while he’s doesn’t typically “answer any of those hype calls,” he receives “more messages about CBD than any man alive.”

“Go figure. There is some evidence that you can get CBD with a low-THC count that will combat pain. Some of these products have been tested more or less to FDA standards and some [haven’t been tested] not at all,” he said, according to the since-deleted article from Cannabis & Tech Today.

Clinton’s drug policy record while in office has been widely criticized by advocates.

Despite having admitted to using marijuana “once or twice”—though making the questionable caveat that he “didn’t inhale it”—the Clinton administration opposed efforts to legalize medical cannabis and even took the extreme step of threatening to revoke Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) prescribing licenses for doctors who recommended marijuana to patients in accordance with state law.

Also in spite of pleas to reduce the racially disparate crack-cocaine sentencing disparity, for example, the former president took no action to remediate the issue. He also rejected requests to lift a federal ban on harm reduction policies like syringe exchange programs.

Yet in an exit interview published by Rolling Stone in 2000, Clinton appeared to endorse cannabis reform, saying that he thinks that “most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be.”

Last week, at the Impact Forum event, the former president reportedly stressed the “need to have a national standard of the THC count of these products and what the tests show.”

“NYU Langone does some of this testing and CBD could be a viable outlet for pain relief,” the outlet quoted him as saying. “We could potentially not lose so many people.”

Gupta, for his part, has become a high-profile figure who has raised national attention to the medical potential of marijuana and its constituents after formally expressing skepticism about the health impact of the cannabis reform movement.

He reportedly said definitively at the event that “CBD works.”

“I’ve done six documentaries on the subject and I wasn’t a believer before, but I am now,” Gupta remarked, according to Cannabis & Tech Today. “I’ve worked on this for so long that I know not only can it work, sometimes it’s the only thing that works for some of these conditions.”

“We have to figure out the regulatory framework,” the medical expert was quoted as saying. “You got to make sure people aren’t getting harmed by it, but to have a non-addictive option at a time when so many people are dying, I think it’s absolutely true.”

Last year, Gupta said that he was ultimately convinced of the therapeutic potential of cannabis after reviewing international studies, because there seemed to be a “very biased set of data” in the U.S. that focused almost exclusively on the potential harms rather than benefits.

Somerset, the reporter behind the event write-up, declined to expand on the reasoning behind the decision to scrap the article from the cannabis outlet’s site.

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Marijuana Activists Ask Supreme Court To Hear Their Case Against DEA

Medical marijuana patients and advocates are taking their lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a petition filed last month and formally docketed with the high court on Thursday, the plaintiffs asked the justices to take up their case challenging the constitutionality of federal cannabis prohibition. This comes after a series of rulingsin lower courts since the original lawsuit was filed in 2017.

Lawyers representing the coalition of medical cannabis patients and activists—including Alexis Bortell and former NFL player Marvin Washington—said in April that the past rulings in the case made it clear their only source of acceptable relief would come from the Supreme Court.

That’s because both a U.S. District Court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit previously determined that they would have to first seek administrative relief through existing channels such as a petition asking DEA directly to reclassify cannabis.

But the plaintiffs said they wouldn’t go that route because they believe the request would be denied by DEA and because the agency would, at best, reclassify marijuana as a Schedule II drug, which they say could create additional harms in terms of patient access to the plant.

Therefore, they’re taking their appeal to the nation’s highest court. It’s the “final hurdle the plaintiffs must clear to obtain the relief they seek,” the law firm Hiller PC said in a press release on Friday.

The case argues that the current classification of cannabis as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act is “unconstitutionally irrational and violates plaintiffs’ fundamental rights.”

Michael Hiller, lead counsel for the plaintiffs who is working on a pro bono basis, said that he’s optimistic that the Supreme Court will take up the case given the “mass uncertainty” surrounding marijuana laws in the country, the “conflicting decisions among the courts” on the issue and the “millions of Americans who depend on medical cannabis to keep themselves healthy and alive.”

Joseph Bondy, who is also pro bono counsel for the plaintiffs, said the legal team is “particularly proud to see the unification of the cannabis legalization movement behind this petition, as evidenced by the dozen or more organizations and the members of Congress who we expect will be seeking leave to file ‘friend of the Court’ amicus briefs in support of plaintiffs’ petition.”

#BreakingNews: Pro bono lead counsel Michael Hiller @HillerPC and I have docketed our certiorari petition to end federal cannabis prohibition with the U.S. Supreme Court. #GetUpStandUp#LegalizeIt#MOREact#JusticeForAllpic.twitter.com/aZmL3k9u0R

— Joseph A. Bondy (@josephabondy) August 16, 2020

It’s not immediately clear which advocates or members of Congress will be filing amicus briefs. The Supreme Court isn’t expected to take action on the petition until next year.

Here are the three legal questions posed to the court in this latest filing:

“1. Can Congress, consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, criminalize medical cannabis without exception, even for patients who require its daily administration to live?

2. Given the three requirements for designation as a Schedule I drug under the CSA (21 U.S.C. § 812(b)(1)), is the classification of cannabis so irrational that it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?

3. Can Congress, consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, require persons aggrieved by the classification of a substance under the CSA to submit to an administrative review process that cannot, as a matter of law provide the relief they seek?”

DEA has on numerous past occasions outright denied petitions to change marijuana’s status under the CSA, most recently in 2016.

The current case isn’t the only cannabis-related lawsuit DEA has faced in recent years. Scientists sued the agency last year, alleging that it had deliberately delayed approving additional marijuana manufacturers for research purposes despite pledging to expand the number of those facilities in 2016.

A court mandated that DEA take steps to make good on its promise, and that case was dropped after DEA provided a status update.

In March, DEA finally unveiled a revised rule change proposal that it said was necessary due to the high volume of applicants and to address potential complications related to international treaties to which the U.S. is a party.

The scientists behind the original case filed another suit against DEA, claiming that the agency used a “secret” document to justify its delay of approving manufacturer applications.

That was born out when the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel document was released in April as part of a settlement in the case, revealing, among other things, that the agency feels that its current licensing structure for cannabis cultivation has been in violation of international treaties for decades.

Separately, DEA recently disclosed details about their investigation into certain California marijuana businesses, which they said this month is part of a probe into possible illegal importation and transportation of marijuana oil from Mexico by certain state licensees.

Read the Supreme Court filing from the marijuana activists below: 

SCOTUS petition on marijuan… by Marijuana Moment on Scribd

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