The DEA has recently announced that they may re-schedule cannabis during the first half of 2016.
This new decision will be in response to a letter written last year by the eight Democratic senators, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. These senators were writing to dispute the fact that despite its medical use in many U.S. states, the DEA still technically deems that the plant has “no accepted medical use,” and classifies it as a Schedule I drug. The senators included case studies of many sick patients, and urged the DEA to consider the medical benefits of the substance and reschedule so that more research can be conducted on its medical value.
While the letter did not make any definite promises about rescheduling, it vowed to take another look at the substance’s current schedule, and seriously consider a change.
“DEA understands the widespread interest in the prompt resolution to these petitions and hopes to release its determination in the first half of 2016,” the letter stated.
The letter went into detail about the legal cannabis available in the government’s only federally legal marijuana garden in Mississippi, which will be used when the FDA conducts further tests to determine if they deem cannabis to have medical value.
While this all sounds promising, this isn’t the first time the DEA has been asked to reschedule, and has conducted research to determine if a new classification is in order. The organization reconsidered their classification in 2001, and then again in 2006. Both times, they determined that it should stay a Schedule I substance.
Tom Angell, founder of a cannabis reform group called Marijuana Majority, feels that it is definitely time for cannabis to be re-classified.
“Almost half the states in the country have medical cannabis laws and major groups like the American Nurses Association and the American College of Physicians are on board,” he explained in an official Marijuana Majority statement.
While only a small step in the right direction, a rescheduling of the substance will make it easy for patients to access the medicine, and allow addition research to be done on marijuana’s many uses.
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