The Drug Enforcement Administration is enduring perhaps the most pronounced round of criticism in its 43 year-history, after a widely discredited decision last week to keep treating marijuana as the most dangerous drug on the planet.
Last week, the DEA denied two petitions seeking to change cannabis’ official federal designation as a schedule 1 drug — a label reserved for drugs with ‘no medical use and a high potential for abuse’.
Pot is considered by the federal government to be as dangerous as heroin or LSD, and more dangerous than prescription painkillers, which cause dozens of fatal overdoses a day. Cannabis has no lethal overdose. About 48 percent of Americans have tried weed once, and about 33 million are regularly users of it.
Rosenberg countered that pot’s schedule 1 status was no longer about its inherent danger, but rather its lack of accepted medical use.
DEA critics from Washington DC to the heartland are now blasting the DEA, calling the ruling “hypocrisy”, “absurd”, “heartless” and 2016’s version of the “flat Earth” theory.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s camp immediately stated Clinton would, as president, downgrade cannabis’ status to schedule 2.
“Marijuana is already being used for medical purposes in states across the country, and it has the potential for even further medical use,” Maya Harris, a senior policy advisor to Clinton’s campaign, said in a statement, reported by The Denver Post. “As Hillary Clinton has said throughout this campaign, we should make it easier to study marijuana so that we can better understand its potential benefits, as well as its side effects.”
More than half of polled physicians say cannabis should be legal. Bay Area Congresswoman Barbara Lee tweeted:
“Politicians aren’t doctors or scientists. Marijuana research prohibitions are outdated, unscientific, & dangerous for those who need #MMJ.
Trauma neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta, writing for CNN, called the DEA ruling a danger to countless people who will be denied potential therapies from cannabis research.
Dr. Gupta called the decision hypocrisy, and cited the DEA’s own judge, who almost 30 years ago ruled, “In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care.”
The Los Angeles Times editorial board — usually reticent to support pot-related reforms — put the DEA on blast, saying the decision was based on “a bizarre circular logic” that amounts to “a different kind of reefer madness. … The DEA opted to keep its policies mired in the 1970s, which will only exacerbate the growing divide between the states and feds.”
The San Francisco Chronicle’s relatively conservative columnist Debra Saunders opined that “really, how can drug warriors who want to make it harder to prescribe opioids also want to make pain-alleviating medical marijuana off-limits? There is only one reason to cling to the status quo — willful institutional blindness.”
Saunders blames President Obama, and said she will vote for California legalization Proposition 64 this Fall. Prop 64 would direct $2 million per year to study medical cannabis in California, beyond the reach of federal prohibition.
California Rep. Sam Farr expressed disappointment at the ruling, noting in a statement that there’s the federal catch-22 for marijuana.
“One of the main reasons the DEA said it won’t reclassify marijuana is because there aren’t enough studies showing if marijuana has medicinal benefits. What’s frustrating is that because the DEA says marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug, it’s extremely difficult for medical researchers to access the drug to study it!” Rep. Farr stated.
NORML deputy director Paul Armentano noted that “ample scientific evidence already exists to remove cannabis from its schedule I classification and to acknowledge its relative safety compared to other scheduled substances, like opioids, and unscheduled substances, such as alcohol.” He called the DEA’s decision a “flat Earth” policy.
And the Cannabis Business Alliance noted that the DEA profits from federal drug war funding and asset forfeitures related to cannabis prohibition, and so cannot make an unbiased decision about the plant.
“The DEA has a vested financial interest in maintaining the prohibition of marijuana and furthering the war against it, which has locked up millions, destroyed countless lives, and squandered hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. States with legal marijuana understand the safe nature of this plant and its therapeutic benefit to many patients. The American people have accepted marijuana in mainstream society and the question should not be one of rescheduling this plant, but rather, how do we effectively regulate cannabis in a de-scheduled world,” stated Cannabis Business Alliance Executive Director Mark Slaugh.
Oakland dispensary operator Steve DeAngelo called the DEA’s decision “absurd and heartless”, and echoed criticism of bias in the DEA.
“The only possible explanation for this travesty is the DEA’s desire to preserve bloated drug war budgets and militarized policing like we saw in Ferguson. One viewing of the dozens of videos of children with intractable epilepsy being treated with cannabis makes it’s therapeutic power immediately evident.
“Apparently the DEA either lacks access to You Tube, or the decency to consider the misery they are inflicting on millions of their fellow citizens.
“The cannabis reform movement will never back down. Our own lives and health, and the lives and health of our families and neighbors are at stake. We are sick and tired of a broken health care system that foists dangerous pharmaceuticals upon us while denying us the safest and most therapeutic of medicines.
We will not rest and we will not stop until the last cannabis prisoner is free.”
About 700,000 Americans will be arrested for marijuana this year. Pot arrests are the leading type of drug arrest in the nation, and drug arrests are the most frequent arrests police make in America. Blacks in the U.S. have about are arrested at almost four times the rates of white for pot, despite similar levels of use, the ACLU reports.
http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2016/08/15/deas-pot-ruling-slammed-by-lawmakers-doctors-advocates/
Last week, the DEA denied two petitions seeking to change cannabis’ official federal designation as a schedule 1 drug — a label reserved for drugs with ‘no medical use and a high potential for abuse’.
Pot is considered by the federal government to be as dangerous as heroin or LSD, and more dangerous than prescription painkillers, which cause dozens of fatal overdoses a day. Cannabis has no lethal overdose. About 48 percent of Americans have tried weed once, and about 33 million are regularly users of it.
Rosenberg countered that pot’s schedule 1 status was no longer about its inherent danger, but rather its lack of accepted medical use.
DEA critics from Washington DC to the heartland are now blasting the DEA, calling the ruling “hypocrisy”, “absurd”, “heartless” and 2016’s version of the “flat Earth” theory.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s camp immediately stated Clinton would, as president, downgrade cannabis’ status to schedule 2.
“Marijuana is already being used for medical purposes in states across the country, and it has the potential for even further medical use,” Maya Harris, a senior policy advisor to Clinton’s campaign, said in a statement, reported by The Denver Post. “As Hillary Clinton has said throughout this campaign, we should make it easier to study marijuana so that we can better understand its potential benefits, as well as its side effects.”
More than half of polled physicians say cannabis should be legal. Bay Area Congresswoman Barbara Lee tweeted:
“Politicians aren’t doctors or scientists. Marijuana research prohibitions are outdated, unscientific, & dangerous for those who need #MMJ.
Trauma neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta, writing for CNN, called the DEA ruling a danger to countless people who will be denied potential therapies from cannabis research.
Dr. Gupta called the decision hypocrisy, and cited the DEA’s own judge, who almost 30 years ago ruled, “In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care.”
The Los Angeles Times editorial board — usually reticent to support pot-related reforms — put the DEA on blast, saying the decision was based on “a bizarre circular logic” that amounts to “a different kind of reefer madness. … The DEA opted to keep its policies mired in the 1970s, which will only exacerbate the growing divide between the states and feds.”
The San Francisco Chronicle’s relatively conservative columnist Debra Saunders opined that “really, how can drug warriors who want to make it harder to prescribe opioids also want to make pain-alleviating medical marijuana off-limits? There is only one reason to cling to the status quo — willful institutional blindness.”
Saunders blames President Obama, and said she will vote for California legalization Proposition 64 this Fall. Prop 64 would direct $2 million per year to study medical cannabis in California, beyond the reach of federal prohibition.
California Rep. Sam Farr expressed disappointment at the ruling, noting in a statement that there’s the federal catch-22 for marijuana.
“One of the main reasons the DEA said it won’t reclassify marijuana is because there aren’t enough studies showing if marijuana has medicinal benefits. What’s frustrating is that because the DEA says marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug, it’s extremely difficult for medical researchers to access the drug to study it!” Rep. Farr stated.
NORML deputy director Paul Armentano noted that “ample scientific evidence already exists to remove cannabis from its schedule I classification and to acknowledge its relative safety compared to other scheduled substances, like opioids, and unscheduled substances, such as alcohol.” He called the DEA’s decision a “flat Earth” policy.
And the Cannabis Business Alliance noted that the DEA profits from federal drug war funding and asset forfeitures related to cannabis prohibition, and so cannot make an unbiased decision about the plant.
“The DEA has a vested financial interest in maintaining the prohibition of marijuana and furthering the war against it, which has locked up millions, destroyed countless lives, and squandered hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. States with legal marijuana understand the safe nature of this plant and its therapeutic benefit to many patients. The American people have accepted marijuana in mainstream society and the question should not be one of rescheduling this plant, but rather, how do we effectively regulate cannabis in a de-scheduled world,” stated Cannabis Business Alliance Executive Director Mark Slaugh.
Oakland dispensary operator Steve DeAngelo called the DEA’s decision “absurd and heartless”, and echoed criticism of bias in the DEA.
“The only possible explanation for this travesty is the DEA’s desire to preserve bloated drug war budgets and militarized policing like we saw in Ferguson. One viewing of the dozens of videos of children with intractable epilepsy being treated with cannabis makes it’s therapeutic power immediately evident.
“Apparently the DEA either lacks access to You Tube, or the decency to consider the misery they are inflicting on millions of their fellow citizens.
“The cannabis reform movement will never back down. Our own lives and health, and the lives and health of our families and neighbors are at stake. We are sick and tired of a broken health care system that foists dangerous pharmaceuticals upon us while denying us the safest and most therapeutic of medicines.
We will not rest and we will not stop until the last cannabis prisoner is free.”
About 700,000 Americans will be arrested for marijuana this year. Pot arrests are the leading type of drug arrest in the nation, and drug arrests are the most frequent arrests police make in America. Blacks in the U.S. have about are arrested at almost four times the rates of white for pot, despite similar levels of use, the ACLU reports.
http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2016/08/15/deas-pot-ruling-slammed-by-lawmakers-doctors-advocates/
