Marijuana
will continue to be considered a highly dangerous drug under federal
law with no accepted medical uses, after a U.S. appeals court Tuesday
refused to order a change in the government’s 40-year-old drug
classification schedule.
The decision keeps in place an odd legal
split over marijuana, a drug deemed to be as dangerous as heroin and
worse than methamphetamine by federal authorities, but one that has been
legalized for medical use by voters or legislators in 20 states and the
District of Columbia.
A marijuana advocacy group went to court, arguing that federal
officials had a duty to reexamine the medical evidence and reclassify
marijuana as a drug that has clear benefits for those who are suffering
and in pain. Joe Elford, counsel for Americans for Safe Access, said
federal drug officials had a bias against marijuana that caused them to
ignore its benefits and to exaggerate its dangers.
But three
judges said they had a duty to defer to the judgment of federal health
experts who had concluded they needed more evidence before reclassifying
marijuana.
"To establish accepted medical use, the effectiveness
of a drug must be established in well-controlled, well-designed,
well-conducted and well-documented scientific studies [with] a large
number of patients. To date, such studies have not been performed," the
Drug Enforcement Administration said in defense of its decision. The
passage was quoted in Tuesday’s opinion.
Judge Harry Edwards,
writing for the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, said the
judges did not dispute that "marijuana could have some medical
benefits." Instead, he said, they were not willing to overrule the DEA
because they had not seen large "well-controlled studies" that proved
the medical value of marijuana.
"We’re disappointed, but not
surprised," said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe
Access. She said more than 1 million patients used marijuana as medicine
across the nation.
She said the group would appeal to the
Supreme Court. "We are also turning our attention to Congress. It is
time we had a conversation about marijuana at the federal level," she
said.
In December, President Obama and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy
(D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said they were
prepared to reconsider federal law that makes possession of small
amounts of marijuana a crime. They were reacting to voters in Colorado
and Washington who opted to permit recreational users to have an ounce
of marijuana at home.
"So, what we’re going to need to have is a
conversation about how do you reconcile a federal law that still says
marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that it’s legal," Obama
told ABC News.
Leahy said he would consider legislative proposals that could relax federal enforcement against small amounts of marijuana.
