More than a decade after the Coalition to Reschedule Cannabis first petitioned the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
to reschedule marijuana for medicinal purposes, the U.S. Circuit Court
for the District of Columbia ruled Jan. 22 that the DEA was right to
refuse to do so.
At issue is whether marijuana should be reclassified from a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act
to a less restrictive classification on Schedule III, IV, or V.
Schedule I is the most restrictive of all drug classifications and
carries with it the burden that the drug in question has been deemed to
have no "currently accepted medical use." That determination is arrived
at via a five-part test, including a determination of whether there are
"adequate and well-controlled" scientific studies proving the drug’s
efficacy. And that is the sticking point for pot, according to the
court’s Tuesday ruling.
As the number of states legalizing marijuana for medicinal uses
continued to increase
