A Breakthrough For Marijuana Research?

The one simple thing the federal government could do with respect to marijuana would be to reclassify it. As this blog has banged on about for years, the FDA’s classification of the drug as having no medical use at all and as dangerous as heroin is not just wrong; it’s insane. It violates everything we know about the drug – both in theory and practice. The usual excuse of the feds is that they don’t have enough research to come to a different conclusion, while their classification of pot as a Schedule 1 drug makes research extremely hard. So the feds have had a lovely little circular engine for maintaining Prohibition for many years now.

If you want a devastating exposure of the DEA’s anti-scientific know-nothingness, check out this exchange in the Congress from last year. Congressman Jared Polis interrogates the acting head of the DEA, Michele Leonhardt:

Perhaps because of this – and because of a huge surge in research over the last several years – things may now be changing:

U.S. regulators are studying whether restrictions on marijuana should be eased, a step toward decriminalizing the drug at the federal level.

The Food and Drug Administration is conducting an analysis at the Drug Enforcement Administration’s request on whether the U.S. should downgrade the classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, said Douglas Throckmorton, Deputy Director for Regulatory Programs at the FDA, at a congressional hearing … Throckmorton wouldn’t say when he expected the FDA to complete the analysis or whether it would recommend a change.

It seems to me that whatever side of the legalization debate you are on, having the government actually basing its policies on science rather than phobias is a good thing. At some point, if this continues, the federal government that currently regards marijuana as having no medical use at all may finally catch up to a country where 22 states have already legalized the drug as medication. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. The circular logic of Prohibition takes some time to leave the bureaucratic mind.