Marijuana has been scheduled as a Schedule I drug since the 1970s. A Drug Enforcement Administration agent decided to give a newly cultivated cannabis plant to another officer near Entiant, Washington more than a decade ago. This happened on September 20, 2005. This April, the DEA stated that it would look over cannabis’s classification as a Schedule I, which makes it the “most dangerous,” along with drugs such as heroin.
While the DEA’s statement is good for cannabis advocates, there are many experts who believe that the agency will do nothing to change cannabis’s current classification, no matter how the public feels about the drug. The scheduling of the drug is determined by “acceptable medical use and … abuse or dependency potential.”
“DEA will carry out its assessment of the FDA recommendation in accordance with the [Controlled Substances Act] … and hopes to release its determination in the first half of 2016,” the DEA wrote to Democratic Senators.
“I certainly think it ought to be rescheduled,” former US Attorney General Eric Holder added. “You know, we treat marijuana in the same way we treat heroin now, and that clearly is not appropriate.”
This great amount of support clearly does not mean anything for the DEA. The agency is acting on “administrative requirement,” according to deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution, John Hudak.
“The advocacy community has suggested that DEA’s statement that they would decide on the Gregoire-Chafee rescheduling petition this summer is a sign that they are moving toward reforming policy with regard to marijuana,” Hudak said to Business Insider. “The reality is that DEA’s statement offers no such signal. The petition has been before the US government for about five years, and DEA has an obligation to rule with the regard to a basic question: Is cannabis properly scheduled?”
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If the DEA fails to either re-schedule or DROP cannabis from the drug scheduling altogether (because it’s a plant-like coffee!), they will only show their ignorance of the documented preventative and CURATIVE properties of this miracle plant. Not only is it NOT addictive, it’s NOT dangerous! I’d like to have some NAMES to contact about this issue since the people who have resisted telling the truth need to be recognized for who they are and their disservice and continued law enforcement abuse they are perpetrating on the citizens if the USA.