The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) released a memo to a legislator estimating that before July, marijuana may be reclassified. Good news for those who believe in marihuana’s medical benefits.
According to The Washington Post, drugs, substance or chemicals denominated as Schedule I by the DEA are the most dangerous drugs, they, of course, are no currently accepted for medical use and are considered that they have a big potential for abuse and severe psychological or physical dependence. Since 1970, this is the way the DEA classifies marijuana, which has being criticized through scientific research, public opinion, medical use, and state law.
According to the DEA’s classification, weed is supposed to be more addictive and dangerous than Vicodin and OxyContin (Schedule II), Ketamine (Schedule III), and Xanax and Valium (Schedule IV).
The American Academy of Pediatrics has called on the DEA to change the drug’s scheduling status, pleading to its potential to treat a number of serious diseases, such as chronic pain and epilepsy. People as well has been asking the government to declare legal the marihuana, or at least to change its status, claiming that medical marijuana it’s become popular and have been having a lot of success.
For now, laws are only allowing the University of Mississippi to control weed for studying. “Because of this monopoly, research-grade drugs that meet researchers’ specifications often take years to acquire, if they are produced at all.”, a Brookings Institute report argued.
Americans are likely to the legalization of marijuana
Even five years ago, 50% of Americans were in favor of legalizing marijuana. Now, with the release of the memo that promises to reevaluate the scheduling, the fact that the news it’s been trending on Facebook all day long, shows that most of the Americans still support the legalization.
Is not secret the embracement of weed in American culture, there’s plenty TV shows and series where people talk openly about it and that’s prove enough. Some states have even legalized for recreational use and some other are following their steps.
Even when medical research is the main reason why so many groups get involved with the cause for rescheduling marijuana, it’s possible that the discussion for fully legalizing marijuana may be opened soon.
Source: MediaITE
Cannabis should not be scheduled at all, let alone be 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.