Last Friday, the Obama Administration’s DEA finally replied to a 9 year old request to reschedule marijuana out of Schedule I in the Controlled Substances Act. The response was as predictable as it was insane.
We stop being surprised by this stuff, and all weekend I was at a loss to even know what to write about this, but it begs us to take a step back and look at just how completely bonkers the anti-drug establishment in this country has become. The report claims that marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use, and that it lacks even accepted safety for use under medical supervision.
Just to make this as clear as possible, the American Medical Association has already asked the Federal Government to review its classification after concluding that it has some medicinal benefits that scientists should research further. As far back as 1999, our own government’s Institute of Medicine concluded that there were only mild safety concerns with the drug if it wasn’t smoked – which it doesn’t have to be. A European company called GW Pharmaceuticals already produces a medicine called Sativex directly from marijuana plants that’s used in the UK, Canada, and now Germany for MS patients. And to top it off, the Federal Government’s own Department of Health and Human Services holds a patent on the plant’s medicinal compounds.
But even beyond all that, this is the Obama Administration’s DEA – led by someone, Michele Leonhart, who he appointed – saying publicly that they think that marijuana is a more dangerous drug than cocaine, opium, oxycodone, and methamphetamine, all drugs found in Schedule II; which means that – unlike marijuana – it can be safely used with a doctor’s supervision. We can laugh all we want at the crazy shit that Michele Bachmann says, but she’s never said anything close to as crazy as that. And this is coming from the administration who came into office in 2009 saying that they were going to put science ahead of ideology?
