The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday denied requests to stop classifying marijuana as a unsafe drug with no medical use, leaving users and businesses in limbo after many states have legalized it for medical or recreational purposes.
Advertisement
But the agency did agree to expand the number of manufactures registered to supply marijuana for research purposes.
A drug can be reclassified through congressional legislation or a formal scheduling petition process that involves medical and scientific evaluation by the FDA and DEA. In a statement, Gov. Jay Inslee expressed his frustration saying there is not a national standard for medical marijuana.
“This decision isn’t based on danger”, DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg told NPR.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., praised the decision to allow more facilities to cultivate marijuana for research but said the decision doesn’t go far enough. “It’s not right or fair”. Doctors and businesses growing, selling or prescribing cannabis may be operating legally within a given state, but still acting in opposition to federal law, risking arrest and sanctions.
The policy change was made following a letter signed by eight senators, calling on the DEA to support more research about the medical benefits of marijuana.
The DEA is, however, allowing the increased study of marijuana by permitting more institutions to grow pot plants for research. It’s unclear how many more universities will receive licenses to grow marijuana, The New York Times reported.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated which Washington governor asked the DEA to reclassify the drug.
He also noted that many people misconstrue the controlled-substance scheduling regime as a ranking of drugs’ relative dangers.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, according to commentators, marijuana being a Schedule I substance (meaning that by definition it had “no now accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse”), there were significant hurdles to in the way of its use for research.
