DEA Rejects Attempt To Loosen Federal Restrictions On Marijuana

[babylonsister]

Of course they did.

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/10/489509471/dea-rejects-attempt-to-loosen-federal-restrictions-on-marijuana?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160811


DEA Rejects Attempt To Loosen Federal Restrictions On Marijuana
August 10, 2016 9:30 PM ET
Carrie Johnson


The Obama administration has denied a bid by two Democratic governors to reconsider how it treats marijuana under federal drug control laws, keeping the drug for now, at least, in the most restrictive category for U.S. law enforcement purposes.

Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg says the decision is rooted in science. Rosenberg gave "enormous weight" to conclusions by the Food and Drug Administration that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States," and by some measures, it remains highly vulnerable to abuse as the most commonly used illicit drug across the nation.

"This decision isn't based on danger. This decision is based on whether marijuana, as determined by the FDA, is a safe and effective medicine," he said, "and it's not."

snip//

Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, said in a statement that the decision was disappointing.

"President Obama always said he would let science — and not ideology — dictate policy, but in this case his administration is upholding a failed drug war approach instead of looking at real, existing evidence that marijuana has medical value," he wrote.

Most Americans support legalization, Angell wrote, and the federal government should at a minimum leave regulatory decisions to the states.

snip//

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia allow some form of medical marijuana use, but the federal government has not taken that step despite prodding from federal lawmakers. Last month, the Democratic National Committee endorsed the idea of loosening federal restrictions on marijuana and "providing a reasoned platform for future legalization" in its platform.

For now, there remain two ways to change the federal government's classification of marijuana: for a host of federal agencies including the DEA and FDA to sign off; or for Congress to pass a law, and for the president to sign it.

Edit to add comment from Blue Bus Monitor/FB:

"The DEA says their decision is based on the FDA's assertion that Cannabis has no accepted medical use in treatment. Does alcohol have a "currently accepted medical use in treatment"?? Does tobacco have a "currently accepted medical use in treatment"?? What the hell does that have to do with it? We have a RIGHT to use that perfectly harmless herb and whether or not it has a medical use has never mattered about anything else. Why should it be applied as the test for Cannabis?! The DEA is acting on either ignorance or on pressure from the pharmaceutical industry or from the Religious Reich, or all three. Cannabis prohibition won't fully end until we get the big money out of politics."

[ms liberty]

1. Kick and rec. n/t

[TheBlackAdder]

63. Like all bureaucratic entities: Once you establish your fiefdom, you struggle to maintain funding.

[cali]

2. Grrr. How fucking backward.

[babylonsister]

3. Yep.

Maybe they need more time to figure out how big pharma can reap the financial bennies.

[kysrsoze]

52. What a bunch of buzzkills.

They'll probably reschedule it right after all 50 states have legalized.

[librechik]

67. +100

[GeorgeGist]

4. Idiocracy!

[Raster]

5. The DEA has a vested interest in keeping marijuana illegal...

...After all they've been an entire, U.S. Government department predicated on demonizing drugs, ESPECIALLY MARIJUANA.

[yeoman6987]

8. Wouldn't the federal government bring in more tax money on the sale of Marajuana?

Seems to me if they add 20 percent tax they'd make a bundle.

[Raster]

10. it could potentially... HOWEVER, the DEA is only concerned about maintaining the status quo...

...of their little fiefdom. God, the Father, could descend from Heaven and let everyone know he smokes week and thinks it's fine and dandy, and the DEA would still respond with the same old shtick.

[scscholar]

53. And the status quo is high alcohol taxes

I live across the street from one of those illegal stores, and I threw away two empty liquor bottles and half a dozen beer cans this morning. Bad drives bad.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. yes, but the DEA is protecting their own turf.

this decision is inexcusable.

And in answer to your question, in some of our states it is not hypothetical anymore. We're already seeing a tax bonanza from legal marijuana.

[bluedye33139]

6. I don't think the DEA should make this decision

I support legalization, and I believe that the legitimate route would be for Congress to revise the place of cannabis in federal law. I would not be comfortable with the DEA or any other agency making a decision that should be made by legislators representing the people.

Eventually, marijuana will be legalized. I live in a state with legal marijuana, and accept for a little litter around the weed shops, there appeared to be no negative consequences.

The idea of sneaking marijuana past the legal barrier by pretending it is medicine does not impress me. Marijuana should be legalized by legislators revising the statutes.

In my humble opinion.

[Calculating]

11. Congress doing something?

AHAHAHAHAHAHA

.....

Wait, You're serious? The only thing they do is conduct Benghazi hearings and obstruct progress.

[bluedye33139]

12. Yes, after a majority of states have legalized cannabis

I suspect it will be a lengthy process. I wouldn't expect it in the next 10 years, but I believe that this is the direction we are going.

As for my actual point, I am uncomfortable with agencies creating law by decree. It is a dangerous precedent that would give power to right-wing fanatics to erase statutes they disagree with. Congress is the proper body to address this question.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. it's not 'sneaking' anything. People get medical benefit from it AND people should be able to

use it recreationally if they're consenting adults.

Medical use laws highlight the ridiculousness of, say, SWAT teams dragging a terminally ill cancer patient off to prison in his wheelchair for smoking a joint. Which happens way too much.

And yes, if a terminally ill cancer patient should be able to decide what to put into his body, so should the rest of us.


But you are correct, the DEA shouldnt make the call, and they wont, anyway (clearly) because they have a vested interest in the status quo.

Unfortunately congress skews heavily and unfairly towards inherent social conservatism, because although the majority of Americans are progressive and liberal on social issues, those people are concentrated highly in certain congressional districts and under-represented by the inherent structure of the US Senate.

[bluedye33139]

42. I have always supported full legalization

The proponents of medical marijuana wanted to set up a system in which all of the criminal penalties would remain in place except for people who had a green card, which was often handed out to literally everyone who paid a hundred and fifty or $200 to a doctor issuing green cards. At least in the state of Washington. Full legalization wasn't much wiser than the medical marijuana ruse.

I recognize that there are medical benefits for glaucoma or appetite or nausea or pain control. I fully acknowledge these, and I acknowledge that dosing and purity are so uncontrollable with this drug that medical use is still in its very, very early stages. Full legalization would allow all patients to utilize cannabis as they and their providers see fit, without legal consequences.

It never made sense to me to allow patients to use a fairly unproven drug while punishing recreational users.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. I think the moral point was that one could easily argue to voters that sticking

granny in prison for smoking a joint to ease her chemo nausea, is fundamentally and deeply immoral.

It is ALSO immoral to stick any consenting adult in prison for smoking a joint, but that argument has taken longer to percolate into the public voting consciousness.

[bluedye33139]

48. Hence the campaign to sneak cannabis into use as a poorly regulated medicine

with Dr Feelgood Physicians pocketing $200 to hand out green cards to anyone who claimed have any disorder theoretically benefited by cannabis.

I was always for full legalization instead of that patchwork of laws.

[Warren DeMontague]

49. I think we're gonna get there.

But if it takes mmj reform in the interim to make people really think about how fucked up it is for government to be going into peoples living rooms and dragging them off to prison for taking a hit off a joint, well, then thats what it took.

[sarcasmo]

7. DEA worried about losing it's funding. Time for an executive order.

[6chars]

9. God bless Obama for standing up to the pothead wing

and keeping this Schedule 1, having no medical value and great potential for abuse, punishable by up to 20 years in jail. Hooray for our President, and for our next President Hillary Clinton who also says it should stay Schedule 1.

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Hillary, to her credit, has come out for rescheduling it to II.

I think it should be removed entirely, but II is a step in the right direction.

[6chars]

34. that is to her credit

Just today, right?

Schedule 2, like cocaine, is just a step.

maybe we can encourage her with a barrage of $4.20 donations.

[Warren DeMontague]

37. Nah, she took that position a while back, in the primaries

It's kind of the bare minimum imho but like I said elsewhere leadership from the states- like CA passing measure 64- is what ultimately will force progress on this thing.

[Chakab]

16. Executive order from whom? The sitting President who appointed the last two

anti-marijuana heads of the DEA or the Democratic candidate who thinks that we need to see "more research" before even having the discussion about rescheduling cannibus much less decriminalizing it?


I really hope that Trudeau and the Liberals here in Canada follow through and legalize marijuana next year. We need a major country to stand up and call bullshit on the madness that is the drug war.

[villager]

51. Many of his appointments have been absolute shit.

I hope the next President does better.

[SammyWinstonJack]

56. Hillary?

[MohRokTah]

13. Cannabis remaining a Schdeule 1 drug is how DEA agents keep their jobs.

There is a sick conflict of interests here.

[Calculating]

14. What does Hillary think of this issue?

Remain schedule 1?
Move to different schedule?
No comment?

[Chakab]

17. Her position is that there should be "more research" on marijuana before anything

can be done.

So, in plain English, she's for maintaining the status quo.

[Calculating]

21. I see

Basically the underwhelming "I don't wanna talk about this issue because I might lose big pharma/big prison campaign money and family values voters" answer. We've had nearly 100 years of 'research' and all of it has pointed to cannabis being less harmful than existing legal things such as alcohol.

[Chakab]

46. Pretty much.

[TheSarcastinator]

15. to quote the great Upton Sinclair:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

I wasn't confident about the rescheduling, anyway: the DEA is full of career Prohibitionists and administrative cowards. The change to federal law will have to come from a massive grassroots (!) movement of the people, just as it has in the states.

[Rex]

18. Fuck the DEA, their own people say it is a horrible organization that needs to go away.

Who gives a shit if it has medical uses! Does beer have medical uses? Geezus, the DEA is such a worthless organization!

Their War on Poor Folks has worked out great for their steady paychecks...

[wildbilln864]

20. nailed it! thank you and fuck the DEA! N/T

[Calculating]

22. Fuck the DEA

The whole organization is a borderline useless pile of crap only interested in protecting their own livelihoods,and those of big pharma, Law enforcement and the prison industry. The whole agency needs to be disbanded for blatant corruption and conflicts of interest.

[Rex]

23. When there own top folks quit and turn against then to the point of advocating how to hide drugs

if you just a working stiff...you know the agency itself must be worthless.

"DEA couldn't get any dope from Miguel (not his true name) not even a sample. So they charge the poor bastard with a no-dope Conspiracy did you ever hear of anything like that? A parking lot attendant on a no- dope Conspiracy? Then they bring in a DEA expert from Washington to testify that a true Class One doper doesn't give samples. You and I both know that's bullshit, don't we?"

His words flashed me back to an incident I described in The Big White Lie. It was July 4, 1980, and I was in a suite at the Buenos Aires Sheraton, sitting across a table from one of the biggest dopers alive, Hugo Hurtado Candia, as he handed me a one ounce sample of his merchandise ninety-nine percent pure cocaine as a prelude to a huge cocaine deal. The man was part of a cartel that was two weeks away from taking over his whole country.

The lawyer was right: it was pure bullshit, but it was the kind of bullshit I had always been aware of. There's enormous career pressure on street agents to make as many Class One cases as they can, for a simple reason: Federal agencies justify their budgets with statistical reports to Congress and Congress loves to see Class Ones. The agents with the highest percentage of Class Ones are the guys who get money awards and promotions. And over the years the professional rats, who originate more than 95 percent of all drug cases, had learned that selling a Class One to the government was worth a much bigger "reward" payment. A lot of them knew the DEA Agents Manual criteria for a One better than a lot of the agents."

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cjs13.htm

[spanone]

19. reefer madness at it's highest level

[MindPilot]

24. By that logic my Mom's grilled cheese sandwiches should be banned.

Completely harmless, good for everything from a skinned knee to the common cold, but not FDA approved.

To the DEA's very limited credit, they have at least realized that the public no longer buys into the "it's gonna kill us all !!11!1" hysteria, so now it is the twisted and ultimately circular logic of it's not approved, so it can't be approved.

How come whenever republicans talk about shrinking government, the DEA (and for that matter the TSA) are never on their lists?

[Egnever]

25. This is going to come to a head during Clinton's presidency.

After Colorado and Washingtons success with legalizing it there are I think 6 more states with votes to legalize this year. Some of these are going to pass.

I doubt we are more than 8 years from many states doing the same and when more have legalized than haven't this is going to become a huge problem for the DEA.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Oregon is having success with legal marijuana, too.

I know we're easy to forget but our rollout has perhaps been the most successful of all.

[Egnever]

61. Did not intend to leave anyone out

No offense meant to Oregon

[Johonny]

26. How likely is it to gain an accepted medical use if it remains enforced by the DEA

If your research is so limited then its never going to gain any application. Meanwhile at the state level it seems to be gaining tons of self-medicated uses which would seem to be a wealth of potential information as to its effective use...

[Warren DeMontague]

27. there are multiple ways to reschedule or deschedule it. Congress can do it, the executive can do it

expecting the DEA to do it is silly; they like their funding.

[joshcryer]

40. Indeed, the DEA doesn't want to lose their status quo.

But once the next dozen states legalize (best case) it's going to be interesting.

[Warren DeMontague]

43. I think if CA legalizes, that alone will force some kind of change. I hope.

50 million people all up and down the west coast cannot be ignored forever.

[joshcryer]

45. I forget CA is like the world's second largest economy.

Or something like that (if it was it's own country), and you are probably right. The entire Pacific coast would be legal. That's some enormous pressure.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. they also say it has "no safety level". BULLSHIT. DEA jude Francis Young, 1988:

it has no safety "level" because it's NOT DANGEROUS AT ALL, maybe.


http://www.ccguide.org/young88.php

Point 3. The most obvious concern when dealing with drug safety is the possibility of lethal effects. Can the drug cause death?

4. Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.

5. This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death.

6. By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.

7. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana's LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.

8. At present it is estimated that marijuana's LD-50 is around

1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in onemarijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.

9. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.

10. Another common medical way to determine drug safety is called the therapeutic ratio. This ratio defines the difference between a therapeutically effective dose and a dose which is capable of inducing adverse effects.

11. A commonly used over-the-counter product like aspirin has a therapeutic ratio of around 1:20. Two aspirins are the recommended dose for adult patients. Twenty times this dose, forty aspirins, may cause a lethal reaction in some patients, and will almost certainly cause gross injury to the digestive system, including extensive internal bleeding.

12. The therapeutic ratio for prescribed drugs is commonly around 1:10 or lower. Valium, a commonly used prescriptive drug, may cause very serious biological damage if patients use ten times the recommended (therapeutic) dose.

13. There are, of course, prescriptive drugs which have much lower therapeutic ratios. Many of the drugs used to treat patients with cancer, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis are highly toxic. The therapeutic ratio of some of the drugs used in antineoplastic therapies, for example, are regarded as extremely toxic poisons with therapeutic ratios that may fall below 1:1.5. These drugs also have very low LD-50 ratios and can result in toxic, even lethal reactions, while being properly employed.



14. By contrast, marijuana's therapeutic ratio, like its LD-50, is impossible to quantify because it is so high.

15. In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.

16. 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 a supervised routine of medical care."

[PoutrageFatigue]

33. How progressive...

[aikoaiko]

35. Thanks Obama.

Actually I am surprised he hasn't evolved on weed. I really can't believe he thinks weed should be illegal.

[Calculating]

36. He doesn't

He's the one stopping the DEA from cracking down on states with legal cannabis. Obama just hasn't done much as far as actually changing federal law is concerned. He's just tacking a very passive approach.

[Chakab]

47. He's also the one appointing these agency heads that have policy positions that are totally contrary

to the ones that he states in public.

He wouldn't have to restrain the DEA from cracking down on dispensaries if he'd made it a priority to charge the agency's culture from day one instead of reappointing that imbecile that Bush originally appointed and letting them crackdown on dispensaries for five years before taking any action.

This nonsense is on Obama. He knows the prohibition is bullshit and has done almost nothing to bring it to an end for the sake of political expediency. Hillary will be no different.

[nationalize the fed]

38. "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,"

BULL FUCKING SHIT

All someone has to do to realize that this statement is a total lie is look at the US PATENT ON THE USE OF THE MAIN INGREDIENT.

One would think that a "reporter" could do something simple like this. But apparently not.

United States Patent 6,630,507
Hampson , et al. October 7, 2003

Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants

Assignee:The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC)

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6630507.PN.&OS=PN/6630507&RS=PN/6630507

This has been posted over and over again. But apparently few people understand the significance of it, or this war on the plant would be ended immediately. The Feds have been caught in a lie- it's right there at USPTO.GOV

A piece of this patent 6630507 has been assigned to a company called http://kannalife.com

When was the last time the Feds told the truth about anything.

[AgadorSparticus]

39. Such bullshit. There are plenty of clinical studies that prove the

Scientific medical effects of medical marijuana. It has been published over and over. This is about economics and the fda/Dea are showing us who they are enslaved to.

[joshcryer]

41. Surprise, administration that gets loads of funding for prohibition wants it to stay.

We had a very similar push back when alcohol was prohibited (Ken Burns did a great documentary on it).

[Warren DeMontague]

68. Yeah, I read recently that the last year of alcohol prohibition saw as many raids and arrests as all

the previous years, combined.

Maybe getting the last bits of gravy out of the gravy train.

[Shandris]

50. The DEA guy said it was 'based on science'.

I suppose that's all we really need to hear. We don't want to be anti-science like all those silly conspiracy theorists! They'd probably claim something silly like how there's 'counterevidence' that weed can have good outcomes for some people, believing all that conspiracy 'woo' crap.

Thank goodness Science and Reason (tm 2016, all rights reserved) have carried the day!

((If I need the tag, you need professional help. ))

[Warren DeMontague]

55. more like math.

As in, they like their $$$$$budget and if they lose marijuana, there goes most of their rationale for even existing.

[SticksnStones]

54. Interesting article in High Times

Regarding the legal framework of declassifying marijuana. The author's take is basically that the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) which provides the framework for the DEA in this matter, lacks the teeth to be able to make the change and instead offers a non-challengeable way to keep turning down requests to reclassify.

Nonetheless, the decision not to reschedule marijuana is good news for the marijuana reform movement as it utterly discredits the use of the CSA as a regulatory model for cannabis and sends a clear signal to Congress that new legislation is needed to legalize and regulate marijuana in the United States.

The CSA serves to provide a regulatory framework for proprietary pharmaceutical drugs, which, because of their abuse potential, have a risk of being diverted from regulated to unregulated markets. The CSA can only be effective for drugs with two characteristics: they are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies with limited and easily monitored production, and they are subject to rigorous and capital-extensive clinical studies under supervision of the Food and Drug Administration.

Marijuana does not have these characteristics, and this is why it will not be removed from Schedule I of the CSA by the DEA.

snip//

To many, this creates an obvious paradox—because the drug doesn’t fit the conventional form of a pharmaceutical drug and is widely accepted and used by the public as an effective drug, it can’t be recognized as a drug under the standards embedded in the Controlled Substances Act by Congress. The problem here is not with marijuana, nor with the decisions made by the public, but instead with the standards created by Congress.

Thus, the only remedy to this conflict is for Congress to remove marijuana from the CSA and regulate it via more appropriate legislation.

NSFW link to High Times (I only get it for the articles, I don't look at the pictures )

http://hightimes.com/culture/pot-matters-inside-the-deas-latest-refusal-to-reschedule-marijuana-pt-1/

[Nevernose]

57. I haven't read HT regularly for a long time

Because I do so much reading on my phone and their mobile page was awful, like a bad website from 1999.

I clicked the link, though, and they've really upped their online game. They may have a regular reader again!

[SticksnStones]

59. Yeah, their site has really evolved technically

And some of the writing is really quite good, thought provoking - along side of course, with what I call 'pot porn'. The "my bud's bigger than yours" pix...

[Calculating]

64. Their mistake is assuming

That congress will EVER do anything useful for this country. Congress will exist solely to obstruct progress until we take it back from the republicans.

[SticksnStones]

65. Agreed, although

I could see some republicans getting behind the profit making aspect of the cannabis industry. Legalization would create a lot of jobs.

As the power of the evangelical vote continues to diminish as monolithic voting block, I think we'll see fewer republican politicians voting their morals and instead voting their wallets.

That said, I do see the author's point that it's really up to congress to step in and declassify and lay some federal regulatory groundwork - like allowing some kind of banking - rather than have this never ending cycle of petitioning the DEA only to have them, once again, come out on the side of their own best interests: status quo.

[malaise]

58. Well that would make their jobs obsolete

[Oneironaut]

60. What do you want to do, take profits away from the Prison Industrial Complex?

Where will their slaves come from now?

[6chars]

62. fascinating medical research outside the u.s.

http://m.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/The-Israeli-man-who-dismantled-marijuana-to-pieces-463129

"The revealing of the active ingredient in cannabis brought therefore to the finding of a novel system, and here lays the greatness of the scientific discovery."

interesting.

[Vattel]

66. When it comes to illegal drugs, Obama and Clinto need to look at the evidence.

I don't know why this is so hard for them.