Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the committee got it right, this is historic. This bill is overdue, bipartisan, and bicameral, as it should be. Today, I rise in support of H.R. 8454, the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act. Representative Blumenauer and I have jointly cosponsored this bill for four Congresses. Talk about overdue. Although we disagree about recreational marijuana--he supports it; I oppose it--we both concur that in regard to medical marijuana, we need to do the rigorous research to answer the questions. As a physician, I realize that if we are going to have marijuana legal in over three dozen States for medical uses, we really ought to be able to do the research on it to see what it can and can't be used for. Many claims are made about it--some are legitimate, some will be found to be illegitimate--but the American public deserves to know whether medical marijuana and cannabidiol work for those claims that are being made. This bill makes it easier to do the necessary, rigorous medical research just like is done for any other drug that has a claim of efficacy in this country. The American public deserves to know what medical marijuana is useful for, because for anyone with those conditions where it is found to be useful, it could be a godsend. But for other conditions where the claims won't be found to be valid with rigorous research, it would be found to be ineffective, and that would help protect American patients as well.…”