Our Principles

The principles formulated by our Center of Excellence provide an intellectual framework for creating a thoughtful and comprehensive federal regulatory model for cannabinoids.

• Good Governance: The regulatory system shall only contain laws, rules, and regulations that are predictable, fair, achievable, internally consistent, and enforceable. The cannabinoid industry shall comply with a comprehensive inventory control, quality control, and quality assurance program. Good governance should include open lines of communication, and constant coordination between all levels of governance throughout the cannabinoid industry.
• Youth Use Prevention: Regulation should draw upon all available best practices from tobacco, alcohol, opioids, and other substances to prevent non-medical underage cannabinoid use.
• Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Prevention: Regulation should draw upon all available best practices to prevent and treat cannabinoid use disorder, functional substance abuse, and misuse that has a deleterious effect on a consumer’s quality of life.
• Criminal Justice Reform: We support cannabinoid regulatory approaches that acknowledge the disproportionate harms criminal prohibition has had, especially on people of color and their communities. We support those who call for the expungement of cannabinoid-related criminal records. This approach should exclude automatic expungements of records belonging to repeat violators of impaired driving laws.
• Small Business and Market Access: CPEAR endorses approaches that promote market access for small businesses in the industry and provides restorative opportunities for communities in which they reside. We also support policies that ensure all entrepreneurs have a fair opportunity to participate in the legal cannabinoid industry. Reducing unnecessary barriers to entry will foster competition, expand economic growth, and create jobs.
• Promote Research: Regulatory policies should be designed to promote significant growth in properly designed research studies: (1) Cannabinoid policy should underscore the importance of and expedite critical research required to understand the benefits and harms of cannabinoid use. (2) Where avoidable harm is demonstrated, the cannabinoid regulatory system should do whatever is practicable to mitigate that harm. (3) Regulation and incentives should facilitate the development of FDA-approved cannabinoids (e.g. an expedited FDA review process for novel treatments and waiver of requirements that are not necessary to protect public health) while prohibiting the marketing of cannabinoid products with medical claims that are not supported by requisite FDA approval.
• Patient Access: Patients should not be denied the opportunity to try cannabinoids because of limited research resulting from decades of federal inaction. However, the industry must guard against unscrupulous actors who may prey on vulnerable patients. Further, a federal framework should ensure that doctors may make appropriate recommendations.
• Sound Tax Policy: The cannabinoid market requires regulation, and that regulation should be funded with reasonable taxes imposed on cannabinoid products. Tax policy should strike a balance between generating new revenue and encouraging a responsible and legal industry. Tax levels should be set at levels that do not perpetuate the illicit market.
• Environmental Sustainability: Cannabinoid regulations should address environmental concerns by promoting sustainable and water usage, as well as promoting growing practices in a manner that does not lead to negative outcomes for poorer communities. An approach to environmental sustainability should consider the relationship between climate change and economic development.
• Impaired Driving: Regulatory frameworks must include a holistic plan to deal with impaired driving. A federal framework must also include approaches to filling current gaps in impaired driving data with appropriate research studies and funding the establishment and use of technology for detecting and measuring impairment.