On August 11, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) rejected two petitions to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule II drug in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Rescheduling would not have changed marijuana’s federally illegal status, but would have demoted it from the list of drugs that the DEA considers to have no medical use to one that at least acknowledges some medical purpose.
After the DEA’s announcement, U.S. Representative Jared Polis issued a statement vehemently expressing dissatisfaction with the decision: “To keep marijuana as a Schedule I drug is frustrating, unscientific, and, frankly, out of touch. It is ridiculous to classify marijuana alongside other Schedule I drugs like heroin.”
Aware of the high degree of public interest and controversy that would surround their announcement, the DEA wrote two letters, one to each rejected petitioning party, describing their twofold basis for their decision.
The first is that marijuana does not meet the standards set forth in the CSA requiring scientific evidence proving the drug has medicinal properties. But, without rescheduling, marijuana is not eligible for such research — a vicious and self referential cycle says Michael Collins of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), a drug policy reform nonprofit in New York.
“The DEA has created, very deliberately, a circular problem and it is important to look at how this exposes the flawed logic at the DEA,” he says. “From our point of view it is in the same category as climate change deniers who reject rigorous climate science as completely flawed. Keeping marijuana as a Schedule I drug because there is not enough research is flawed logic because the DEA is the gatekeeper of research.”
(In the pursuit of clarity, the DEA recently told NPR it has “never denied” an application from a researcher to use marijuana in a medical study.)
The other rationale cited by the DEA is that the United States is responsible to international conventions, namely the Single Convention, to control marijuana by disallowing possession and penalizing trafficking and distribution.
Back in the 1960s, it was the U.S. that was primarily responsible for designing and implementing the Single Convention and they seem to be only one of a few democratic nations still committed to the letter of the law. Internationally, there are a growing number of countries that are either pursuing legalized or decriminalized marijuana, or with laws already on the books doing so.
Within U.S. borders, the tension is even more palpable. 41 states have allowed for medical marijuana in some fashion or another, while 25 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have fully legalized medical markets and Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington State and the District of Columbia have legalized adult recreational use. Residents of at least five states — Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada — will vote on legalization initiatives this November.
In recognition of this growing chasm between international, federal and state law, criticisms like Polis’ are becoming increasingly common. In response to the DEA’s rejection, the New York Times editorial board joined dozens of papers across the country in condemning the decision in an op-ed called “Stop Treating Marijuana like Heroin” that argued: “Removing marijuana from Schedule I would be ideal. Reducing research restrictions and lessening penalties for users would be a step in the right direction.”
The current setup of operating legal marijuana markets in states while simultaneously upholding federal prohibition introduces a slew of problems. Businesses do not have access to banking relationships, there are tax disadvantages for the industry and they cannot perform any business across state lines. But that is not to say that rescheduling would have solved those problems.
“What rescheduling would actually mean for today’s legal cannabis business is really unclear,” says Nancy Whiteman of the Cannabis Business Alliance. “Some people say it would essentially be handing the industry over to the pharmaceutical industry, but how any of this would actually play out we can’t fully understand at this point in time.”
There are also a host of human rights implications at stake when considering “steps in the right direction” in drug policy, but Collins of the DPA says that, from their perspective, rescheduling is an empty gesture.
“It is very meaningless from a social justice point of view,” he says. “It doesn’t do anything when it comes to ending arrests or to reconciling state law with federal law. It really doesn’t do anything. It would be a symbolic victory, but even then it wouldn’t have any real-world impact.”
As pressure mounts toward a reconciliation between state and federal drug laws on marijuana, politicians, industry players, journalists, drug policy activists and cannabis consumers all seem eager for a sign that times are changing and, in light of the DEA’s announcement, it looks like they will have to wait a little bit longer.
But marijuana is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ending the war on drugs.
“At the DPA, we are very keen to avoid developing a marijuana superiority complex,” Collins says. “When you look at our mass incarceration problem, it is not entirely because of marijuana. In general, drugs should not be treated as a criminal issue. Someone who is possessing cocaine or heroin should not serve prison time for that. If they need help they should get help. They will not be helped through criminalization — we know that.”
The U.S. Patent Office issued patent #6630507 to the U.S.Health and Human Services filed on 2/2/2001. The patent lists the use of certain cannabinoids found within the cannabis sativa plant as useful in certain neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and HIV dementia.
Cannabis should not be scheduled at all, let alone reside in Schedule I.
It is absurd that the Federal Government still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I substance along with Heroin. It is classified in a more dangerous category than Cocaine, Morphine, Opium and Meth. The three required criteria for Schedule I classification are:
“1) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.”
The dependence rate of cannabis is the lowest of common legal drugs including tobacco, caffeine, alcohol, and many prescription drugs. More important, cannabis does not cause the kind of dependence that we typically associate with the term, like that of alcohol or heroin. It is more similar to that of caffeine, with less symptoms. Cannabis dependence, in the very few who develop it, is relatively mild, and usually not a significant issue or something that requires treatment, unless of course it is court ordered. [Catherine et al. 2011; Lopez-Quintero et al. 2011; Joy et al. 1999; Anthony et al. 1994;]
“2) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”
Cannabis has been used as medicine for thousands of years. Despite great difficulty in conducting medical cannabis research, the medicinal efficacy of cannabis is supported by the highest quality evidence. [Hill. 2015] Already 76% of doctors accept using cannabis to treat medical conditions even though it is still illegal in most places. [Adler and Colbert. 2013]. Cannabis is able to treat a wide range of disease, including mood and anxiety disorders, movement disorders such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, neuropathic pain, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury, to cancer, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, stroke, hypertension, glaucoma, obesity/metabolic syndrome, and osteoporosis, to name just a few. Cannabis is able to do this partially through its action on the newly discovered (thanks to cannabis) endocannabinoid system and the receptors CB1 and CB2 which are found throughout the body. [Pacher et al. 2006; Pamplona 2012; Grotenhermen & Müller-Vahl 2012].
“3) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.”
On September 6, 1988, after two years of hearings on cannabis rescheduling, DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young concluded that:
“Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man…. Marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.”
Relatively speaking cannabis is a safe drug [Iversen L. 2005]. The evidence is is clear, cannabis does not belong in Schedule I [Grant et al. 2012]. It does not meet any one of the three required criteria.
Please help bring end to this senseless prohibition. The organizations below fight every day to bring us sensible cannabis policies. Help them fight by joining their mailing lists, signing their petitions and writing your legislators when they call for it:
MPP – The Marijuana Policy Project – http://www.mpp.org/
DPA – Drug Policy Alliance – http://www.drugpolicy.org/
NORML – National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws – http://norml.org/
LEAP – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition – http://www.leap.cc/
SOURCES:
–Adler and Colbert. Medicinal Use of Marijuana — Polling Results. New England Journal of Medicine. 2013.
–Anthony et al. Comparative epidemiology of dependence on tobacco, alcohol, controlled substances, and inhalants: Basic findings from the National Comorbidity Survey. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. 1994.
–Catherine et al. Evaluating Dependence Criteria for Caffeine. J Caffeine Res. 2011.
–Grant et al. Medical marijuana: clearing away the smoke. Open Neurol J. 2012.
–Grotenhermen F, Müller-Vahl K. The therapeutic potential of cannabis and cannabinoids. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2012. Review.
–Hill K. Medical Marijuana for Treatment of Chronic Pain and Other Medical and Psychiatric Problems. A Clinical Review. JAMA. 2015. Review.
–Iversen L. Long-term effects of exposure to cannabis. Curr Opin Pharmacol. 2005. Review.
–Joy et al. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. Institute of Medicine. 1999.
–Lopez-Quintero et al. Probability and predictors of transition from first use to dependence on nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, and cocaine: results of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). Drug Alcohol Depend. 2011.
–Pacher et al. The endocannabinoid system as an emerging target of pharmacotherapy. Pharmacol Rev. 2006. Review.
–Pamplona FA, Takahashi RN. Psychopharmacology of the endocannabinoids: far beyond anandamide. J Psychopharmacol. 2012. Review.
Politics cannot alter the physiological effects of a substance. Medicinal use of cannabis is not new, it has been used as medicine in many cultures for thousands of years. Cannabis was an important part of America’s pharmacopoeia until 1942 when it was removed for political reasons (the AMA protested against this removal). Its medical usage is new to our generation due to the political agenda that suppressed and demonized it for the last 70+ years. Cannabis is able to treat such a wide range of disease partly through its action on the newly discovered (thanks to cannabis) endocannabinoid system and the receptors CB1 and CB2 which are found throughout the body. An extensive review that examined over 1,300 studies on cannabis and its cannabinoids concluded:
“…In the past decade, the endocannabinoid system has been implicated in a growing number of physiological functions, both in the central and peripheral nervous systems and in peripheral organs. More importantly, modulating the activity of the endocannabinoid system turned out to hold therapeutic promise in a wide range of disparate diseases and pathological conditions, ranging from mood and anxiety disorders, movement disorders such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, neuropathic pain, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury, to cancer, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, stroke, hypertension, glaucoma, obesity/metabolic syndrome, and osteoporosis, to name just a few…”
[Pacher et al. 2006]
Other recent reviews have confirmed the medicinal efficacy of cannabis:
“Use of marijuana for chronic pain, neuropathic pain, and spasticity due to multiple sclerosis is supported by high-quality evidence”
[Hill. 2015]
“this is one of the fastest-growing fields in psychopharmacology”
“the endocannabinoid system may lead to the development of novel therapeutic drugs with higher societal acceptability and lower side effects profiles.”
[Pamplona et al. 2012]
“There is now clear evidence that cannabinoids are useful for the treatment of various medical conditions.”
[Grotenhermen et al. 2012]
It clearly does not belong in Schedule I, with heroin:
“Based on evidence currently available the Schedule I classification is not tenable; it is not accurate that cannabis has no medical value, or that information on safety is lacking.”
[Grant et al. 2012]
“Overall, by comparison with other drugs used mainly for ‘recreational’ purposes, cannabis could be rated to be a relatively safe drug.”
[Iversen. 2005]
Already 76% of doctors support using cannabis for medicinal purposes:
“with 76% of all votes in favor of the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes — even though marijuana use is illegal in most countries…In sum, the majority of clinicians would recommend the use of medicinal marijuana in certain circumstances”
[Adler and Colbert. 2013]
This number will continue to rise as more doctors, like surgeon general candidate Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon, realize they have been “systematically mislead” for decades in regard to cannabis. It is absolutely absurd that doctors can prescribe morphine (essentially heroin) but not cannabis, a substance objectively less harmful than alcohol.
“I apologize because I didn’t look hard enough, until now. I didn’t look far enough. I didn’t review papers from smaller labs in other countries doing some remarkable research, and I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis.”
– Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Neurosurgeon, Surgeon General candidate, Assistant Professor of neurosurgery, CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent
“Cannabis is a safer drug than aspirin and can be used long-term without serious side effects. It is never possible for a scientist to say that anything is totally safe. But, at the end of the day, scaremongering does science – and the public – a great disservice. Cannabis is simply not as dangerous as it is being made out to be.”
– Professor Les Iversen, chairman, British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, 2003.
“We have some preliminary data showing that for certain medical conditions and symptoms that marijuana can be helpful”
– U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy
“There’s evidence that shows that it’s useful for medicine, but we need to investigate how to avoid the adverse effects of smoking marijuana.”
– Former U.S. Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin
The entire plant must be legalized for medicinal use. It has been found that cannabinoids act synergistically and are more effective together, even more effective than any additive effect. For example, this study found that THC and CBD work together in fighting brain cancer:
“In the U251 and SF126 glioblastoma cell lines, Delta(9)-THC and cannabidiol acted synergistically to inhibit cell proliferation”
[Marcu et al. 2010]
There are many varieties of cannabis, each with their own assortments of cannabinoids and beneficial effects. In some cases, such as those with Dravet Syndrome and cancer, cannabinoids can be life saving.
Patients do not have time to wait for these natural varieties to be approved one at a time by the federal government, a complex bureaucracy that has even delayed approving a single, non-psychoactive (does not cause a ‘high’) cannabinoid, CBD, for decades and continues to do so.
It is a travesty that the entire plant has not already been legalized. Denying people medicine like this should be criminal, instead using it is. What a bizarre situation politicians have created. Let doctors decide which medicines are best for their patients, not politicians! In every state, legalize this proven medicine now…before more citizens needlessly suffer.
MPP – The Marijuana Policy Project – http://www.mpp.org
DPA – Drug Policy Alliance – http://www.drugpolicy.org
NORML – National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws – http://norml.org
LEAP – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition – http://www.leap.cc
SOURCES:
-Adler and Colbert. Medicinal Use of Marijuana — Polling Results. New England Journal of Medicine. 2013.
-Bachhuber et al. Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Analgesic Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1999-2010. JAMA Intern Med. 2014.
-Carter et al. Cannabis in palliative medicine: improving care and reducing opioid-related morbidity. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2011.
-Hill K. Medical Marijuana for Treatment of Chronic Pain and Other Medical and Psychiatric Problems. A Clinical Review. JAMA. 2015. Review.
-Grant et al. Medical marijuana: clearing away the smoke. Open Neurol J. 2012. Review.
-Grotenhermen F, Müller-Vahl K. The therapeutic potential of cannabis and cannabinoids. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2012. Review.
-Pacher et al. The endocannabinoid system as an emerging target of pharmacotherapy. Pharmacol Rev. 2006. Review.
-Pamplona FA, Takahashi RN. Psychopharmacology of the endocannabinoids: far beyond anandamide. J Psychopharmacol. 2012. Review.
-Iversen L. Long-term effects of exposure to cannabis. Curr Opin Pharmacol. 2005. Review.
-Marcu et al. Cannabidiol enhances the inhibitory effects of delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol on human glioblastoma cell proliferation and survival. Mol Cancer Ther. 2010.
Ha ha! … Stupid Stoners can’t get ANYTHING done right.
At least they have an excuse for being stupid. Your name says it all.
The definition of (DEA) insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstien
This is what happens when the people making money off the criminalization of a commodity are allowed to decide how evil that commodity is. If Congress accords any more power to these dungeon-masters, we should all just turn ourselves in. This is completely avoidable and evilly destructive of the People. The DEA must be disbanded. In the minds of fair, decent-minded People, it is a criminal organization in every sense of the word that is capitalizing on the arbitrary criminalization of a medicinal herb for profit while doing unspeakable damage to millions of nice people using abhorrently distorted moral justifications. Millions of People should not have to suffer because some psychopaths are getting rich while pretending to enforce the law. I would be afraid to cross paths with one of these freaks and I don’t even use illegal drugs. Imagine how many people you have to hate to be able to put someone in a cage for doing nothing more than wanting to feel better. Criminals are people that do harm unnecessarily and without good purpose, regardless of what crap our legislators have contrived. These people are criminals. Keep in mind that many of the murders perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazi Party were ‘legal’ also.
The problem with the community seeking legislative reform regarding marijuana is that they keep approaching the issue as though the people they’re appealing to are rational, ethical people who desire a good outcome for the country. The people in government who perpetuate this fraud are neither rational nor ethical, nor could they care less about achieving a good outcome for anyone except themselves. They’re criminals profiteering a legislated fraud that was recently divulged as same by classified papers exposing the Nixon administrations motive of excessively criminalizing drugs to oppress the Black community via way of the Controlled Substance Act. The people that voluntarily work for these agencies are comprised of the same corrupt character, defective reasoning, and prejudices that created their jobs in the first place. Nixon created an entirely new industry devoted to materializing the secret fantasies of power-addicted sadists under color of authority and now they’ve centralized into this secret criminal fraternity doing business as law enforcement. It might not seem out of the ordinary because so much of law enforcement is corrupt and sadistic that some People tend to just dismiss their hideous behaviors as ‘just the way it is’. I suppose the German People tended to do the same thing under Hitler which is why it took a world war to liberate those among the population who weren’t profiteering from institutionalized corruption of law enforcement and murder. These types of organizations can’t survive a fairly administered country run by decent, fair-minded people. There existence is proof that we don’t have that type of country, not even close.
Criminalizing any commodity is the fastest way to make money off it. Look at Prohibition to understand how politicians, gangsters, law enforcement, and many other associated entities profited immensely from the criminalization of alcohol. This is the same dirty trick. Do you really think we invaded Afghanistan to find Bin Laden. The Taliban had reduced the opium production of the country to roughly a tenth of it’s previous year’s production by 2001. Later that year, Bush invaded Afghanistan, let the opium growers out of prison, and production was almost completely restored in 2002. It’s set multiple new highs since. Ask people from Queens who deals heroin and they’ll often say the CIA, it’s common knowledge in some neighborhoods. Our five-fold heroin addiction problem was created by our former President for profit by smugglers doing business as legitimate business leaders, politicians, military, law enforcement, and related organizations. They’ve attacked a foreign country illegitimately to re-establish the heroin supply that they know will kill people, then created massive law enforcement organizations to cage those people who haven’t died, take their money, and turn them into social lepers who are significantly challenged to maintain even a decent existence because of the damage to their reputations from being arrested. I can’t think of anything more repulsive to the sensibilities of decent, ethical people than people that would intentionally engage in such a behavior for profit. With our incompetent, greed-driven medical system, your one minor car wreck away from becoming a heroin addict caused by incompetently medically mis-managed pain. When you can’t bear it any longer and go looking for a solution, these people will be waiting to cage you and make you wish you were dead, that’s assuming they don’t convert you to a prostitute or a street dealer so they can expand their enterprise. DEA agents are known to routinely engage in drug dealing just like many law enforcement agencies across the country. This evil has to stop while we still have enough freedom to do something. Our government is a deadly threat to the well-being of every decent, fair-minded person in this country.
How about taxpayers stop paying for the DEA and the NSA and the TSA…..call your representatives today and tell him you do not want even one more dime going to fund governments pet projects….