[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15718]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1200
                     BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

  (Mr. GAETZ asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Speaker, it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Every 
day, nearly 1,000 women in this country receive a life-changing 
diagnosis that they will be affected by breast cancer. Nearly 200,000 
of these diagnoses occur each year. One in eight women in our country 
will face breast cancer.
  Breast cancer has a devastating effect on our families, taking away 
wives, mothers, aunts, uncles, sisters, and daughters.
  I wish I was a brilliant scientist and could develop a cure. I wish I 
was a magician and could wave a magic wand and cure breast cancer, but 
I am just a Member of Congress. Actually, there are things this 
Congress could do to make breast cancer less likely, less deadly, and 
less painful.
  Cannabis has shown promise in cancer research for over 2 decades. 
This research finally came to fruition in 2007, when Dr. Sean 
McAllister showed that cannabis-related compounds helped fight 
malignant forms of breast cancer. In the decade since, other research 
has confirmed and built on Dr. McAllister's findings, and there is now 
conclusive research that shows that cannabis-related compounds have 
antitumor properties.
  Yet, despite these findings, scientists are going too slow. It is 
time for cannabis research to begin, and we should declassify it as a 
schedule I drug.

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