Here’s an important breaking feature-length article about the Initiative and local research we highly recommend your reading and careful thinking about.

Some local research has been moving forward after the passage of a measure by last year’s Legislature, and it’s important – whatever the results – to see the matter in the context of everything we know about the medicinal use of cannabis – through 20,000+ published scientific papers since 2000 – plus 5,000 years of case reports – plus the experiences of well over a million current and former patients in the 29 legal states….

It’s important not to overweight whatever one or two local studies may find, because, as a Utah Patients Coalition Coalition spokesperson notes, they could be used as a “smokescreen” in the upcoming political debate, and they’ll be the first reported in an area with no research track record on medical cannabis, and where people with known skepticism are involved in the overall process.

(“The research law” has had some shaky underpinnings since its introduction as a bill in the first place as we reported at the time, e.g., the advisory board was mainly recommended by the UMA – a declared foe of whole plant cannabis medicine – and the bill itself was sponsored and supported by opponents of 2016’s SB73.)

There’s also news about the progress of signature gathering for the initiative.

Again, please read and share with your own takes.

#MMJ #UTpol #Research #UPC

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See full article – Utah cannabis research: Providing answers or just a smokescreen?