How Iowa’s CBD-Only Law Turns Parents into Drug Traffickers

On July 1, Iowa’s law to encourage and protect interstate federal drug traffickers goes into effect.

Iowa is one of the dozen states that have passed so-called “CBD-Only” medical marijuana laws. One overlooked aspect is that Iowa’s law provides no way for parents to acquire the CBD oil in their home state. Parents instead must travel to a state with CBD oil and bring it back into Iowa, where their possession of it will be legal.

The Iowa Press-Citizen tells the story of the Stumpf Family, whose daughter Quinn suffers daily seizures and pain. The parents, April and Chad, first have to have Quinn treated by a neurologist who will certify that they’ve tried every other possible remedy for Quinn with no success.  Only after every treatment and pharmaceutical drug has been tried will the state of Iowa allow April & Chad to register to possess a medical cannabis product that doesn’t get people “high.”

With that hurdle cleared, the Stumpfs now are planning a trip to Colorado by car, which is a 10-hour drive across Nebraska. They can’t fly from Des Moines to Denver and back because the airports ban possession of marijuana. However, once in Colorado, they will find they can’t just walk into a recreational pot shop and buy mass quantities of CBD oil.  They will have to get a medical marijuana card for Quinn, which requires three months of residency and meeting tougher standards for a child than for an adult.

Once they have a red card for Quinn they can then wait in an enormous line with other parents from across the country who are also queuing up for the limited supply of high-CBD oil being made in Colorado. Ideally, the Stumpfs would purchase the 32 ounces of oil that Iowa’s new law will allow, but Colorado’s law only allows for the possession of two ounces.That is, if they can find a dispensary that will sell to them. Colorado’s medical marijuana law makes it illegal to take the CBD oil, or any marijuana product, out of the state. If the Marijuana Enforcement Division is aware a dispensary is supplying the Stumpfs with CBD oil for diversion out of state, the dispensary faces a license suspension and fine of up to $100,000.
Crossing that Colorado / Nebraska border with any amount of marijuana then makes the Stumpfs federal interstate drug traffickers.  That’s a felony crime worthy of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, both of which could be doubled if the feds consider this transport of CBD oil as “distribution to a minor.” Interstate diversion of marijuana products also violates one of those eight tenets of the federal memos that are currently allowing legalization to proceed unhindered.

Then the Stumpfs have to cross the entire state of Nebraska, which classifies all forms of “concentrated cannabis” as Schedule I drugs. The Stumpfs would be committing a Class IV felony in Nebraska for possession of any amount of CBD oil, which carries a maximum five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
But once the Stumpfs have gone to all that expense to make Quinn a Colorado patient, and all that trouble to commit Nebraska and federal felonies, Iowa will leave them alone to use CBD oil.

Gee, if the Stumpfs wanted to spend thousands of dollars and become felons to help their sick daughter, they could have just grown high-CBD Charlotte’s Web plants in a closet in Iowa, couldn’t they?