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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has once again rejected attempts to reschedule cannabis and allow medical cannabis federally:
The Obama administration has denied a bid by two Democratic governors to reconsider how it treats marijuana under federal drug control laws, keeping the drug for now, at least, in the most restrictive category for U.S. law enforcement purposes. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg says the decision is rooted in science. Rosenberg gave "enormous weight" to conclusions by the Food and Drug Administration that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States," and by some measures, it remains highly vulnerable to abuse as the most commonly used illicit drug across the nation.
"This decision isn't based on danger. This decision is based on whether marijuana, as determined by the FDA, is a safe and effective medicine," he said, "and it's not." Marijuana is considered a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, alongside heroin and LSD, while other, highly addictive substances including oxycodone and methamphetamine are regulated differently under Schedule II of the law. But marijuana's designation has nothing to do with danger, Rosenberg said.
The Post article notes:
In the words of a 2015 Brookings Institution report, a move to Schedule II "would signal to the medical community that [the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health] are ready to take medical marijuana research seriously, and help overcome a government-sponsored chilling effect on research that manifests in direct and indirect ways."
However, the DEA will expand the number of locations federally licensed to grow cannabis for research from the current total of... 1: the University of Mississippi.
Related: Compassionate Investigational New Drug program
(Score: 1, Disagree) by nitehawk214 on Friday August 12 2016, @02:43PM
Cannabis is the same level of illegality as amphetamines and cocaine.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 12 2016, @03:02PM
More like LSD is at the same level as heroin.
Look at almost any of these mainstream media articles about cannabis prohibition. They will mention something along the lines of "marijuana is listed in Schedule I, alongside heroin and LSD."
Then look at one of my favorite graphs. [economist.com]
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(Score: 1) by arcz on Friday August 12 2016, @03:28PM
LSD is essentially prohibited because of the danger it poses to society as a whole. It's too easy to poison people with LSD.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 12 2016, @03:31PM
plz poison me bby
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(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Friday August 12 2016, @03:58PM
LSD is not poisonous in any fashion. It can only temporarily upset the chemical balance in the brain. It has no physically harmful side effects and leaves no trace of its consumption (after you get a haircut in about 3 months). It is indeed a harmless substance.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 12 2016, @06:46PM
Sorry, even pure LSD is a poison. So is every other drug. Including water...people have died from drinking too much water.
In all cases it is a matter of dosage. In some cases, e.g. Lead, there is no known safe level...but this doesn't mean that there isn't one, or that it might not even be needed. Look up "Milky White disease" for an example of a previously unsuspected deficiency disease.
That said, LSD readily hydrolyzes, so it's not a direct social danger the way sugar of lead is.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday August 12 2016, @07:41PM
LSD is essentially prohibited because people feel that it is okay to use government to force to violate people's fundamental liberties in the name of safety. This is hardly different from the attitude that says that mass surveillance is okay if it stops terrorists, which is false even if it does increase our security by a substantial amount.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @07:54PM
Only if you believe hippies and their "Peace and Love~" ideology is dangerous to society as a whole, which many people do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @03:03PM
Schedule II... what the fuck does that say that Marijuana is listed as more dangerous than drugs which have potentially immediate and lethal side effects (How often have you heard of someone dying as a direct result of smoking marijuana, short of maybe an asthma attack, which would affect cigarette smokes as well, and yet tobacco is minimally regulated?)
Another non-drug user here. I can however vouch to know plenty of higher functioning substance abusers, from alcohol and cigs to mariajuana and beyond. I don't agree with it, but I agree even less with the government manipulating us for it or business' own gains over that of its super-majority constituency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @07:28PM
I've observed that it can cause shit fits, hypertension, wild mood swings, psychopathic tendencies, and even violent outbursts in conservative and religious non-users.
More seriously there's been at least one self-inflicted death and one murder related to edibles in Colorado. Alcohol may have been involved in both as well.
I'd never tried edibles before until I found myself in Colorado and decided to give some baked goods a shot. It's not for me, but some people swear by it.
But yeah, nobody has ever died from something like cannabis poisoning. Compare to all the cases where somebody's 21st birthday is their last day on Earth.
One person I know is allergic and can break out in hives. I also know somebody with an allergy to bacon++ (well, pork), and we don't see Bible thumpers using that as a reason to ban pork. And how many millions (thousands?) of people are deathly allergic to peanuts or shellfish?
(Score: 2, Informative) by arcz on Friday August 12 2016, @03:15PM
Wrong!
Amphetamine is schedule II, THC (marijuwana) is schedule I.
Schedule I = Always illegal
Schedule II = Legal with a valid prescription with certain restrictions
Speaking as someone who takes amphetamines for treatment of a common disorder, I can assure you that amphetamine is indeed not as regulated as THC. THC is always illegal for usage under federal law, amphetamine is not.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Ellis D. Tripp on Friday August 12 2016, @04:23PM
Listed as "dronabinol", and available under the brand name "Marinol"
Whole plant cannabis is schedule I, in part because it isn't a patentable product for Big Pharma.
"Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you end up with a lot of scum on the top!"--Edward Abbey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @09:54PM
You can get your THC in a form that doesn't fill your lungs with tar, and the dosing will be far more accurate.
There is no medical justification for choosing the raw plant. We all know why you want this. You like the coolness factor, or you can't legitimately get a Marinol prescription. You want to have a giant bong at your party. This isn't a valid medical use.
There might be medical justification for the raw plant if Marinol didn't exist. Well, sorry, Marinol exists.
(Score: 2) by Ellis D. Tripp on Saturday August 13 2016, @12:15AM
Why whole plant cannabis? At least 3 reasons off the top of my head:
A major FDA-approved indication for Marinol is as an anti-emetic. Swallowing capsules isn't very useful when you keep throwing them back up.
You can easily titrate your dosage to get the desired effect when smoking or vaporizing. Not so much when swallowing a pill that takes an hour or more to take effect.
The synergistic effects of all the OTHER cannabinoids besides THC, such as CBD and THCV, which are NOT present in Marinol.
"Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you end up with a lot of scum on the top!"--Edward Abbey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @05:42AM
If the other compounds (CBD, THCV, etc.) are in fact medically useful, then they can get approved just like THC.
If faster action or non-swallowing is needed, then an IV version can get approved. Other options are patches, inhalers, and anal suppositories. If it is better, it can get approved.
You might complain that getting approval is expensive, but the same would apply to getting the raw plant approved. It's absurd to seek approval of the raw plant when it takes no more or less expense to approve the pure chemicals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @01:24PM
The barriers to approval are political, not scientific.
There is also no good reason for the plant to be on Schedule 1, even if weed is not a miracle medicine. Let the ATF rather than DEA/FDA regulate it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @03:20AM
>fill your lungs with tar
Forgot about vaping, huh?
>There might be medical justification for the raw plant if Marinol didn't exist.
http://www.theweedblog.com/why-marinol-is-not-as-good-as-real-marijuana/ [theweedblog.com]
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:37AM
You know, I knew at least one of those was going to be schedule Ii, but I was too lazy to look it up. :)
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @07:59PM
Both are, as cocaine is also schedule II [wikipedia.org].