CBD Oil, and politics

CBD Oil, and politics June 8, 2015

Somehow I ended up on the mailing list of the representative whose district I used to be in until the latest gerrymandering redistricting, Bob Dold, and today I got a somewhat mysterious e-mail, linking to a page touting his success in engineering the passage of an amendment that “would help thousands of children like 9-year-old Round Lake resident Sophie Weiss,” by providing them with access to CBD oil.

What is CBD oil, you ask?  There’s a separate press release which identifies this as cannabidiol — or, in other words, if you dig a little further, a pot-derived chemical compound, in liquid form (via Wikipedia).  

Now, I would suspect that, no matter what one thinks about pot for recreational purposes, most Americans would be willing to say that it makes a certain amount of sense to reclassify it at the federal level to allow its use for medical treatment, under the same conditions as any other pharmeceutical (e.g., a true prescription by a legitimate practitioner for a specific dosage, not a referral to a “dispensary”), rather than its current classification as having no redeeming medical value.  Heck, there are plenty of pain killers and other sorts of medications (e.g., Adderall) which can be abused but can also have valid medicinal purposes.

Why doesn’t Congress do this?  Is this a testament to the brokenness of Congress, that they fear that they’d be subject to opposition attacks for doing so?  I don’t think so; it looks to me like it would have fairly bipartisan support.  I suspect that, in the end,  they just don’t care, and would rather live with this unenforced federal law, which nonetheless causes problems and saps credibility, than do anything.

But judging by this press release, they’ve also just conditioned themselves to believe that the word “pot” has some supernatural power, that it Must Not Be Uttered.  After all, Dold’s amendment makes no sense, unless you know that we’re talking about pot.


Browse Our Archives