The FDA Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, implied the agency may start cracking down on companies claiming unsubstantiated benefits of medical marijuana.
Getting the FDA to admit that marijuana has at least some sort of medicinal benefits and is less dangerous than heroin or LSD has been difficult. But getting the FDA to push back against some of marijuana’s perceived medical benefits could prove to be far easier.
Federal Drug Agency Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, implied that his agency may start coming down hard on unproven claims of marijuana’s medicinal qualities.
“I see people who are developing products who are making claims that marijuana has antitumor effects in the setting of cancer,” Gottlieb said at a hearing before Congress this week. “It’s a much broader question about where our responsibility is to step into this.”
While the FDA has taken a hands-off approach on medical marijuana, Gottlieb is now indicating they may be ready to jump into the fray.
“We’ll have some answers to this question very soon because I think we do bear some responsibility to start to address these questions,” Gottlieb added.
While 29 states have legalized medical marijuana and eight state legalizing recreational marijuana use, it seems the FDA is a bit late to the conversation. Is the FDA simply planning on allowing additional research on marijuana or are they seeking to interfere with jobs, medicine, and state economies? It is true that unsubstantiated claims of marijuana’s potential to heal should be scrutinized, but the entire situation could have been avoided if our government had a common sense approach to marijuana law and research for the past few decades.
