Federal action on marijuana policy is inevitable and will happen “soon,” according to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
Exactly what kind of action he’s anticipating is unclear, though. After dismissing the idea that botanical cannabis has therapeutic value, Gottlieb said in a CNBC appearance on Friday that there’s “probably going to be a policy reckoning around this at some point in the future.”
“Obviously it’s happening at the state level, and I think there’s an inevitably that it’s going to happen at the federal level at some point soon,” he said.
Gottlieb mostly stayed away from making any direct comments about legalization. He said marijuana legalization isn’t under his agency’s purview, and their only responsibility was to make sure companies don’t make wild medical claims on cannabis products.
“We do regulate compounds that are making drug claims and we regulate botanical use of marijuana,” the commissioner said in the TV interview. “We have approved compounds derived from marijuana, but there is no demonstrated medical use of botanical marijuana. That’s the bottom line.”
