cannabisnews.com: Why The DEA Just Said No 
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Why The DEA Just Said No 
Posted by CN Staff on August 11, 2016 at 09:57:57 PT
By Christopher Ingraham
Source: Washington Post
Washington, D.C. -- For the fourth consecutive time, the Drug Enforcement Administration has denied a petition to lessen federal restrictions on the use of marijuana.While recreational marijuana use is legal in four states and D.C., and medical applications of the drug have been approved in many more, under federal law, it remains a Schedule 1 controlled substance, which means it's considered to have "no currently accepted medical use" and a "high potential for abuse."
The gap between permissive state laws and a restrictive federal policy has become increasingly untenable in the minds of many doctors, patients, researchers, business owners and legislators.For instance, last fall, a Brookings Institution report slammed the federal government for "stifling medical research" in the area of marijuana policy. As a Schedule 1 drug, it's much harder for researchers to work with marijuana than with many other controlled substances. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called on the government to move marijuana into Schedule 2 to facilitate more research into medical uses.The current federal status of marijuana makes it impossible for state-legal marijuana businesses to take the same tax deductions afforded to other business, with some marijuana operations complaining that their effective tax rates are in the range of 60 percent to 90 percent, according to a Denver accountant who works with such businesses, Jordan Cornelius. Federal restrictions also make banks reluctant to work with marijuana businesses, leading many of them to become all-cash operations — with all the risks that entails.Just this week, the National Conference of State Legislatures, a group representing state lawmakers, called on the federal government to move marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2. The group criticized federal law for imposing "substantial administrative and operational burdens, compliance risk and regulatory risk that serve as a barrier to banks and credit unions providing banking services to businesses and individuals involved in the cannabis industry."Despite these concerns, the DEA today denied the petition, initiated by then-governors Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Christine Gregoire of Washington state in 2011, to loosen restrictions on the drug. In a letter to the petitioners, acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg explained the agency's ruling and offered a full-throated defense of federal marijuana policy."The FDA drug approval process for evaluating potential medicines has worked effectively in this country for more than 50 years," he wrote. "It is a thorough, deliberate and exacting process grounded in science, and properly so, because the safety of our citizens relies on it."Rosenberg went on to point out that according to the Food and Drug Administration, marijuana "does not have a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States."From a strictly legal standpoint, this is correct. The FDA has never approved whole-plant marijuana as a drug. It's also unlikely to do so, since most drugs the FDA approves of are individual chemical compounds, not plants.Penicillin is an FDA-approved drug, for instance. The mold it's derived from is not."If the scientific understanding about marijuana changes — and it could change — then the decision could change," Rosenberg wrote. "But we will remain tethered to science, as we must, and as the statute demands."Rosenberg also pointed out that marijuana's schedule status isn't a function of the relative "danger" posed by the drug. He explicitly wrote that marijuana is "less dangerous than some substances in other schedules" -- a departure from the official line held as recently as last year."That strikes some people as odd, but the criteria for inclusion in Schedule 1 is not relative danger," he wrote. Rather, it lies primarily with the medical designations discussed above.As the nation's top drug cop, Rosenberg's close, by-the-letter reading of the law makes sense. But it overlooks a wide range of research showing that marijuana, in whole plant form, can be effective at treating a wide array of ailments — chronic pain chief among them. This research is a major reason many states have gone ahead with their own medical marijuana policies in defiance of the federal government.Doctors generally say that they support giving marijuana to patients if it provides them relief from serious conditions. Many state legislatures — not wanting to stand between doctors and their patients — have enacted state legal frameworks allowing them to do so.Despite this, the DEA says it cannot change the legal status of marijuana unless the FDA determines it has a medical use. The FDA cannot determine it has a medical use in part because of the highly restrictive legal status of the drug. It's a classic bureaucratic Catch-22.The only body that can truly resolve this conflict, now, is Congress — by amending the Controlled Substances Act to treat marijuana differently. Most federal lawmakers seem to agree that this needs to happen, but there's disagreement on how to do it.More conservative approaches — championed even by some of Congress's most strident opponents of marijuana legalization, like Maryland's Rep. Andy Harris (R) -- would create a special carve-out for marijuana within Schedule 1. This would include a number of provisions making it easier for researchers to work with the drug.Another bill in the Senate would explicitly move marijuana to Schedule 2. Still other lawmakers — Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) most prominent among them — are calling for marijuana to be removed from the Controlled Substances Act completely.All of this is happening as a number of states — including California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Arizona — will vote on whether to legalize recreational marijuana this fall. If they do so, the gap between state and federal marijuana policy will grow even larger, creating even more confusion and headaches for the doctors, patients, researchers and businesses trying to thread the needle between the two.Christopher Ingraham writes about politics, drug policy and all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center. Source: Washington Post (DC)Author:  Christopher Ingraham Published: August 11, 2016Copyright: 2016 Washington Post CompanyContact: letters washpost.com Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ URL: http://drugsense.org/url/JMGgWz8dCannabisNews DEA Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/DEA.shtml 
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Comment #4 posted by John Tyler on August 12, 2016 at 07:17:54 PT
it's all politics
I am not surprised by the DEA’s finding. This is just another instance of politics over science. It was the politics of racism and narrow economic interest that made cannabis illegal in the first place, not science. In 1968 or so the Supreme ruled that the Marijuana Tax Act was unconstitutional. The Nixon administration created the DEA and all of the Schedules based on his on paranoid hateful views, and the big economic player. Nixon hated the dissenters and minorities. That is why all of the dissenters’ and minority’s favorites were put in Schedule I. He wanted to use it as a tool to oppress them, to crush them, to warehouse them in prisons. It was politics from day one to today.  The arch of history bends toward justice, I hope.
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Comment #3 posted by Sam Adams on August 12, 2016 at 06:30:16 PT
TASS coverage
the state of the corporate media is pathetic. we need analysis to figure out WHY the DEA does what it does? We're living under fascist, authoritian tyranny! at the pont of the gun, with a vast gulag of millions of prisoners. Beatings, torturing, rape, and disease like Hep C fill our prison sytems.The DEA's mission statement from Congress is to fight repeal of cannabis prohbition. None of these articles mention that. The DEA is doing exactly what's it been chartered to do by the ruthless government. The deep state.
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Comment #2 posted by John Tyler on August 11, 2016 at 19:43:25 PT
vote for legalization
I hope the DEA’s rejection of common sense will energize the public to vote for cannabis legalization in record numbers. 
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on August 11, 2016 at 17:48:36 PT
Bad dog.
The DEA response proves it is irrelevant and irresponsible.
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