Marijuana has a lower potential for abuse than other drugs that are subjected to the same restrictions, with scientific support for its use as a medical treatment, researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration say in documents supporting its reclassification as a Schedule III substance.
Marijuana is currently classified as Schedule I, reserved for the most dangerous controlled substances, including heroin and LSD. In 2022, President Joe Biden asked US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and the attorney general to begin the administrative process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Rachel Levine wrote a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration in August in which she supported the reclassification to Schedule III, a list that includes “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence” such as ketamine, testosterone and Tylenol with codeine.
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Rescheduling marijuana could open up more avenues for research, allow cannabis businesses to bank more freely and openly, and have firms no longer subject to a 40-year-old tax code that disallows credits and deductions from income generated by sales of Schedule I and II substances.
Even naming heroin and LSD in the same breath is laughably unhinged
America, where opening your mind is considered just as dangerous as ruining your life and health.
Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.
Terence McKenna
“Fuck the drug war. Dropping acid was a profound turning point for me, a seminal experience. I make no apologies for it. More people should do acid. It should be sold over the counter.”
George Carlin
I took acid once. I giggled a lot and led my friends on an “adventure” into my backyard where we played hacky sack until it got dark enough to watch the stars. It was awful! You don’t want no part of this shit, Dewey!
I used to love acid when I was younger. I bought 30 hits of blotter just for my 18th birthday for me and my friends. Never hallucinated like some people claim but had tons of energy and it made everything feel so… real? and vibrant. Shrooms were cool but just not nearly on the same level.
You definitely want to plan ahead and make sure you’re surrounded by good company and plenty to do beforehand though.
Tbf, this is hardly unique to the US, and a handful of states are actually decriminalizing some psychedelics now. Not sure where else in the world is doing that.
The US is largely responsible for the 3 international treaties that semi standardized the prohibitions that have defined and driven drug policies across most of the western world since the 60s, though.
https://www.jtl.columbia.edu/bulletin-blog/international-drug-control-regime-and-reforms#:~:text=Currently%2C three major treaties make,)%2C%20and%20(3)%20United
It’s inherently problematic that the DEA is in charge of scheduling
Rescheduling marijuana would likely lead to a lower budget for the DEA… No way is the DEA going to voluntarily lower the scheduling of such a widely used drug
Smoking hemp leads to disappointment and headaches.
Source: got fooled while driving through Nebraska.
There is an interesting loophole active right now in the US, a person can buy ‘high THCA hemp flower’, which is identical in composition to bud sold at a recreational dispensary, and it is not regulated and can be shipped across state lines legally through even the USPS. There might be some restrictions in certain states, but you can see an example of this bud here: https://www.luckyelk.com/buy/thca/overview
So long as the THC content is below 0.3% it is not considered cannabis in the same way federally apparently. But most smokable weed has very low THC and high THCA, which is converted to THC when burned, so this bud that falls in this category is just as good as stuff you can get from a dispensary often.
They don’t get money based on how many drugs are illegal. Not to mention, they like to go after big dealers which some will continue to import illegally or grow it in illegal ways. The DEA will still come after them.
Reminder that the most dangerous drug in terms of deaths caused per capita is alcohol. Refined sugar and HFCS probably has alcohol’s numbers beat if you consider that a drug though.
When I wasn’t in a position to decide my own client list, I used to hate working for some of the large companies with high sugar products. Felt like consulting for Philip Morris or something. I remember one corporate HQ had giant posters in their cafeteria talking about how scientists didn’t find a causative relationship between sugar and childhood health complications, and it felt just like the classic “nine out of ten doctors recommended XYZ brand cigarettes.”
It never should have been “classified” or “scheduled”.
Or alcohol should be schedule 1.
Cannabis being a “schedule 1” drug (one of the safest drugs we can consume) while alcohol (an extremely dangerous [to society and individuals] drug that is also addictive) is UNSCHEDULED and PROMOTED is beyond absurd.
Make anything make sense.
Doctor, my wife left me for my brother. May I please have a medicinal alcohol license?
Alcohol would at worst be schedule 2 since it has medical use. It’s the cure to methanol poisoning and ethylene glycol poisoning.
Damn dude, your comment made me look up the actual classes. For anyone else:
Schedule 1: high chance of addiction and no professional use; weex, lsd, ecstacy, peyote
Schedule 2: high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence. Considered dangerous; cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone, oxycodone, fentanyl, Dexedrine, Adderall
Schedule 3: moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence; ketamine, anabolic steroids, testosterone
Schedule 4: low potential for abuse and low risk of dependence; Xanax, Soma, Darvon, Darvocet, Valium, Ativan, Talwin, Ambien, Tramadol
Schedule 5: generally used for antidiarrheal, antitussive, and analgesic purposes; Lomotil, Motofen, Lyrica, Parepectolin
Marijuana is currently classified as Schedule I, reserved for the most dangerous controlled substances, including heroin and LSD.
Fucking christ lmao.
The reason for this has often been thought due to prison and possibly even tobacco lobbyists. Dunno about the second one, though the first certainly has the numbers to back it up, and the history. The history itself is quite the rabbit hole that begins in the U.S. back around the late 1930s. Though the drug itself has been around for hundreds of years, according to study.
Sadly, due to the times we live in, just ask yourself what the modern Republican party would want to claim. Who uses Marijuana and for what reasons and you’ll probably land on why this became a fiasco in the first place.
I was just highlighting how absurd it is to consider heroin and lsd in the same category at all.
Agreed. Not even remotely comparable to each other from an addiction/damage potential standpoint. LSD is entirely non-addictive habit forming, while heroin is the polar opposite. In terms of health damage, you can’t die from doing too much LSD, but you can from heroin (easily).
All in all, it’s like comparing apples to heroin. Or cake to heroin. Or pizza to heroin. Or LSD to heroin.
Though the drug itself has been around for hundreds of years
Longer than that. There is credible evidence that humans have been using cannabis for at least about as long as we’ve been brewing alcohol. Ancient religious relics recovered from archeological digs have been tested and shown cannabis residue.
