December 6, 2022 • 19 mins
The hot weight-loss drug Wegovy is in short supply and high demand. The drug has proven to help people lose as much as 15% of their weight by suppressing appetite, but the company expected a more gradual adoption of the drug and has lost out on a ton of potential cash. Selling only $700 million to date, analysts had projected $2 billion in sales for 2021 and 2022. Peter Loftus, pharma reporter at the WSJ, joins us for why you can’t find Wegovy.
Next, the Real ID requirement for air travel has been delayed once again. Americans will have two more years, until May 2025 to go to the DMV and provide the proper paperwork. The deadline was extended to help DMVs with pandemic related setbacks. To date, only about 49% of people have gotten their updated IDs. Luz Lazo, transportation reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for what to know.
Finally, a pair of marijuana bills may be attached to “must-pass” year-end bills in Congress. A bipartisan group of senators will be trying to add the SAFE Banking Act to allow cannabis businesses to access loans and open bank accounts and the HOPE Act, which would provide grants to states that expunge former convictions. Sophia Cai, congressional reporter at Axios, joins us for the plan to pass pot legislation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Tuesday, December six. I'm Oscar Ramiers in Los Angeles
and this is the daily Dive. The hot weight loss
drug we go Vi is in short supply and high demand.
The drug has proven to help people lose as much
as of their weight by suppressing appetite, but the company
(00:21):
expected a more gradual adoption of the drug and has
lost out on tons of potential cash. Peter Loftis, pharma
reporter of The Wall Street Journal joins us for why
you can't find we go Vi. Next, the real id
requirement for air travel has been delayed once again. Americans
will have two more years until May to go to
(00:41):
the d m V and provide the proper paperwork. The
deadline was extended to help d m vs with pandemic
related setbacks. To date, only about people have gotten their
updated I d s lose. Losso transportation reporter at the
Washington Post joins us for what to know. Finally, a
pair of marian to bill may be attached to must
(01:01):
pass here in builds. In Congress, a bipartisan group of
Senators will be trying to add the Safe Banking Act
to allow cannabis businesses to access loans and open bank
accounts and the Hope Act, which would provide grants the
states that expunge former convictions. Sofia Kai, congressional reporter at
Axios joins us for the planned to pass pot legislation.
(01:23):
It's news without the noise. Let's dive in. So the
results for we go Via the trials that have come out,
patients were taking out for about sixteen weeks or so
and they lost about twelve percent of their body weight.
Joining us down is Peter LOFTUS pharma reporter at the
Wall Street Journal. Thanks for joining us, Peter, thanks for
(01:45):
having me on. Well, we've been talking about we go
Vi and ozempic and a couple of the other drugs
that contains some magnetide about the its weight loss properties
and how it's kind of, at least on the ozempic side,
it's become this Hollywood way lost drug. We go Vi
has come out to a lot of fanfare as well.
The problem is it's so hard to find right now,
(02:06):
there's so many prescriptions out there. It's in the company
Novo Nordis because having a hard time meeting all that
demand for the drug. But Peter, you took a look
into it. Why we can't find we go Vie specifically
right now. That's one of their drugs there, and they
just kind of flubbed the whole rollout. It seems like
it's an interesting look into it, so Peter tell us
a little bit more about it. One of the early
(02:28):
factors was that before Novo Nordis came out with we
go vi, which was in the middle of they had
one view of what kind of a market it was
going to be, and that view was more conservative. They thought,
you know, that eventually it could be a big selling
drug and that there could be a lot of prescriptions written,
but that that would take time. And this was sort
(02:50):
of based on their experience with an older weight lost drug,
Sex and as well as other older weight loss drugs.
Those older drugs had more this weight loss effects and
a lot of insurers didn't cover them, and so Novo
Nortis went into this thinking, Okay, we we like what
we have with Bagovi. We know it can help people
(03:11):
lose up to of their body weight, but just based
on our experience with this market, we think it's going
to take some time for it to grow. And so
as a result, they set up a certain level of
manufacturing capacity that was in line with that more conservative
view of how quickly this market would grow. And then
what happened was once it came on the market, the
(03:34):
demand was huge. It was really above what they had expected.
And I think I think that was a combination of
that it did have a better benefit for weight loss
than most drugs before, and I think social media had
become so much more established since the last time a
weight loss drug came out that the words started to
(03:55):
spread virally. Really with no help from Novo Nortis they
were and actually necessarily promoting it, it just kind of
spread on its own, and so that that really led
to an increase in demand. And so let's talk a
little bit about the money, because that's always such an
important part, right. So the market for anti obesity drugs
right now is worth two point four billion dollars worldwide.
(04:17):
They say it could be fifty billion. So when they
were talking about we go vi they've made around seven
hundred million dollars in sales to date, but what they
were projecting just for we go Vie sales for two
was two billion dollars. So they kind of blew it
on that front, just a miss opportunity when it comes
to making boatloads of cash. Analysts were predicting that that
(04:40):
figure two billion, and yes they've fallen short. And I
should say that another factor here that came up later
was that a contract manufacturer that Novo Nortis was working
with help with one step of the production process had
some issues where they were having basically quality problems at
their plan and they had to scale back manufacturing. And
(05:02):
so that was something that that made it an even
worse situation than might have been the case even with
Novo's conservative outlook for how quickly this market would grow.
So it was really kind of one factor was planning
for a more cautious outlook, a more conservative growth pattern,
but then this totally unplanned manufacturing snaff who that that
(05:24):
also kind of compounded the matter. And as you mentioned,
you know, social media played a huge part in and
people were seeing it all over the place on TikTok
and YouTube and they said, hey, I want to get
in on this weight loss drug. You mentioned that other
um that other drug sex and death Right. So in
five weeks it took doctors to write new prescriptions for
Rigo VI added the same weekly volume that it took
(05:45):
the other drug sex Senda four years to reach. That's
how quick this thing shot up. And so what is
Novo nordis doing now. They're saying that they're gonna kind
of do a relaunch early next year. They will have
enough supply to meet demand. They say they've taken steps
to build an inventory of you know that this drug
(06:06):
comes in a range of doses, and so they've they've
had to make sure that they've got an equal amount
of all doses out there, and they're lining up more
manufacturing capacity both internally and externally, so that at some point,
I think they think by early they should be able
to say, Okay, really any new patient can get this
(06:28):
because that's really been the net effect so far as
that patients who had started on we Go by a
certain point, many of them were able to continue on
sort of the maintenance dose. But for many people, if
they hadn't started on it by a certain point, they
just weren't going to start on it at all. So
that's what Novo is expecting soon to be able to say,
(06:48):
like anyone can can start to get this drug, and
we should have a sufficient supply. And what a happy
I mean happy side effect I guess you can call
it right for unexpected for what was supposed to be
diabetes drug That's why you know people are looking to
the we go of either looking to ozempic, they were
looking to another one as alternatives too we go because
(07:10):
they couldn't get it. But these are diabetes drugs, which
is kind of one of the most interesting parts of it. Yeah,
it's like it's kind of like drugs for for two
diseases in one drug. And these companies, Novo and their
competitors that they did find in the past that studying
these types of drugs for diabetes, they did see this
(07:32):
effect of weight loss. But I think it's really just
in the past few years where the magnetis by by
sort of refining these drugs and coming up with better
versions of them, they've seen that the magnitude of the
weight loss has become really striking, to the point where
it's not just the happy side effects for people with
diabetes to lose weight, but it's a drug specifically to
(07:54):
lose weight, including for people who don't even have diabetes.
And so that's where there's been the real shift, and
I think why there's such a big market opportunity for
these drugs. Well, if you're looking for we go vie
maybe next year. Peter LOFTUS farmer reporter the Wall Street Journal,
Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks thanks for
having me. Our government was supposed to start implementation of
(08:24):
real ID at US airports next May, but now we
get until May of joining us now is Loose Lasso,
transportation reporter at the Washington Post. Thanks for joining us, Lose, Oh,
thanks for delayed again. So for some time now we've
(08:44):
been getting told we need to get a real i D.
Going to the DNB, provide them with a bunch of
different documents. They'll give you a new driver's license or
I D card. Most of them have a star in
the upper right hand corner. But this program has constantly
been put on delays. Everybody's going to be needing it
to board any domestic air flights pretty soon. Now it's
(09:04):
been delayed again to the point of it. So Louise,
tell us a little bit more about what we're learning
about the real I D delays. So the good news
success for people who am NOTT who still learn how
the real idea is that they're going to get two
more years twenty four months to get the real idea.
UM he was supposed to the federal government was supposed
to start implementation of real Idea at US airports next May.
(09:28):
But now we get until May of twenty twenty five.
And that means people about half I think of Americans
still don't have a real idea and so they get
a chance to go get it before that little life. Yeah.
So some numbers for it, about one and thirty seven
million real ideas have been issued nationwide. That's about of
(09:50):
state issued ideas that are in circulation right now. Full disclosure,
I have not gotten my real idea. Had been putting
it off for a little bit. I do have my passport,
so I've and in that sense of things, I was like, well,
I can fly if I need to have my passport.
It's not a big deal. But you're right, I mean
to that point, it's it's so easy to you kind
of put off. We went through the pandemic. These are
(10:10):
actually some of the reasons why they're putting it off
there to give the d m V to kind of
catch back up after the pandemic so they can help
people out with it. That's right. So a lot of
full states actually didn't start issuing real idea and to
US an eighteen to US in nineteen, and then we
got the pandemic, right, and a lot of d n
(10:31):
b s has to close or reduce service, and so
it basically slow down the process of people being able
to get the real dal One of the challenges is
that if you are applying to get a real idea,
you need to go to the actual branch, to the
DNB branch to get it, because you have to prespent
your documents in person. And so that has been one
(10:52):
of the challenges. And as you remember, some of these
d n b s were closed for months and they
have backlogs of you know, just not just real idea
but all kinds of things that people do as a
d n B. And so now they're gonna get extra time.
And that's good news because, like you said, you have
your passport, and a lot of people probably do, but
(11:12):
the most common document that people use when they're flying domestically,
it's a driver's license or a state ide and so
you have thousands of Americans who still don't have it,
and if if they were too implemented now they will
go to their security s a security line and they
will be turned away. And so that that was the
(11:33):
main concern. Tell me a little bit briefly about why
we're required to get real ideas. This goes back to
the September eleventh terrorist attacks, where they wanted to set
minimum security standards for driver's license and idea so they
know who's flying. But this is how far back this goes.
The plan was set in motion that that long ago, right,
(11:54):
and it's taken this long to be implemented, right. So
the program actually the resort of the recommendations for ROUM
the nine eleven Commission, And the main reason is that
eighteen of the nineteen hijackers for the September larrying attacks
where had obtain the state ideas, and some of them
illegally or fraudulently, and so they wanted to standardize kind
(12:20):
of the requirements to make the stay licenses and ideas
more secure. And at the beginning of the process, the
law passed into thousand five and it was supposed to
be implemented into a thousand eight. So we're talking about
you know, by the time this is implement a fully
implement is gonna be seventeen years, right. But one of
the challenges is that some states opposed. They didn't start,
(12:44):
you know, they said it was fed on Mondays that
wasn't funded. So it took quite a bit a few
years for some states to start issuing these new credential
and here we are, many years later, and some of
them are just still getting started. Lose Lazo, transportation reporter
at the Washington Post, Thank you very much for joining us.
(13:13):
It's going to be very difficult unless this Safe Banking
Act passes for marijuana related businesses to actually set up
accounts and do financial transactions in the way most of
us do. Joining us down with Sophia Kai, congressional reporter
at Axios. Thanks for joining. Sophia. For sure, let's talk
(13:36):
about what's going to be going on pretty soon in
the Senate. It looks like bipartisan group led by Senate
a majority leader for now Chuck Schumer, they might be
trying to attach some pretty significant marijuana legislation to year
end bills, these must pass bills that they always work
on at the end of the year before they go
on recess. So Sophia, tell us a little bit more.
(13:57):
What are we seeing with these marijuana bills going on? Yeah, so,
I mean this has been in the work for I
would say more than a year now, Leaders Humor has
been trying to pass some form of marijuana legislation. And
remember he started off with an even broader piece that
really be scheduled. I mean it tried to be schedule
(14:20):
marijuana as a Schedule one drug, and that was a
piece of legislation that did not get any support. I
think it maybe one Republican senator was inspiment, you know,
which really means that it had no chances of passing,
so it would even make it to the floor. I
think what we're seeing now is a more narrow and
targeted but still it's a two part bill. One of
(14:43):
them basically allows marijuana companies that are in states where
it is legal to access a banking system. And you know,
the other piece of this legislation, it allows the d
J to provide states and local government with more funding
for expungement. So as you know, most of these convictions
(15:05):
are at the state and local level, and so folks
who are convicted with a very small amount of marijuana
that remains under record, you know, unless they get an
expunge or in some way removed from their record. And
so that's another piece of this, and it's the criminal
justice piece of this that will draw more Democrats to it. Yeah,
and we saw a President Biden expunge a lot of
(15:27):
stuff on the federal level. He at that time. They suggested,
you know, that states could follow through and do it
on their own. Some said yes, some hadn't done anything
about it, but yeah, this would help on that front.
And before we get back into the banking part of it,
because I think that's a huge one. What is making
this a go right now is I guess they cleared
this with the Justice Department that you know, saying hey,
(15:48):
you know, we can attach these bills into something like
the National Defense Authorization Act. Yes, So the Justice Department
reviewed the bill earlier the here and they said, hey, look,
we may have some problems with implementing the bill because
it could make it harder for us to prosecute other crimes,
(16:11):
drug related crimes, money laundering related crimes, and that's what's
wrong with the bill. And so they sent back a
list of changes and they're sort of like line level changes.
And you know, Democratic leadership has told me that they
have made all of these revisions, that they've addressed the
concerns with the d J But you know, it really
(16:33):
still is yet to be seen if this bipartisan group,
which right now includes three Republican senators, if they will
be able to get to the magic number of ten,
which is how many votes that they will need to
pass at and NFL Busher. Yeah, right now, those Republican senators,
we're looking at our senators Steve Danes, Rand Paul and
(16:53):
Dan Sullivan. So yes, we'll see if they can get
some more people on board. Back to the banking part
of it, because I think that's an important one. So
that one's called the Safe Banking Act, Secure and Fair
Enforcement Banking Act. That's an important one because you know,
a lot of times we'll see these dispensaries pop up,
a lot of times we'll see thefts at dispensaries because
they're always operating in cash, and that's a big important one.
(17:15):
There's also a big impediment into opening places of business
because they can't secure loans. So this might be another
step in, you know, further legitimizing a lot of these businesses. Yeah,
I mean it would be huge for these companies, you know,
providing and a lot of these armed minority owned businesses,
So providing those business centers who want to start marijuana
(17:39):
business with the funding you know, electronically through these formal
banking systems that most all other businesses have access to,
you know, would be huge. It would be a boom
for the industry at the state level, um and it
would have larger ramifications for the industry as a whole.
So you know, that's sort of where it stands as
(17:59):
for the banking portion of it. One of the interesting things,
obviously is this doesn't do anything huge like legalized marijuana
on a federal level. It's still a schedule and drug.
You know, things like heroin L s D fall under
that same umbrella. But President Biden did sign a medical
marijuana research bill I'm assuming, so we can use it
(18:20):
in some more studies. What does that look like? Yeah,
I mean, I think that's just tell us more. It
comes after Prisident Biden also issued through executive actions those
federal pardons that you talked about. And as another piece
of that, and equally as important, is that he asked
you o J to review the status of marijuana as
(18:41):
a Schedule one drug. So you know that sort of
opens the gates for considerations for potentially descheduling it. But
like no promises have been made, and this research bill,
it's sort of just that it provides more funding opportunities
to sort of look into into the drug. All right, well,
we'll keep an eye out see as this the end
(19:02):
of the year starts approaching very very quickly. We'll see
if any of these supposes a problem to passing some
of those last minute bills that they always have to
get into. Sophia Kai, Congressional reporter at Axios, Thank you
very much for joining us. For sure, I think that's
(19:24):
it for today. Join us on social media at Daily
Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram. Leave us a comment,
give us a rating, and tell us the stories that
you're interested in. Follow us on iHeart Radio, or subscribe
wherever you get your podcast. This episode of The Daily
Dive is produced by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony
Sorrentino him Oscar Ramirez. And this was your Daily Dive
It's Tuesday, December six. I'm Oscar Ramiers in Los Angeles
and this is the daily Dive. The hot weight loss
drug we go Vi is in short supply and high demand.
The drug has proven to help people lose as much
as of their weight by suppressing appetite, but the company
(00:21):
expected a more gradual adoption of the drug and has
lost out on tons of potential cash. Peter Loftis, pharma
reporter of The Wall Street Journal joins us for why
you can't find we go Vi. Next, the real id
requirement for air travel has been delayed once again. Americans
will have two more years until May to go to
(00:41):
the d m V and provide the proper paperwork. The
deadline was extended to help d m vs with pandemic
related setbacks. To date, only about people have gotten their
updated I d s lose. Losso transportation reporter at the
Washington Post joins us for what to know. Finally, a
pair of marian to bill may be attached to must
(01:01):
pass here in builds. In Congress, a bipartisan group of
Senators will be trying to add the Safe Banking Act
to allow cannabis businesses to access loans and open bank
accounts and the Hope Act, which would provide grants the
states that expunge former convictions. Sofia Kai, congressional reporter at
Axios joins us for the planned to pass pot legislation.
(01:23):
It's news without the noise. Let's dive in. So the
results for we go Via the trials that have come out,
patients were taking out for about sixteen weeks or so
and they lost about twelve percent of their body weight.
Joining us down is Peter LOFTUS pharma reporter at the
Wall Street Journal. Thanks for joining us, Peter, thanks for
(01:45):
having me on. Well, we've been talking about we go
Vi and ozempic and a couple of the other drugs
that contains some magnetide about the its weight loss properties
and how it's kind of, at least on the ozempic side,
it's become this Hollywood way lost drug. We go Vi
has come out to a lot of fanfare as well.
The problem is it's so hard to find right now,
(02:06):
there's so many prescriptions out there. It's in the company
Novo Nordis because having a hard time meeting all that
demand for the drug. But Peter, you took a look
into it. Why we can't find we go Vie specifically
right now. That's one of their drugs there, and they
just kind of flubbed the whole rollout. It seems like
it's an interesting look into it, so Peter tell us
a little bit more about it. One of the early
(02:28):
factors was that before Novo Nordis came out with we
go vi, which was in the middle of they had
one view of what kind of a market it was
going to be, and that view was more conservative. They thought,
you know, that eventually it could be a big selling
drug and that there could be a lot of prescriptions written,
but that that would take time. And this was sort
(02:50):
of based on their experience with an older weight lost drug,
Sex and as well as other older weight loss drugs.
Those older drugs had more this weight loss effects and
a lot of insurers didn't cover them, and so Novo
Nortis went into this thinking, Okay, we we like what
we have with Bagovi. We know it can help people
(03:11):
lose up to of their body weight, but just based
on our experience with this market, we think it's going
to take some time for it to grow. And so
as a result, they set up a certain level of
manufacturing capacity that was in line with that more conservative
view of how quickly this market would grow. And then
what happened was once it came on the market, the
(03:34):
demand was huge. It was really above what they had expected.
And I think I think that was a combination of
that it did have a better benefit for weight loss
than most drugs before, and I think social media had
become so much more established since the last time a
weight loss drug came out that the words started to
(03:55):
spread virally. Really with no help from Novo Nortis they
were and actually necessarily promoting it, it just kind of
spread on its own, and so that that really led
to an increase in demand. And so let's talk a
little bit about the money, because that's always such an
important part, right. So the market for anti obesity drugs
right now is worth two point four billion dollars worldwide.
(04:17):
They say it could be fifty billion. So when they
were talking about we go vi they've made around seven
hundred million dollars in sales to date, but what they
were projecting just for we go Vie sales for two
was two billion dollars. So they kind of blew it
on that front, just a miss opportunity when it comes
to making boatloads of cash. Analysts were predicting that that
(04:40):
figure two billion, and yes they've fallen short. And I
should say that another factor here that came up later
was that a contract manufacturer that Novo Nortis was working
with help with one step of the production process had
some issues where they were having basically quality problems at
their plan and they had to scale back manufacturing. And
(05:02):
so that was something that that made it an even
worse situation than might have been the case even with
Novo's conservative outlook for how quickly this market would grow.
So it was really kind of one factor was planning
for a more cautious outlook, a more conservative growth pattern,
but then this totally unplanned manufacturing snaff who that that
(05:24):
also kind of compounded the matter. And as you mentioned,
you know, social media played a huge part in and
people were seeing it all over the place on TikTok
and YouTube and they said, hey, I want to get
in on this weight loss drug. You mentioned that other
um that other drug sex and death Right. So in
five weeks it took doctors to write new prescriptions for
Rigo VI added the same weekly volume that it took
(05:45):
the other drug sex Senda four years to reach. That's
how quick this thing shot up. And so what is
Novo nordis doing now. They're saying that they're gonna kind
of do a relaunch early next year. They will have
enough supply to meet demand. They say they've taken steps
to build an inventory of you know that this drug
(06:06):
comes in a range of doses, and so they've they've
had to make sure that they've got an equal amount
of all doses out there, and they're lining up more
manufacturing capacity both internally and externally, so that at some point,
I think they think by early they should be able
to say, Okay, really any new patient can get this
(06:28):
because that's really been the net effect so far as
that patients who had started on we Go by a
certain point, many of them were able to continue on
sort of the maintenance dose. But for many people, if
they hadn't started on it by a certain point, they
just weren't going to start on it at all. So
that's what Novo is expecting soon to be able to say,
(06:48):
like anyone can can start to get this drug, and
we should have a sufficient supply. And what a happy
I mean happy side effect I guess you can call
it right for unexpected for what was supposed to be
diabetes drug That's why you know people are looking to
the we go of either looking to ozempic, they were
looking to another one as alternatives too we go because
(07:10):
they couldn't get it. But these are diabetes drugs, which
is kind of one of the most interesting parts of it. Yeah,
it's like it's kind of like drugs for for two
diseases in one drug. And these companies, Novo and their
competitors that they did find in the past that studying
these types of drugs for diabetes, they did see this
(07:32):
effect of weight loss. But I think it's really just
in the past few years where the magnetis by by
sort of refining these drugs and coming up with better
versions of them, they've seen that the magnitude of the
weight loss has become really striking, to the point where
it's not just the happy side effects for people with
diabetes to lose weight, but it's a drug specifically to
(07:54):
lose weight, including for people who don't even have diabetes.
And so that's where there's been the real shift, and
I think why there's such a big market opportunity for
these drugs. Well, if you're looking for we go vie
maybe next year. Peter LOFTUS farmer reporter the Wall Street Journal,
Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks thanks for
having me. Our government was supposed to start implementation of
(08:24):
real ID at US airports next May, but now we
get until May of joining us now is Loose Lasso,
transportation reporter at the Washington Post. Thanks for joining us, Lose, Oh,
thanks for delayed again. So for some time now we've
(08:44):
been getting told we need to get a real i D.
Going to the DNB, provide them with a bunch of
different documents. They'll give you a new driver's license or
I D card. Most of them have a star in
the upper right hand corner. But this program has constantly
been put on delays. Everybody's going to be needing it
to board any domestic air flights pretty soon. Now it's
(09:04):
been delayed again to the point of it. So Louise,
tell us a little bit more about what we're learning
about the real I D delays. So the good news
success for people who am NOTT who still learn how
the real idea is that they're going to get two
more years twenty four months to get the real idea.
UM he was supposed to the federal government was supposed
to start implementation of real Idea at US airports next May.
(09:28):
But now we get until May of twenty twenty five.
And that means people about half I think of Americans
still don't have a real idea and so they get
a chance to go get it before that little life. Yeah.
So some numbers for it, about one and thirty seven
million real ideas have been issued nationwide. That's about of
(09:50):
state issued ideas that are in circulation right now. Full disclosure,
I have not gotten my real idea. Had been putting
it off for a little bit. I do have my passport,
so I've and in that sense of things, I was like, well,
I can fly if I need to have my passport.
It's not a big deal. But you're right, I mean
to that point, it's it's so easy to you kind
of put off. We went through the pandemic. These are
(10:10):
actually some of the reasons why they're putting it off
there to give the d m V to kind of
catch back up after the pandemic so they can help
people out with it. That's right. So a lot of
full states actually didn't start issuing real idea and to
US an eighteen to US in nineteen, and then we
got the pandemic, right, and a lot of d n
(10:31):
b s has to close or reduce service, and so
it basically slow down the process of people being able
to get the real dal One of the challenges is
that if you are applying to get a real idea,
you need to go to the actual branch, to the
DNB branch to get it, because you have to prespent
your documents in person. And so that has been one
(10:52):
of the challenges. And as you remember, some of these
d n b s were closed for months and they
have backlogs of you know, just not just real idea
but all kinds of things that people do as a
d n B. And so now they're gonna get extra time.
And that's good news because, like you said, you have
your passport, and a lot of people probably do, but
(11:12):
the most common document that people use when they're flying domestically,
it's a driver's license or a state ide and so
you have thousands of Americans who still don't have it,
and if if they were too implemented now they will
go to their security s a security line and they
will be turned away. And so that that was the
(11:33):
main concern. Tell me a little bit briefly about why
we're required to get real ideas. This goes back to
the September eleventh terrorist attacks, where they wanted to set
minimum security standards for driver's license and idea so they
know who's flying. But this is how far back this goes.
The plan was set in motion that that long ago, right,
(11:54):
and it's taken this long to be implemented, right. So
the program actually the resort of the recommendations for ROUM
the nine eleven Commission, And the main reason is that
eighteen of the nineteen hijackers for the September larrying attacks
where had obtain the state ideas, and some of them
illegally or fraudulently, and so they wanted to standardize kind
(12:20):
of the requirements to make the stay licenses and ideas
more secure. And at the beginning of the process, the
law passed into thousand five and it was supposed to
be implemented into a thousand eight. So we're talking about
you know, by the time this is implement a fully
implement is gonna be seventeen years, right. But one of
the challenges is that some states opposed. They didn't start,
(12:44):
you know, they said it was fed on Mondays that
wasn't funded. So it took quite a bit a few
years for some states to start issuing these new credential
and here we are, many years later, and some of
them are just still getting started. Lose Lazo, transportation reporter
at the Washington Post, Thank you very much for joining us.
(13:13):
It's going to be very difficult unless this Safe Banking
Act passes for marijuana related businesses to actually set up
accounts and do financial transactions in the way most of
us do. Joining us down with Sophia Kai, congressional reporter
at Axios. Thanks for joining. Sophia. For sure, let's talk
(13:36):
about what's going to be going on pretty soon in
the Senate. It looks like bipartisan group led by Senate
a majority leader for now Chuck Schumer, they might be
trying to attach some pretty significant marijuana legislation to year
end bills, these must pass bills that they always work
on at the end of the year before they go
on recess. So Sophia, tell us a little bit more.
(13:57):
What are we seeing with these marijuana bills going on? Yeah, so,
I mean this has been in the work for I
would say more than a year now, Leaders Humor has
been trying to pass some form of marijuana legislation. And
remember he started off with an even broader piece that
really be scheduled. I mean it tried to be schedule
(14:20):
marijuana as a Schedule one drug, and that was a
piece of legislation that did not get any support. I
think it maybe one Republican senator was inspiment, you know,
which really means that it had no chances of passing,
so it would even make it to the floor. I
think what we're seeing now is a more narrow and
targeted but still it's a two part bill. One of
(14:43):
them basically allows marijuana companies that are in states where
it is legal to access a banking system. And you know,
the other piece of this legislation, it allows the d
J to provide states and local government with more funding
for expungement. So as you know, most of these convictions
(15:05):
are at the state and local level, and so folks
who are convicted with a very small amount of marijuana
that remains under record, you know, unless they get an
expunge or in some way removed from their record. And
so that's another piece of this, and it's the criminal
justice piece of this that will draw more Democrats to it. Yeah,
and we saw a President Biden expunge a lot of
(15:27):
stuff on the federal level. He at that time. They suggested,
you know, that states could follow through and do it
on their own. Some said yes, some hadn't done anything
about it, but yeah, this would help on that front.
And before we get back into the banking part of it,
because I think that's a huge one. What is making
this a go right now is I guess they cleared
this with the Justice Department that you know, saying hey,
(15:48):
you know, we can attach these bills into something like
the National Defense Authorization Act. Yes, So the Justice Department
reviewed the bill earlier the here and they said, hey, look,
we may have some problems with implementing the bill because
it could make it harder for us to prosecute other crimes,
(16:11):
drug related crimes, money laundering related crimes, and that's what's
wrong with the bill. And so they sent back a
list of changes and they're sort of like line level changes.
And you know, Democratic leadership has told me that they
have made all of these revisions, that they've addressed the
concerns with the d J But you know, it really
(16:33):
still is yet to be seen if this bipartisan group,
which right now includes three Republican senators, if they will
be able to get to the magic number of ten,
which is how many votes that they will need to
pass at and NFL Busher. Yeah, right now, those Republican senators,
we're looking at our senators Steve Danes, Rand Paul and
(16:53):
Dan Sullivan. So yes, we'll see if they can get
some more people on board. Back to the banking part
of it, because I think that's an important one. So
that one's called the Safe Banking Act, Secure and Fair
Enforcement Banking Act. That's an important one because you know,
a lot of times we'll see these dispensaries pop up,
a lot of times we'll see thefts at dispensaries because
they're always operating in cash, and that's a big important one.
(17:15):
There's also a big impediment into opening places of business
because they can't secure loans. So this might be another
step in, you know, further legitimizing a lot of these businesses. Yeah,
I mean it would be huge for these companies, you know,
providing and a lot of these armed minority owned businesses,
So providing those business centers who want to start marijuana
(17:39):
business with the funding you know, electronically through these formal
banking systems that most all other businesses have access to,
you know, would be huge. It would be a boom
for the industry at the state level, um and it
would have larger ramifications for the industry as a whole.
So you know, that's sort of where it stands as
(17:59):
for the banking portion of it. One of the interesting things,
obviously is this doesn't do anything huge like legalized marijuana
on a federal level. It's still a schedule and drug.
You know, things like heroin L s D fall under
that same umbrella. But President Biden did sign a medical
marijuana research bill I'm assuming, so we can use it
(18:20):
in some more studies. What does that look like? Yeah,
I mean, I think that's just tell us more. It
comes after Prisident Biden also issued through executive actions those
federal pardons that you talked about. And as another piece
of that, and equally as important, is that he asked
you o J to review the status of marijuana as
(18:41):
a Schedule one drug. So you know that sort of
opens the gates for considerations for potentially descheduling it. But
like no promises have been made, and this research bill,
it's sort of just that it provides more funding opportunities
to sort of look into into the drug. All right, well,
we'll keep an eye out see as this the end
(19:02):
of the year starts approaching very very quickly. We'll see
if any of these supposes a problem to passing some
of those last minute bills that they always have to
get into. Sophia Kai, Congressional reporter at Axios, Thank you
very much for joining us. For sure, I think that's
(19:24):
it for today. Join us on social media at Daily
Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram. Leave us a comment,
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you're interested in. Follow us on iHeart Radio, or subscribe
wherever you get your podcast. This episode of The Daily
Dive is produced by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony
Sorrentino him Oscar Ramirez. And this was your Daily Dive
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