Heading toward 2020, the globe has widely recognized cannabis as something worth considering in new and positive ways. Even the World Trade Organization agrees that further research on the production, uses, and benefits of cannabis deserve attention. While the United States government still largely pushes its prohibitionist policies onto the world, their influence has begun to wane. Cracks in that global consensus are showing. Other countries are calling for more research and legalization. Uruguay and Canada have legalized cannabis for adult use. Latin American countries like Columbia have embraced large-scale production of medical cannabis for export. In the United States, we’re in a puzzling position of legalizing medical and recreational cannabis on a state-by-state level, but still maintaining it as a Class I drug on the federal level. The DEA, which is responsible for handling out licenses for medical research into Class I drugs, has made it slightly easier to research cannabis, but not easy enough. The Cannabis Reform Movement continues to call for reform to push research forward and advance the field, as it has for decades. The cannabis industry in America is on track; cannabis research in America is behind. The American effort to continue prohibition on a global scale is fizzling. The rest of the world no longer looks to the U.S. as an authoritative voice on the matter. This puts the U.S. at risk of becoming an irrelevant player in the future of cannabis. T-minus 18 months I predict that sometime in 2020, we will see a transformational …
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