Easing Marijuana Restrictions - How Proposed Changes May Impact You

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
From the WA and M Studio onthe campus of Florida A and M University.
This is Mary Forum Radio, aweekly conversation on the education and research
of the medical marijuana being conducted toat FAMUNI. Hi, I'm the Heidi
Otway, your host for this conversationson Cannabis virtual form, brought to you
by the Medical Marijuana Education and ResearchInitiative at Florida and University. In this

(00:24):
conversation, we're talking about the federalprocess to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous
drug, where it stands now andthe potential impact to the public if this
occurs. So let's talk and learnabout this subject with our guests. Greg
Henderson is recognized as one of theleading experts in the federal drug and alcohol

(00:46):
industry. He's overseen drug programs forfederal agencies including the US Department of Justice,
the US Department of Defense, andthe Department of Homeland Security. Greg,
welcome to the Forum. Tell usmore about yourself. All right,
thanks for having me, Heidi.First of all, I'm excited that you

(01:06):
guys are touching on this subject.I told my colleagues that I'll be doing
this type of platform and they're excitedthat the conversation is continuing. So they
wanted me to say thank you toFAM you for hosting this type of entity.
Good. I'm so looking for yousharing more about your impertise experience.

(01:29):
It's going to be really awesome.Yeah. So, I'm currently the owner
and founder of Federal Drug Testing Services, where I as a former FAA compliance
inspector, I went out and startedmy own company where I do consulting to
major airlines and all entities that fallunder aviation regulations for drug and alcohol testing.

(01:53):
And I also have the only twocredited courses that teaches them how to
understand FAA drug and alcohol compliances andthe only course that is a Drug and
Alcohol Program Manager course for AHHS.So I literally teach the federal employees who
run those drug programs how to understandtheir guidelines and regulations as well. Wow,

(02:15):
that is fascinating. Thanks for beingon the show. Our other guest
is Mark Maxim. He is aleader in the drug and alcohol testing industry
as well. For nearly thirty years, he's gained extensive expertise in the field
of drug and alcohol screening and compliance. Mark, Welcome back to the forum.
Tell us more about yourself. Thankyou so much, Heidi. I'm

(02:38):
happy to be here and happy tobe part of this important conversation help people
learn and understand what this means andwhat it's really potentially going to look like
for us, as most individuals don'tknow. I got my starts in drug
and alcohol testing after leaving Lawnment andbeen involved for twenty eight years. And

(03:04):
I'm currently the Chairman elect for theNational Drug and Alcohol Screening Association, the
largest trade association with almost six thousandmembers and advocating for education and understanding as
well as drug and alcohol testing policiesand compliance for our entire nation. And

(03:30):
so it's an honor to be here, and thank you so much for having
me back. Yeah, I'm soglad to have both of you on this
show. And to everyone who isjoining us on this live program, please
share post and tag a friend onFacebook to have them join this conversation.
If you're on YouTube, share thelinks so others can join us as well.

(03:52):
During the form, we want youto send us your questions in the
comment box and we'll do our bestto have our guests answer them. We
also want you to tell us whatyou think about this form by completing the
survey that will be posted in thecomments on YouTube and Facebook. After the
live program, your name will beentered into a drawing on August sixth,
twenty twenty four to win a onehundred dollars gift card provided by one of

(04:14):
Mary's partners. Now, let's startthis conversation on cannabis. So, right
now, the US Department of Justiceis in the process of reclassifying marijuana as
a less dangerous drug. So Iwant to start this conversation by explaining what
it means to reclassify a drug mark. Can you give our viewers and listeners
an overview of that police sure?So you know, as a lot of

(04:39):
folks have heard and been reading andhearing in the news, the Biden administration
asked the Health and Human Services andthe Attorney General, who oversee the Drug
Enforcement Agency, to review marijuana asfar as its classification one. It currently

(05:00):
is a Schedule one, and theyhave made the proposal to make it a
Schedule three. Now, if madea Schedule three, it will not legalize
recreational cannabis nationwide. Instead, itis simply going to create an actual mechanism

(05:25):
if you will to where you'll beallowed to use it if you have the
appropriate permissions and or recommendations similar tothat of a prescription. It's not going
to make it a prescription because againwe all know that in order to be
a prescribed drug, the FDA hasto approve it, and so it simply

(05:50):
means that they're going to classify itas not being as dangerous or not be
as a cause for severe addiction,as the Health and Human Services Department reported
to the administration. So that isreally what it will mean. What is

(06:13):
it going to look like? Ithink we're in a wait and see.
We're not quite sure where we're at, you know, and as that process
continues to flow as it's supposed to, I think that there's going to be
a lot of things that are unknownand going to have to be identified.
Decisions will have to be made,and everything as far as what kind of

(06:36):
an impact it's going to have,both economically medically as well. Yeah,
Greg, was there anything more youwant to add it to that? I'm
curious to maybe let our viewers andlisteners know what drugs are currently in Schedule
one and then maybe what drugs arein Schedule three so they can have that

(06:56):
comparison to where marijuana is now andwhere the federal government is trying to reclassify
it to me, gotcha. Sowhen we talk about the different schedules,
I think that is a great questionbecause the average person, you know,
unless they go google it, reallyhave no idea what any of this this
means. So Schedule three, youknow, if we think about like anything

(07:18):
under like ninety milligrams of codeine perdosis, right like thailanol with codeine or
uh anabiolic antabolic steroids you know,those type of things, testosterone, those
things will fall in like a scheduledthree. Okay, So it's saying that

(07:40):
there is some effects, you know, because we know codeine tailanow has some
effects to it. Right. Sobut when you start talking about schedule one,
Schedule one means that there is nosafe place for any of this drugs
in society. So right now,that's where marijuana is. When we talk
about all the drugs that the Fedsare testing for THC, cocaine, PCP,

(08:07):
opioids, amphetamines, but there's subcategoriesof those things, right like amphetamines,
you have ADHD medication and stuff likethat. But however, you need
to be on prescription for those particulartype of drugs, and when you get
into PCP LSD, there's no prescriptionfor those type of drugs and those are

(08:31):
your Schedule one and that's where marijuanacurrently is. Wow. Wow, So
let's talk about this process that they'regoing through right now at the federal level
to reclassify marijuana. Mark you wantto maybe walk us through. You touched
on it a little bit earlier,but what is the process? Sure?
So essentially what started the process wasobviously the Department of Justice came out with

(08:56):
a notice of proposed rule where theywant to reclassify. So they outline that
in a docket ninety two pages long, essentially outlining what they were going to
propose, and they sent it out. Essentially, whenever there is a proposed
rule, we as United States citizensget notified and are provided an opportunity to

(09:26):
comment and our comments are then gathered. That comment period goes for a certain
length of time, So in thisparticular case, the comment period was sixty
days from the notice. So thenotice came out back in May and the
comment period ended at eleven fifty ninepm last night. The comment period ended

(09:56):
and the comments were gathered. Thereare proximately forty two nine twenty five comments
that were placed up there. Andnow what happens is is they have to
go and they have to read everycomment, they have to categorize it,
they have to place it, andthey have to review it, and they

(10:20):
have to consider the comments. Fromthere, they will then take it back
and they'll analyze all of those commentsand they will then make a decision to
either make changes to the proposed rulethat they're wanting to do, or they
may choose to rewrite it all together. There's any number of things that could

(10:46):
happen, at which point they willthen place out a notice of final rule
making, and at that point therewill be another comment period, you know,
as well, affording us the abilityto place our comments. Okay,
but generally the notice of final rulemaking is really the final rule. They're

(11:11):
going to place it out there,and the comments may or may not have
any effect, and that rule willthen go into place on the given day
that they actually state the date,the effective date. So it's a process,
but it's going to be a longprocess because during this process, not
only were comments allowed, but itwas also allowed to request a hearing before

(11:39):
an administrative judge on the process andon the actual factual and science based information
that should be provided. So thatis another part of the process where the
hearing can be granted or denied,and then the hearing would have to be

(12:03):
scheduled. The process would then gothrough and the appropriate parties would present themselves
in Washington before that hearing and havetheir voices heard before any other formal decisions
will be made. So that's reallykind of the process as we know it

(12:26):
and as we see it, andso it's going to be interesting to see
how things evolve over the next severalweeks. Yeah, once I believe.
Yeah, I find it interesting.And Greg, I'm going to look to
you to kind of give me someinsights on this. But we have,
you know, over three hundred millionpeople in the United States, and we're

(12:50):
seeing cannabis in marijuana medical marijuana operationwill become more mainstreams. So, given
your experience and your work at thefederal level, are you surprised that we
had a little more than forty twothousand people respond to this opportunity to weigh
in on this. No, Actually, I'm excited that forty two thousand people
actually showed up to make comments.Okay, and here's here's the reason Heidi

(13:13):
and Mark can attest to this iswhen this stuff gets put out, it's
put out in the language that theaverage person doesn't pay attention to. It's
not on your local news channels.It's not broken down in layman's term.
And what I mean by that isthat they use language like, you know,
hearing and if you want to participatein hearing pursuance to twenty one CFR

(13:37):
one three h eight point four tofour in accordance with fourteen you know,
twenty one CFR whatever whatever, andthen we want you to go to a
federal e ruling portal to make yourcomments and such as. It's like the
average person is not paying attention tothat language. So if it's put out

(13:58):
in common terms on the news channelsand whatever, where people can actually say,
you know, hey, we're goingto have this discussion about the reclassification
of marijuana and educate the people onwhat this actually is and break it down
to the lowest common denominator. Thenwe may have a million people making comments
and so forth. But of thoseforty thousand people that is not any most

(14:24):
of them are not your average person. Like you cannot go to ten people
in your neighborhood and ask them dothey know anything about this reclassification of marijuana,
And if they do, they justheard it in passing because they probably
smoke weed themselves. Like you know, It's just it's just the language and
how it's being put out, youknow. I as a matter of fact,

(14:48):
I was given a class to amajor airline about three weeks ago,
and nobody in there. And theseare all people who are drug programmed people
at major airlines. None of themknew about the comments section. I had
to actually email them the link togo ahead and make comments. So I
know personally that it is not beingspread out, you know, to the

(15:13):
vast audience. Even Mark could tellyou when we were in Hershey, you
know, the people who are speakingat at Hirshey had to get up and
remind people to go and make commentsbecause it's not being put out there the
way that it should be put outthere. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean

(15:33):
Greg, Greg has a great point. I think that you know, for
the common individual out there, theydon't understand some of the terms in the
language that's being spoken, and alot of times when they don't understand,
they don't believe that it's maybe importantenough, or they don't know what it

(15:56):
actually means. So I think that, you know, we as individuals and
professionals need to try and do abetter job at reaching our population and helping
them to understand put things in layman'sterms, that people can understand and base

(16:19):
their feelings on the information once theyhave a clear understanding of it. And
it's so surprising that in general conversationsand you bring this up, some people
don't find it to be important atall. And that doesn't mean that they

(16:41):
are for or against. They're justindifferent and they don't have an opinion,
and they really I think sometimes oncethey better understand what the actual implications look
like, that's when they become actuallyengaged and they then want to be part

(17:03):
of the conversation once they have anunderstanding. Well, I think that's a
great segue into us kind of explaininghow reclassification of marijuana could impact the public.
So let's kind of dive into thatpart of our conversation. And one
of the things that you know,I've been hearing a lot of is that

(17:26):
if this is passed, whenever itis, if it does or not,
you know, if it is itwill impact what are called safety sensitive positions.
So can you all talk a littlebit about that, you know,
define what a safety sensitive position isand what it would mean if cannabis or

(17:48):
marijuana is reclassified as a less dangerousdrug. Greg, well, when we
talk about when we talk about safetysensitive position, but before we move on
to that, Hy kind of wantedto go back to what we were talking
about and then I can answer thatquestion for you when we're talking about the

(18:11):
forty two thousand people, you know, I know, when we were off
area or talking about who are theseforty two thousand people whatever? So this
will give you an idea of whatme and market talking about is like,
it's the governors, the members ofCongress, medical professionals, the advocacy groups
for whichever side they're on, andsome coalition reform groups. These are the

(18:33):
ones who are actually sending in comments, right. I just wanted to kind
of give a little bit more deeperunderstanding of that. So hopefully this platform
will get a little more information outthere so that when they do have this
revisiting of this, that people willtake this a little more, you know,

(18:56):
to heart and go and make commentsthat we can know branch off beyond
the professionals and the advocacy groups andand see what the public actually is is
saying, yeah, thank you forthat. So that segues into what we're
talking about as far as safety sensitiveposition goes. Safety sensitive positions is normally

(19:18):
a title that is put under Departmentof Transportation the different modes of transportation.
So when we're talking about AirLand andsea, uh and rail. Just for
the common uh understanding, these agencieslike Federal Trucking which is Federal motor carrier.
These are all your semi trucks driverswho are out there on your your

(19:42):
highways, you know, doing thetransportation, your federal railway, UH,
your federal transit which is your bussing, your system, your pipeline and hazardous
you know, people out there inthe oil fields right. And have the
Federal Aviation Administration, which is yourair and then you have the United States

(20:04):
Coast Guard, which people kind ofthink is military, but they're not.
They fall up under Department of HomelandSecurity. So you have, you know,
these different entities and each one ofthem have safety sensitive positions in them,
So there's different categories, and Iwould say that the FA has more
safety sensitive positions than all the otherones. They have nine. But we're

(20:29):
talking about your pilots and your mechanicsand your air traffic controllers, right,
and you get into your ground securitycoordinators and things of that nature, and
your trained your Amtrak and all ofthese entities, Federal transit which is your
school bus right where your kids areon, and those are what we considered

(20:52):
to be safety sensitive positions. Andin those safety sensitive positions they have to
be regularly drug tested under the currentclassification of cannabis. That you want to
talk a little bit about that,you and Mark talk a little bit about
that. Absolutely, Yeah, I'llstart Greg. You know, so safety
sensitive position, I mean, ifwe look at it the meaning or what

(21:15):
it is defined as, it's ajob wherein an accident could cause loss of
human life or serious bodily injury,or significant property or environmental damage. So
all of those positions would be consideredto be safety sensitive that Greg mentioned and
under the current guidelines. If wetalk about the history, you know,

(21:41):
there was a couple of train derailmentsback in the nineteen eighties, and the
most famous one is the Chase,Maryland incident of nineteen eighty seven, where
a actual passenger train derailed and endedup killing a number of individuals as well

(22:03):
as injuring hundreds of others, andit was actually discovered that the train conductor
was high on cannabis. So outof those serious incidents came about the executive
Order back when President Ronald Reagan signedthe Executive Order, and thus out of

(22:30):
that created the Omnibus Transportation Employee TestingAct known as OTETA, And that's really
when drug testing started, and howit really came about was is that they
essentially said, okay, the DrugEnforcement Administration would advise Health and Human Services

(22:53):
on the actual substances that are goingto be tested for. And back at
that time, you know, theycalled them the National Institute on Drug Abuse,
okay, which we now know itto be the Substance Abuse Mental Health
Services Administration. And at that timethey came out with the five drugs that

(23:17):
are going to be tested for,and they classified those from being under Schedule
one in Schedule two. Okay,those drugs were dangerous drugs. And so
those were the classifications that were used. And so as it's defined for us,

(23:37):
those are the only drugs that areallowed to be tested for under the
federal programs. So Health and HumanServices is where it actually was laid out,
and from there the Department of Transportationthen follows along, okay, and
so they adopt those same things kindof similarly to they take their direction from

(24:03):
the Health and Human Services department.So under the current language, the proposal
doesn't have any language referencing a safetycar vote or providing the ability for any
of the safety sensitive positions to beable to test for cannabis. So if

(24:29):
the reclassification happens under the current language, we individuals who provide testing to the
Department of Transportation, Health and HumanServices federal programs will not be able to
test for cannabis. That's what itreally has as far as one of the

(24:49):
implement implications that it has on us. Okay, Greg who's working to address
this, me Mark uh In desauh Sapa. You know you have those

(25:10):
individuals heiding to think about this isthat you know, we we educate,
this is what we do. Wetrain and you know, we have reasonable
suspicion courses where people have to learnthe behavior cues of said someone being under
the influence of something. So welook at things more from the you know,

(25:30):
the safety output of it and whatthese things could potentially potentially do.
You know, we're all for themedical healing of it, but you know
the other side of it. Wesee this daily, you know, in
our activities. You know, theoutcome mark any think you'd like to add

(25:51):
to that, you know, Imean when we talk about the implement implementation
implications that we might see out there, I mean, obviously everyone wants to
have their own opinion, and Ithink that there's going to create many different

(26:11):
aspects that have to be considered.You know, the research that's going to
need to go in and try todetermine, you know, what medical purpose
will this have, and what isthe science show and how do you regulate

(26:33):
that. What's the economic impact goingto have. What's the impact going to
be on individuals that were sentenced toprison and are in prison for marijuana offenses.
Now that over thirty eight states havesome form of legalized medical marijuana or

(26:56):
recreational within their state, what isthat going to look like. I think
there's so many different parts of thisthat we look at. But as Greg
said, you know, there's amechanism in place for safety and the need
to protect safety, and I thinkthat really if we aren't going to protect

(27:19):
safety. We're going to go backwardsrather than forward. And we need to
make sure that that is right upfront and part of the conversation. So
it is highly considered and highly understood. And you know, there's a number
of research studies out there that Ithink need to be shared, that people

(27:44):
need to better understand what this couldmean. Yeah, so Mark, after
the show, you can share thatwith us. We can definitely post it
on Mary's social media to allow folksto kind of dig into that information and
check it out. Me let meadd to that what Mark saying, just
to give you guys an idea ofwhat this means. Just put in perspective

(28:07):
of the safety sensitive positions we talkedabout earlier, and I'm going to give
you some some things to think about. So in some of the research,
we show that marijuana affects timing,movement, and coordination. So if it
affects these things, and we're talkingabout the safety sensitive positions now, right,
our pilots driving these planes are ourtruckers on the road. Right,

(28:30):
People who are driving under the influencemarijuana can experienced dangerous effects like slow reaction.
Yeah, uh, lane weaving decreasedcoordination and difficulty reading reacting to signals
and signs. Now, if we'retalking about those who are on the federal

(28:51):
side of it, who are notin these quote unquote safety sensive positions like
our federal government what I call thetesting designated positions. Now we're concerned with
relationship problems, economic educational not thebest educational outcomes, lower career achievements,
and reduce life satisfaction. So nowthese are the individuals who hold top secret

(29:17):
clearances and you just said top secretclearances. Yeah, these are on the
federal side. So there's a wholenew world of things out there that we
all have to take into consideration.So again it's not just about our testing
designated positions, but other things andother people and positions can be affected by

(29:41):
this the side effects of this drug, because most of them are pushing the
issue because of the medical side.But there's still are other adverse outcomes,
you know, to these things.You know there's always the union the yang,
right, Yeah, so right now, you know we are coming up
on a November election. How isthat? How could that potentially impact this

(30:08):
process? Because if I recall whenit came out, they really didn't say
when it would end. They said, we're going to go through this process
and Mark you laid out all thesteps, but it didn't really have a
timeline other than the deadline yesterday rightfor a public comments. So well,
the presidential election impact this at all, I truly believe it, well,

(30:34):
you know, because I think thatone of the things that we all clearly
need to understand is that there's theprocess that's in place is not something that
just happens overnight, and so ittakes a very long time. You know.

(30:57):
I go back to looking at previousrule makings that occurred and the number
of years that it took, Okay, such as you know, one of
the one of the things that Ialways look at is is oral fluid drug
testing was something that the Department ofTransportation finally made a decision to go ahead

(31:26):
and sign off and say it wasgoing to be allowed as another testing mechanism,
and it took I can't quote theexact number of years, but it
took several years and we have stillnot have it implemented today. It's still

(31:48):
not implemented. It's effective, andit's become final rule and it's there as
of last year. But unfortunately thatthe processes that it takes to be able
to implement things. So I thinkthat, you know, this reclassification process

(32:09):
now may become stalled and could,potentially, depending on the outcome of our
election, totally take a totally differentdirection. And so I think that we
are in a almost holding pattern inthat we're going to continue to have the

(32:36):
process go forward. However, wecan't rule out that this could all of
a sudden get stalled, get rewritten, get totally changed, and it could
totally look differently come November. Great, do you want to add to that.

(32:59):
I agree with everything he said.I think that we're going to go
into a stall, just like thegovernment does every year around October, because
that's the government's fiscal year ending rightOctober becomes twenty twenty five for the federal
government, and everything comes to acomplete halt. So, just like this

(33:21):
ruling and everything else, you know, depends on you know, a change
in administration, you have different viewpoints. You know, you're gonna end up
with a different head of DJ youknow, all these other entities there.
If that is a changeover all ofthese presidential appointees get appointed out and new
mindset comes in and new things andthen you know, let's say that they

(33:45):
this isn't their priority and they movinginto other things. This could just sit
there, you know, until nextadministration change of who knows, you know,
just just depends. So just andisn't this the first time that the
federal government has said that they wantedto reclassify cannabis. Has this ever happened

(34:07):
before? Or is this the firsttime? I think that going back to
two thousand and nine that they've beendoing they've always been trying to reschedule drugs.
You know, this isn't the firstit just becomes marijuana, though marijuana
is popular. It is the firsttime they've ever tried. Yeah, this
is some people have said this isthe first time in over fifty years.

(34:29):
Yeah, that you know that thatthis is a this is a different And
there's also people that speculate that thisis the first step in potentially full legalization
of cannabis. So it's a steppingstone, if you will. And so

(34:52):
I think that, you know,there's the need for conversation, the need
for in and including people is soimportant. It's so important to visit with
your congress people, your senators,your legislative people. Make sure that you're

(35:14):
part of the conversation and you're notleft behind. I think that's what's so
important today. Yeah, and actuallywe have a Melissa who's listening on YouTube
and actually I think you just answeredher question. How can one participate in
policy making or research studies? Absolutely, and I can't say enough. You
know, get with your legislative people, contact your legislator, legislative individuals within

(35:42):
your state, within your district.You're one of their constituents, and they
will listen. You just need toreach out to them and ask that you
be part of and you can bepart of, you know, the actual
conversation, but also you know,reach out to the scientific community. That's

(36:10):
where the research is happening. Andyou know, if you have the expertise
in that area and the degree inthat area, and you can be of
assistance. They would love to hearfrom you. Because again, I can't
say enough. We're stronger together andif we unite, we have the ability

(36:31):
to bring about change. But weall have to just be part of the
actual conversation and be open minded.Yeah, thank you for that closing comment,
Mark, greg I want to giveyou an opportunity to share any closing
comments before we wrap up the conversationtoday, I just want to kind of

(36:51):
piggyback off what Mark said. Ithink that if I was to leave thought
with anybody is get educated, youknow, get out there and get educated
on you know, the whole processin itself. You know, you have
to step outside of your own personal, you know, world, and just

(37:12):
look at things from a non objectivestandpoint and just kind of get educated and
reach out. You know. Butif you're going to reach out, come
with the solution instead of just alwayshaving a problem or you know, something
negative, you know, come,come with some mindset to to help make
change, you know, for whateverthat is. Yeah, well this was

(37:35):
a really really educational and informative conversation. So Mark and Greg I want to
thank you both for being guests onthis Conversations on Cannabis virtual forum, brought
to you by the Medical Marijuana Educationand Research Initiative at Florida and M University.
Thank you to everyone watching this program. Tell us what you think about
this forum by completing the survey postedin the comment boxes on YouTube and Facebook

(38:00):
after this live program. If youcomplete the survey, your name will be
entered into a drawing on August sixth, twenty twenty four to win a one
hundred dollars gift card provided by oneof Mary's partners. We also want to
encourage you to go to the FloridaDepartment of Health Office of Medical Marijuana Use
website to learn how to obtain alegal medical marijuana card in the state of

(38:21):
Florida. We also encourage you togo to Florida and M University's Merry website
to learn more about this initiative,its educational programs, and additional information about
cannabis use in Florida. Thanks everyone. The views and opinions of our invited
guest are not necessarily the views andopinions of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University or

(38:44):
the Medical Marijuana Education and Research Initiative.