Changes to U.S. federal authorities relating to production and marketing of hemp
fda.gov
fda.gov
It is still illegal to produce or own cannabidiol derived from Marijuana. Emphatically, this statement from the FDA does not mean that cannabidiol as a chemical is legal.
(2016, usdoj.gov) https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/schedules/marijuana/m_ext...
Nothing has changed here except that the FDA is claiming authority to regulate the small subset of CBD products that are legally produced from hemp. The above DOJ article goes somewhat into the science of how these products, if they exist and are produced legally, contain such trace amounts of CBD that they're surely ineffective. Point being: either it's produced from real flowers and it's still illegal, or it's produced from hemp and present in such small amounts that it's of absolutely no benefit. The FDA is merely saying that they want to regulate the latter case.
I'm generally against any form of regulation, but as long as we live in a society where drug laws already don't make sense, regulating the headshop CBD industry is going to do good things.
The industry around cannabidiol is disgusting, particularly when it comes to products sold outside of states with medical or recreational marijuana. Outside of your average stoner looking for holistic medicine, a great deal of people interested in CBD are cancer patients or family of cancer patients. At best, these companies are making money selling snake oil to dying people. At worst, they're introducing dangerous toxic chemicals to immunocompromised individuals and actively harming them.
I can't find the article but there was news a few years ago about a head chemist stepping down from one of the largest (at the time) legal producers of CBD. She wrote an exposé about how their leadership was pushing for higher purity at the cost of safety, and how it forced her to resign.
These people don't have any good ways of making good buying decisions, let a lone having a regulatory body to rely on to test this stuff. So they just choose stuff with good marketing and high concentrations.
Not to say your article isn't making a good point -- just that these nasty companies being successful is due to a vacuum created by decades of complete head-up-our-own-ass marijuana policy.
This opinion would seem to be at odds with reality at large.
The reason the Food, Drug and Cosmetic act was passed in the first place is because of all the harm that the (then unregulated) pharmaceutical industry was doing. The market had centuries' worth of time to correct for people taking all sorts of drugs that actively kill people, and it didn't. It was only regulation that started to get the mess under control.
And it's the loopholes in regulation where things are worst. The supplement industry continues to do far more harm than good.
It's just possible that, despite the best efforts of some economists to argue that everyone is perfectly knowledgeable, rational, and emotionless in order to simplify their models, people continue to be merely human.
Here's a good overview of how they go about making sure that approved drugs are GRASE (Generally Recognized As Safe and Effective): https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm14353...
Publication bias is a real thing, and drug companies do know how to use it to their advantage. Take a look at what drug trial results looked like before and after the FDA started requiring pre-registration. The difference is, to put it mildly, staggering.
I'm pretty hard pressed to come up with a market equivalent to drug trial pre-registration. Given everything I've seen of Adam Smith's writings, I'm pretty sure that, were he alive today, he'd probably say something like, "Duh, of course. Do that. That is some excellent regulation, and obviously in the service of the public good."
Tangentially, I'm guessing that, if CBD had to go through pre-registered drug trials, it wouldn't be such a big deal. The funny thing about things that are widely believed to help with every last ailment is, they tend to all be about equally good at treating pretty much everything.
The most telling clue is he said the remedy for bad drugs is tort... Showing he clearly doesn’t understand the severity of the problem.
Sorry our drugs killed your kid, but now you can sue us so everything is ok.
They did have one good point, which is what is the opportunity cost of slowing down drug development with regulation and which way does the least harm. I don’t have the data to back up either side, but I’m not seeing a ton (there are some though) of medical breakthroughs in less regulated countries.
This is why the FDA is stepping in.
And while some regulation is certainly a response to bad actors to say that "nearly all" of the tens of thousands of new pages of regulations written every year are that is going to need some sort of citation.
This statement would make a lot more sense if our government did not currently have ignorant and draconian regulations and restrictions around this substance.
The snake oil salesman knows it does nothing and sells it anyway. Snake oil is not banned from being studied.
CBD absolutely helps with seizures and anxiety. I don't need some retroactive scientific study to show this because the evidence is already there, vouched for by those who use it. There is no placebo effect for seizures.
You have an opinion that someone with a PHD needs to sign off on everything you put in your body, that's fine. But that does not equate things that are untested to fucking snake oil, my guy.
there is a huge issue with quality control for cbd -- it varies wildly between products and is totally impossible to control for. i'm sure it can be medically useful but you must be able to buy a legitimate product first.
I'm just not sure how "it's good that CBD is regulated" is similar to "every company that makes CBD is selling snake oil or putting people's lives in danger."
> There is no placebo effect for seizures.
"A positive response to placebo administration, manifesting as a decrease in seizure frequency, can be observed in epileptic dogs." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19912522
"For unknown reasons, placebos reduce seizures in clinical trials in many patients... Strangely, a meta-analysis found placebo effects in epilepsy trials increased steadily from 1989 to 2010, with decreasing apparent drug treatment effects." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4546516/
I agree.
The claim I'm making about placebo and seizures is that a seizure is dangerous, and anything that reduces the seizure is a medication. Sugar pill or no.
If the claim is that CBD compounds are more dangerous than seizures, or that what is in CBD compounds is dangerous at all (fear of the unknown, if you will) then the burden of proof should be on the poster to show examples of dangerous chemicals in CBD tinctures.
My proof, empirical or no, is that CBD reduces anxiety and seizures. I have not seen evidence to the contrary.
> I don't need some retroactive scientific study to show this because the evidence is already there, vouched for by those who use it. There is no placebo effect for seizures.
Super "dank" CDB plants already exist (see "Ringo's Gift"). Its not a stretch to get them under .3% thc.
1. https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm421168.h...
> The term 'marihuana' means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds or resin. Such term does not include the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination.
Individuals and businesses were able to grow and sell hemp in this United States? When did this begin and what federal action made it legal?
However, there was still a lot of confusion as DEA published statements that sent mixed signals to the industry and customers. For instance, the 2014 farm bill legalized hemp & farming, but what about its derivatives (i.e. seeds, extracts)? The 2018 Farm Bill clarifies all this by including hemp and all its derivatives.
In addition, while people may have been running grey area hemp production, they would have had to be entirely uninsured and cash funded as most banks and insurance companies wouldn't touch someone violating federal law with a ten foot pole. This changes that as well, allowing for greater expansion.
But now that the 2018 Farm Bill has legalized growing hemp, federally, the FDA is saying, “slow down, CBD is a drug.”
How this affects the CBD industry will be the thing to watch. On the one hand it just got a lot easier to farm the plant. But it’s about to get more regulated. Which is good for consumers who might be taking products that are toxic without realizing it. But it also will probably make it harder to get legit CBD oil to consumers without jumping through a lot of expensive regulatory hoops.
(Agree about the headline being very misleading – this should be changed.)
Has there been a problem with CBD toxicity? Is it likely that it'll be regulated out of corner-store availability?
It would have been helpful if someone had let us know at hn@ycombinator.com that this was needed. We don't come close to seeing all the problems here, or the comments pointing them out.
- you can't claim to cure/heal anything unless your product undergoes FDA formal approval. Then you can market it as a drug.
- you can't mix the chemicals into food and call it food. If they are present, it's classified as a drug.
- THC and CBD are considered "active" therefore you can't slide them into supplements or market supplements with those chemicals. The use of those chemicals as supplements is still being evaluated and they haven't issued a regulation on it.
- other subtances of the plant are recognized as generally safe so they can be used for other food / cosmetic applications
Finally they put out a FAQ: https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm421168.h...
So CBD was never banned and people have been selling CBD oils in shops, and even pharmacies, for a while now.
The US leading the way in decriminalization apparently banned CBD on a federal level.
This just shows how little governments knew about cannabis when it was banned.
And finally; I used to be dependent on cannabis. It has been a very hard struggle to stop smoking so much cannabis and focus on working, sober instead. I can't imagine what that struggle would be like if cannabis was being sold for recreational use where I live.
Someone somewhere once said that cannabis makes it fun to be bored, and that's the real danger with it. It's not toxic, it's not terribly addictive but you get addicted to feeling good when doing nothing at all.
Edit: Just to clarify if anyone is curious, CBD was being handled by the Swedish quivalent of the FDA. While THC was being handled as an illegal narcotic. So our FDA could approve the use and sale of CBD based products without affecting the legal ban of THC.
Well, like social media or watching TV. It is not clear what is your point.
first of all you are relativizing because you are not even sure. And then the law get's involved in much more trivial issues like littering. That's oranges to apples, but the point is I guess that law exerts control not just to protect the active individual.
The argument also isn’t, I think, that marijuana, or television, or social media, is “very vital to our health”. So I’m not super clear on what you’re arguing against, here.
Then you didn’t do a very good job of communicating your argument, as it could easily be assumed you were against it existing.
> the argument is that marijuana has risks.
As does almost everything in the world, especially when misused. I gave one concrete example of this, happy to provide a lot more. Sugar has significant health risks when consumed in excess, there’s a world wide obesity pandemic in fact, should we ban sugar or otherwise inhibit it’s consumption?
> The argument also isn’t, I think, that marijuana, or television, or social media, is “very vital to our health”.
This shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. For those with Crohn’s disease (a debilitating auto-immune disease), CBD is more effective at controlling symptoms than any Rx drug or diet plan. The most commonly prescribed drug is Humira and costs patients / insurance $11,500 per month (assuming weekly injections). The company behind Humira has made more money on Humira sales (it’s closing in on $100B in sales) than any other prescription drug in history (including Viagra). Yet it’s not as effective as taking CBD when it is properly extracted and can be done so at a significantly lower patient cost.
I’m not advocating for the “CBD head shop” explosion we are seeing, as many sell utter crap, and in rare cases crap so bad it could be dangerous. I am advocating instead for us ending a century old racism influenced law and getting proper labs and real scientists working on quality products for all.
Very true! But the one who leads someone to make a false assumption with vague statement on a thread with other folks advocating for that, also share some culpability.
> You also make a good argument for CBD as a prescription drug.
Yup, I am. But until we can overturn almost a century of regressive policies and public perception based on a terribly corrupt “war on drugs”, not likely to happen. Sometimes we have to go radically the other direction before we can then correct course into the middle ground that always should’ve been.
Cannabis can quite easily be abused when just consumed "out of boredom", which sadly tends to happen quite often.
Imho it should enable or enhance what one does, and not be the sole reason one does anything at all.
Just because you can get stoned whenever you feel bored doesn't mean you should. The fact that nobody has the right to tell other people what to do to themselves shouldn't preclude discussion.
That I will say again and again is a placebo effect, perhaps mediated through some active ingredients, the taste, or just lack of oxygen, but this euphoric image that it has, that's mediated through social engineering.
CBD flower is just jank weed that has a higher CBD and lower THC levels. If that's what you want to burn, fine, but that doesn't make it not weed.
That's to say, THC is less physiologically addictive than nicotine, alcohol, caffeine -- even cheese.
Cannabis clearly effect the cannabinoid reseptors.
> CB1 is mostly in the brain / nervous system
I was worried for a sec, but nope, quite the opposite. Could you be a little more specific?
> ... are very beneficial and doesn’t give ...
Look, everytime I post this it gets a handful of down votes and nefarious comments like yours from people who would have recommended cigarettes for a cold and all kind of ailments. Heard the term "snakeoil"? It burns because it affects the heat receptors. Doesn't mean it's actually warm.
Your comment would be fine without the first sentence.
I think that was South Park
“It is true that section 12619 of the Farm Bill removes hemp-derived products from its Schedule I status under the Controlled Substances Act, but the legislation does not legalize CBD generally. As I have noted elsewhere on this blog CBD generally remains a Schedule I substance under federal law . . . The Farm Bill ensures that any cannabinoid — a set of chemical compounds found in the cannabis plant — that is derived from hemp will be legal, if and only if that hemp is produced in a manner consistent with the Farm Bill, associated federal regulations, association state regulations, and by a licensed grower. All other cannabinoids, produced in any other setting, remain a Schedule I substance under federal law and are thus illegal. (The one exception is pharmaceutical-grade CBD products that have been approved by FDA, which currently includes one drug: GW Pharmaceutical’s Epidiolex.)”
Source: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/marijuana/2018/12/20/hemp-o...
But yeah this is terribly written, they should really hire the SEC to write their press releases for them.
I may be totally wrong here, but I feel like the FDA, rather than easing up on the regulation of marijuana, has just stated that it's about to clamp down on all these products currently being marketed at your local medicinal pot store.
The thing they don't mention (and this is the most important part) is that hemp products can now be sold legally. Because they are no longer a controlled substance. BUT you can't advertise them as being for human consumption or having therapeutic value.
This is why you can't buy antibiotics without an RX. It falls under FDA authority. But you can buy those same antibiotics for fish, without a license. Because some types of animal products don't fall under their authority.
So I'm betting you will be able to buy CBD oil "not for human consumption" to fix squeeky wheels or as an air freshener or whatever. But the FDA will have to go through their normal review process before a product can be sold in food or in a supplement.
As for all the products already out there, I have no idea. Because my understanding of FDA regulations is that they were already in violation since they were being sold as dietary supplements or something with therapeutic benefit.
Something else to consider is that there are plenty of products that don't have to prove their safety -- products which the FDA blesses as "GRAS" ("Generally Recognized As Safe"), though it's unlikely that CBD will fall under this classification either.
Both alcohol and some medicines (like quinine[1], which is added to tonic water) the FDA apparently has no problems with, despite some of these ingredients (like alcohol) being very far from safe, much less proven to be safe in "substantial clinical investigations".
Where are you getting that from?
Section 2 of the 21st amendment was ruled on in State Board of Equalization v. Young's Market Co. and shown to give states unusual control of alcohol.
"If a State chooses to allow direct shipment of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms. Without demonstrating the need for discrimination, New York and Michigan have enacted regulations that disadvantage out-of-state wine producers. Under our Commerce Clause jurisprudence, these regulations cannot stand." Id. at 493.
So yeah, Amd. 21, §2 gives states Constitutional force behind some of their alcohol laws, but it doesn't usurp the Commerce power entirely.
It's super tedious because it's been 25 years since DSHEA and the FDA has yet to produce a final guidance or rule on dietary NDI submissions.
Hemp can be more lucrative for farmers [1] making feed instead of alfalfa/others.
Hemp also uses less water than other crops [2], it can help with water usage in agriculture heavy states that are tighter on water in the west (CA, AZ, NV, UT).
Hemp for textiles is also more efficient than cotton which uses 50% more water and requires more land [2].
Hemp oil possibilities are also interesting to restart and explore.
Hemp being legal opens up farmers to switching to it more and give them more markets for a crop that us more lucrative and uses less water. It was used like this a hundred years ago, sad it was caught up in the drug wars for so long. Much farther to go on the ending drug wars but this is a welcome market opening back up that has benefits all around in hemp.
[1] https://psmag.com/environment/hemp-is-the-future-of-agricult...
[2] https://slate.com/technology/2011/04/hemp-versus-cotton-whic...
FWIW I've had hemp beer (quite good) and used compostable "plastic" cups made from hemp (no different in appearance or use to regular plastic cups).
Production (farmers and eventually more products/companies/uses), consumers, the environment and the market love the product, finally free to innovate. Hemp shall get its revenge after being thrown in the Château d'If and locked up for no reason, it is coming back as the Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge and take over.
(I'm not affiliated)
I suffered with seasonal hayfever for 25 years. Cured it completely with CBD this year. Was inspired to try it after I cured my cats seasonal asthma with a tiny CBD dose. It was so effective on me I thought the season hadn't started till it was over. Weirdly effective.
I've been a huge skeptic of medicinal marijuana. I am now a convert and I think CBD in particular is an exciting area.
Sounds like the headline above may not be entirely accurate. But we will get there.
In Washington state the FDA came after CBD manufacturers for making miracle cure claims. As part of the investigation they tested various products. Turns out many had little or no CBD. The industry is rife with snake oil salesmen. But in states where it is legal you have the benefit of accurate lab testing with results published on the packaging.
Source for CBD related warning letters from FDA. The WA cases were 2015. https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/publichealthfocus/ucm484109.h...
Hemp, specifically “industrial hemp”, is just cannabis that has a THC content under 0.3%.
There are a lot of products that can be made from hemp; a popular one is CBD oil. There are different methods of extracting it, CO2 extraction being popular, but it’s also sometimes done with solvents.
The CBD oil industry is currently unregulated and basically the Wild West. People make bold claims, and it’s not always clear what you’re buying. Though, some companies post 3rd party testing results that correlate with batch numbers on the product label.
What this article is really saying is that now that there will be a lot more hemp in the US, the FDA will be taking an active regulatory role. This will likely have a big impact on the CBD oil industry which currently markets as a cure-all in many health food stores.
This is good for consumer safety in the long run — hemp is an effective soil cleaner and the heavy metals in the soil can end up in th CBD oil you’re consuming. But it will likely make it a harder process to legitimately sell CBD oil, and require going through a more expensive process involving FDA approval. We’ll see.
Recently I moved to Oregon and got a vape pen, and I learned something. I sincerely love how weed makes me feel.
It's not just the taboo of it being illegal. It just feels nice when I want to take the edge off. It helps me relax in the right dosage. It makes me tired at the right time of the night so I do not stay up late.
Is vaping weed good for me? Probably not. Is it worse for me than alcohol, eating too much meat, having a sedentary job, or not doing regular weight training? Absolutely not.
End the prohibition. Let adults do what they want with their bodies.
> This is because both CBD and THC are active ingredients in FDA-approved drugs and were the subject of substantial clinical investigations before they were marketed as foods or dietary supplements.
Wow, this is unfortunate history. So if someone had marketed CBD as a food ingredient prior to the FDA's approval of CBD drugs, then putting it in food now would be OK. Does the FDA even have the facts correct? Were there food products before the CBD drugs were approved?
We would receive shipments of big bags of hemp seed, like 25 pound clear bags of pot seeds (which I always laughed about) for birds, so apparently hemp seed was legal at that point at least.
I would disagree on the term marketed (yes, I know the FDA has a specific definition). THC and CBD have been used medicinally long before they were approved by the FDA as drugs.
Meaning; If you have a legal cultivation license in California - and you grow or manufacture flower/oil/edibles - you cannot legally transport them A) THROUGH any federal land (like along HWY 80 between the bay area and Lake Tahoe) -- as that traverses a federal forest. and B) From California to Nevada - in which both states THC products are legal now.
Further, if you obtain a license for your cannabis operation in Nevada in addition to California - you have to fully duplicate your entire operation.
Imagine if every single state required every alcohol manufacturer to have a full operation in every state in which Whiskey was to be sold. Its an absolute joke.
Finally - the BCC regulations state that a delivery truck cannot leave the facility it is licensed at until 6pm, must be tracked by GPS, and must be back at the same facility by 10PM.
So you cannot manufacture goods in northern california, deliver them to southern california and be back in your facility on time.
Instead you have to establish licenses POPs along the route / work with other licensed distributors to hand off between locations.
The local jurisdiction can supercede any BCC state regulation with whatever they want - which is going to be either the county, or the local city council. City councils are all duplicating effort to determine what their local tax requirements will be - spending money on external consultants to help them figure out tax revenue projections, and then selecting which local parcels are allowewd to operate a business.
For example - Truckee california has chosen to only allow delivery operations from a set number of parcels - and rather than the state regulation of 600' between facilities and schools - they have chosen that your property lines cannot be within 600' from eachother && your operation must be on a second story office unit if it is zoned as commercial general.
But in order to get a license from the state you must:
A) Have a sign-off from the property owner that it is OK to have any cannabis operations from the commercial space you're leasing from (and landlords with loans from the big banks will not allow this due to the stipulations from the federal loans that say they cannot operate cannabis businesses if they have a loan from that bank)
B) You have to be able to get the local city cannabis business license (some cities charge many thousands, want freedom to fully audit you at any time, and want $XXX/month or as much as 10% of your revenues whichever is greater.)
There is a bunch more -- but its specifically being regulated to prevent the small cultivators from getting into the business - and Monsanto is already secretly operating under shell company names and coming in in a big way. So are the canadians -- and the canadians are low-balling offers to cannabis growers here, pretending to do due diligence - then walking away with the information from the smaller growers and spending money to execute on the business vision plans they glean from the smaller entities.
You should try running a startup that hires remote workers. We already have to deal with this when it comes to taxation, filings fees, nexus laws, and health insurance. It makes it extremely difficult to run a "remote only" organization without utilizing a PEO.
All of our non-US hires have been as contractors entirely to avoid potential complexities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_employer_organiza...
Weird legislation, how is it serving the people?
Can you have more than one facility, so you have a lockup 2 hours out, and step-stone product across the state?
First, finding a landlord who will rent to you - then securing that agreement with them such that they sign off on it (which can mean entering a lease)
Then getting the local (county or city license) which include application fees as well.
Then applying for the state license.
I have been mapping this process out -- and there are certain counties which like to think of themselves as "big government" and thus err on the side of the old thinking (Contra Costa and Placer are two examples of counties which are anti cannabis)
Then there are all the regular thing that one has to deal with in a hyper competitive market. There are a lot of shady characters in the weed industry. Its not all happiness and hippies.
CBD really needs to be available to anyone with chronic pain (cancer treatment, epilepsy, etc, etc).
- Hemp is defined as Cannabis sativa L., inc. parts and derivatives, with no more than 0.3% THC on dry weight basis.
- Hemp is excluded from the definitions of "marihuana" and "tetrohydrocannabinol" under the CSA. Therefore, it is no longer a violation of federal drug (controlled substances) laws to produce, distribute, or use hemp.
- The THC threshold appears to apply at all times--ie. it is unlawful to extract and concentrate THC from previously legal low-THC sativa. Conversely, CBD oil derived from sativa strains would appear to become unscheduled once concentrated such that the THC content falls below the limit--however, the interim production and possession would remain unlawful without a DEA license.
- This Farm Bill will in one year phase out the 2014 FB research hemp program, and replace it with a full blown legal hemp production program. Under agriculture laws, the only penalties at hand for negligent violations are CAPs and program suspension. The law provides that intentional violations are to be reported by Ag to State/Federal LE.
- The intentional production of cannabis sativa >0.3% THC would be readily punishable under state, federal CSA. However, because the definition of hemp, which is excluded from the CSA, only takes into account the THC content and not the registration status of the grower, it isn't readily apparent how one could be punished for commerce in unregistered, but THC-threshold compliant, Cannabis sativa. However, an unregistered grower has no shield against accidental/negligent over-THC drug charges.
- As the linked press release notes, food and drug law will apply to the interstate commerce in hemp. Thus, it will not be lawful to distribute CBD oil as a "supplement," for example. While FD&C Act violations can result in serious charges, they won't be charged as "drug crimes" ie. controlled substances offenses, and will not have the same impact on federal employment, student loans, etc.
- I'm no expert in this, but it seems to me that it would not be possible to tell legal hemp from >0.3% THC sativa. Thus, it would appear that visual identification of marijuana may no longer be a valid basis for a search/detention by law enforcement.
TL;DR: All Cannabis sativa L. is no longer a controlled substance, provided that it contains no greater than 0.3% THC. States may authorize a legal, tested method of production, for which no one may be penalized for accidental/negligent violations. The FDA will regulate the interstate commerce in hemp products, including CBD oil, because they are considered drug products. The FDA will not be involved in industrial hemp (ex. hemp ropes) because they are not marketed as food, drugs, or cosmetics.
edits: formatting. nb, the law text is at https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Agriculture..., do a ^F for "hemp"
Huh?
The gold peg stood in the way of the war machine. If you have to actually pay for your perpetual war with taxes, it's not going to work. You'll never get the support of the people to fund the insanity. Instead you pay for it all by not asking permission, you abuse the currency to fund the wars (artificially low interest rates, so you can afford the debt, which destroys the purchasing power of Americans by pushing the dollar down over time, so everything they buy costs them more; all without anywhere near enough of an export increase to offset it).
The huge pile of debt Reagan ran up - which back then was the largest accumulation of debt in US history outside of a major war time - is still sitting on the books effectively, perpetually costing us interest forever. That spending explosion was partially focused on unnecessary military spending. Reagan's military spending debt will never be paid off, the true cost of that over time (it'll still be sitting there costing interest 50+ years after it was first accumulated) will be dramatically beyond what occurred during his Presidency years.
Then there was the second Iraq war and the spending explosion during the Bush years. That debased the dollar and spurred an immense commodity bubble. Pick 20 random countries and google "xcountry GDP" and then look at the chart of each (then match it with gold and oil charts). What you will see is syncronous soaring of GDP figures and commodities, far beyond anything that is ever seen in normal terms. Most of that isn't actual GDP growth, what that is, is the dollar plunging (vs the other currencies) due to idiotic spending policies during the Bush years, specifically the trillion plus in unnecessary spending during those eight years. That debasing of the dollar mauled US standards of living for the middle class, which was then compounded by the housing collapse and recession.
The $750 billion we're about to spend on the military - while not being at war with anybody - is a continuation of roughly five decades of failed policy around our global deployment of military forces and routine foreign adventurism re military action in places like Syria or Libya.
That $750 billion should be a lot closer to $450 billion instead. We could just about balance the budget right now, if you combined that with letting the tax cuts reset, slightly raise taxes on the top 10%, and have the Fed push interest costs very slightly down. Instead they're going to keep burying us in mistakes.
So now here we are, looking to spend $8 trillion plus over the next ten years just on the military budget (again, while not at war). Meanwhile, we've got about $600 billion per year in debt interest to pay. Soon we'll be paying interest on $30 trillion in public debt. That's the global military machine being partially responsible for bankrupting the US Government. We're not spending $750 billion because we're at war with Nazi Germany or the USSR or some immense foe, it's because we're deployed globally and that's wildly expensive to maintain.
And they'll be replaced by exactly the same type of people (although many won't say as much until they quit a year down the road)