Now that I have had some time to think about this and get over the initial disgust with the DEA’s decision, I feel I can talk about it. On August 11th, the DEA rejected a petition to reschedule marijuana. Truthfully this is not really a shocker, but their tunnel vision on the plant is painfully obvious, or as Paul Armentano puts it, their “flat earth” position.
In a letter to the petitioners, acting DEA administrator Chuck Rosenberg clarified the DEA’s decision to not reschedule the plant and leave it grouped with drugs like heroin, which is “exponentially dangerous” which are his words by the way, and that marijuana less dangerous, once again his words. In the letter he clearly states that drugs are not classified the way they are based on relative danger, rather scheduling is based on medical and scientific evidence. Essentially, what he is saying is there is no medical benefit, and that there is no scientific evidence to prove that the plant should be rescheduled. So… they left it where it was—schedule 1—alongside heroin.
Like I said, not really a shocker but there is a bright side here…
The DEA left the door open for research; the reason that there is no scientific evidence (which there is) is because the government has not allowed it (they do, they just make it rather difficult to do so). Mr. Rosenberg went on to say that “research is the bedrock of science, and we will—as we have for many years—support and promote the legitimate research regarding marijuana and its constituent parts.” I smell bullshit here, but that’s okay.
You see, there are many medical benefits to be obtained from using marijuana—ask any number of cancer patients who have used it, ask any number of people who suffer from chronic pain who use it; ask anyone who has been seizure free because of it, ask someone who suffers from PTSD who uses it—they will tell you about how it has measurably improved their quality of life.
Now with all that said, I think that we need to stop trying to legalize it as a medicine—we just need to legalize it; de-schedule it like alcohol and tobacco. Is there any medical and scientific evidence that vodka is safe? Relatively. Is there any medical or scientific evidence that Marlboro’s are safe? Relatively. I would say that, if anything marijuana is relatively as safe—if not safer—than alcohol and tobacco.
