U.S. Congresswoman Dina Titus discusses the passing of the SAFE Banking Act — the first standalone cannabis bill to pass in the House while also being bipartisan. Titus believes that the topic of banking will appeal to Senate Republicans much better than issues of civil liberties or criminal justice would. Titus discusses some difficulties that initially came with pushing the SAFE Banking Act forward: “some people in the industry didn’t want us to pass this because they said it might keep us from passing the big bill. Others of us said, ‘No, we’ve got to have a win. We’ve got to get this. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.'” From here, Titus believes that we can move on to other types of cannabis legislation, such as taxing cannabis for grant programs, getting the VA to allow for medical cannabis prescriptions, and sponsoring more scientific research. Titus also discusses the benefits of a regulated market, the opioid crisis, and more.
Seth Adler: U.S. Congresswoman Dina Titus joins us. Welcome to Cannabis Economy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Download episodes on canneconomy.com. That's two N's and the word economy, or wherever you currently get your podcasts. We have a ton of direct insight from business, science and policy leaders over at canneconomy.com so go there for that and listen to this from Bedrocan and then U.S. Congresswoman Dina Titus.
Seth Adler: Bedrocan is a patient driven global pharmaceutical minded cannabis company. Their entire end to end process is GMP certified through Dutch and ultimately European authorities. Bedrocan is the market leader in Europe for medical cannabis and has been the sole supplier to the Dutch government for 16 years. Through the Dutch government, Bedrocan provides product to 15 countries currently. As a science based company, Bedrocan invests in clinical research. The Leiden University conducted a double blind placebo controlled clinical trial on fibromyalgia with Bedrocan products which yielded promising results. They are now working on a followup to that study. Bedrocan is also working on the extent to which cannabis can reduce our reliability on opioids. Bedrocan believes that clinical research is key for the future of the company, standardized product, the industry and the patient. Visit bedrocan.com for more information.
Seth Adler: Congressman Titus, again, thank you for having me back.
Dina Titus: Oh, it's always a pleasure to see you.
Seth Adler: So now it's even more of a pleasure for both of us, right, because we went ahead and we passed the SAFE Banking Act here in the House.
Dina Titus: I know. That was great. This is the first time a standalone marijuana bill has passed the House, come to the Floor and been bipartisan. I mean, that's pretty amazing.
Seth Adler: Amen. All right, so let's go over some metrics, which I have just been kind of bathing in. 76% of the House voted in favor of this bill. There were 206 co-sponsors of those. There were 26 Republicans. There were 91 Republicans that voted in favor of this. Really bipartisan, truly bipartisan.
Dina Titus: That's right. And you know, we've been kind of predicting that we'd reach a turning point or a tipping point as more and more states pass laws then that would bring their representatives on board from both parties. And the argument about banking is certainly going to appeal to the Republicans. Maybe more so than civil liberties or criminal justice or just want to smoke a joint.
Seth Adler: Yeah, exactly. Although the Libertarians are with you on that one, even if they're not the ones. Right. Exactly. But that brings us to this moment in time. Now we've passed it. And so, okay fine, let's now dive in and see what happened. I'm getting a sense that we got some extra push here because it was banking, right?
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