Board of Pharmacy responds to Petition for Religious Exemption

Iowa Board of Phar­ma­cy

ANDREW FUNK, PHARM.D.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

July 16, 2018

Carl Olsen
PO Box 41381
Des Moines, IA 50311

Sent via email only to: Carl Olsen and Col­in Mur­phy

RE: Peti­tion for Sched­ul­ing Rec­om­men­da­tion

Mr. Olsen,

On July 5, 2018, you sub­mit­ted a Peti­tion for Sched­ul­ing Rec­om­men­da­tion to the Board, which asked the Board to make a rec­om­men­da­tion to the Iowa gen­er­al assem­bly to exempt bona fide reli­gious use of cannabis by Rasta­fari from Iowa Code chap­ter 124.  On July 6, 2018, you indi­cat­ed that attor­ney Col­in Mur­phy was rep­re­sent­ing you regard­ing this Peti­tion.  The Board has not received any doc­u­men­ta­tion from Mr. Mur­phy.  The Iowa Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dure Act (Iowa Code chap­ter 17A) does not estab­lish a right or a pro­ce­dure for an indi­vid­ual to peti­tion for agency action of this nature.

Specif­i­cal­ly, your Peti­tion asks the Board to rec­om­mend the fol­low­ing new sec­tion be added after Iowa Code sec­tion 124.204(8): “Noth­ing in this chap­ter shall apply to the bona fide reli­gious use of cannabis by Rasta­fari; how­ev­er, per­sons sup­ply­ing the prod­uct to the church shall reg­is­ter, main­tain appro­pri­ate records of receipts and dis­burse­ments of cannabis, and oth­er­wise com­ply with all applic­a­ble require­ments of this chap­ter and rules adopt­ed pur­suant there­to.”

Iowa Code sec­tion 124.204(8) states: “Pey­ote.  Noth­ing in this chap­ter shall apply to pey­ote when used in bona fide reli­gious cer­e­monies of the Native Amer­i­can Church; how­ev­er, per­sons sup­ply­ing the prod­uct to the church shall reg­is­ter, main­tain appro­pri­ate records of receipts and dis­burse­ments of pey­ote, and oth­er­wise com­ply with all applic­a­ble require­ments of this chap­ter and rules adopt­ed pur­suant there­to.”  This lan­guage is near­ly iden­ti­cal to the lan­guage in DEA reg­u­la­tions that also con­tain this exemp­tion.  See 21 C.F.R. § 1307.31.

Iowa Code sec­tion 124.201(1) states:

The board shall admin­is­ter the reg­u­la­to­ry pro­vi­sions of this chap­ter.  Annu­al­ly, with­in thir­ty days after the con­ven­ing of each reg­u­lar ses­sion of the gen­er­al assem­bly, the board shall rec­om­mend to the gen­er­al assem­bly any dele­tions from, or revi­sions in the sched­ules of sub­stances, enu­mer­at­ed in sec­tion 124.204, 124.206, 124.208, 124.210, or 124.212, which it deems nec­es­sary or advis­able.  In mak­ing a rec­om­men­da­tion to the gen­er­al assem­bly regard­ing a sub­stance, the board shall con­sid­er the fol­low­ing:

1. The actu­al or rel­a­tive poten­tial for abuse;
2. The sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence of its phar­ma­co­log­i­cal effect, if known;
3. State of cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge regard­ing the sub­stance;
4. The his­to­ry and cur­rent pat­tern of abuse;
5. The scope, dura­tion, and sig­nif­i­cance of abuse;
6. The risk to the pub­lic health;
7. The poten­tial of the sub­stance to pro­duce psy­chic or phys­i­o­log­i­cal depen­dence lia­bil­i­ty; and
8. Whether the sub­stance is an imme­di­ate pre­cur­sor of a sub­stance already con­trolled under this sub­chap­ter.

As the fac­tors demon­strate, any rec­om­men­da­tions made by the Board would be based on sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical evi­dence, and not based on reli­gious prac­tices.  The Board does not have any exper­tise in ana­lyz­ing the use of con­trolled sub­stances for reli­gious pur­pos­es.  There­fore, it would be inap­pro­pri­ate for the Board to make any sched­ul­ing rec­om­men­da­tions that are spe­cif­ic to any reli­gion.  In addi­tion, there is no exemp­tion in DEA reg­u­la­tions for reli­gious use of cannabis by Rasta­fari.  Ulti­mate­ly, any change to Iowa Code sec­tion 124.204 must be made by the leg­is­la­ture.  The Iowa leg­is­la­ture is the appro­pri­ate body to lob­by for the change to Iowa Code sec­tion 124.204 that you are seek­ing.  The board declines to take any action in response to your Peti­tion.

400 S.W. EIGHTH STREET, SUITE E • DES MOINES, IA 50309–4688 • PHONE: 515–281-5944
https://pharmacy.iowa.gov • FAX: 515–281-4609