The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has raised concerns over marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 drug amid efforts to remove the plant from the government’s list of controlled substances.

“The Committee is concerned that restrictions associated with Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act effectively limit the amount and type of research that can be conducted on certain Schedule 1 drugs, especially marijuana or its component chemicals and certain synthetic drugs,” the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in a new report.

“At a time when we need as much information as possible about these drugs, we should be lowering regulatory and other barriers to conducting this research,” committee members wrote in a report attached to a bill funding the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services for Fiscal Year 2019.

The report was filed by members of the Republican-led committee last Thursday, a day after the Senate’s top Democrat, Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, proposed a bill that would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, effectively decriminalizing the plant at the federal level and eliminating the restrictions in questions.

See the original article at The Washington Times