“This change illustrates DEA’s commitment to working together with the FDA and NIDA [National Institute on Drug Abuse] to facilitate research concerning marijuana and its components”, the agency said in a statement.
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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is disappointing cannabis advocates this week, claiming there’s not enough evidence that the drug has medical value and refusing to reschedule it.
Schedule-2 drugs are chemicals defined as drugs with a high abuse potential – or chemicals that can lead to severe psychological or physical dependence, like cocaine, meth, adderall, and Ritalin. The decision means that pot will remain illegal for any objective under federal law, despite laws in 25 states and District of Columbia that have legalized pot for either medicinal or recreational use.
Rosenberg also said the DEA is still open to permitting legitimate scientific research of marijuana, which will now be a bit easier thanks to the new research policy announced Wednesday. “It certainly would be odd to rely on science when it suits us and ignore it otherwise”. The decision-long-awaited by pot businesses-means marijuana remains in the same category as substances such as heroin and LSD.
Marijuana has been classified by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Schedule I drug for almost 50 years.
Although several states, including IL, have medical marijuana policies in place, the DEA asserts that “there is no evidence that there is a consensus among qualified experts that marijuana is safe and effective for use in treating a specific, recognized disorder”. For various reasons, none of the trials demonstrated “an accepted medical use”, the agency concluded.
People have argued marijuana does have medical use – medical marijuana is legal in half the country’s states, after all. The agency said the change will allow researchers “a more varied and robust supply” of the drug.
The Thursday announcement went public after being published in the Federal Register on Friday. OR legalized pot previous year.
Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing medical use of marijuana.
The DEA is expanding research on medicinal use of the plant and “that’s what this [ruling] does.”
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The federal government announced it will continue to treat marijuana the same as many other illegal drugs.
