Removal of cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act
Petitions to reschedule cannabis are formal requests made under the Controlled Substances Act for the United States Attorney General to use his rulemaking power to remove marijuana from Schedule I. This would be the only way to legalize medical marijuana without an act of Congress.
U.S. Law
Under 21 USC Sec. 812, drugs must meet three criteria in order to be placed in Schedule I, the most tightly-controlled category of drugs:
- The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
- The drug or other substances has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
- There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
21 USC Sec. 811 gives the Attorney General power to transfer marijuana to a less-restrictive category or remove it from Controlled Substances Act regulation altogether if cannabis is determined not to meet these criteria. The Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, evaluates petitions to reschedule marijuana. However, this agency is bound by findings by the United States Department of Health and Human Services on scientific and medical issues.
History
In 1970, Congress placed marijuana into Schedule I on the advice of Assistant Secretary of Health Roger O. Egeberg. Egeberg, citing the "considerable void" in scientific knowledge about the drug, recommended that it retained in that category pending the report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse. He noted that the executive branch could later reschedule marijuana without legislative action "if those studies make it appropriate".
In 1972, the Commission released a report favoring legalization of marijuana. That year, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws petitioned the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, or BNDD (now the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA) to transfer marijuana to Schedule II so that it could be legally prescribed by physicians. The BNDD rejected the petition, finding that rescheduling would violate the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Substances.
In January 1974, NORML filed suit against the BNDD. The U.S. Second Court of Appeals reversed the bureau's dismissal of the petition, remanding the case for reconsideration. In September 1975, the Bureau acknowledged that treaty obligations did not prevent the rescheduling of marijuana but continued to refuse public hearings. In October 1980, the Court of Appeals remanded the NORML petition to the DEA for reconsideration for the third time.
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| Parties opposing rescheduling: |
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In the summer of 1986, the DEA administrator initiated public hearings. The hearings lasted two years, involving many witnesses and thousands of pages of documentation. In 1988, DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young ruled that marijuana did not meet the legal criteria of a Schedule I prohibited drug and should be reclassified. He declared that marijuana in its natural form is "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. (T)he provisions of the (Controlled Substances) Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II."
Then-DEA Administrator John Lawn rejected Young's determination, a decision the D.C. Court of Appeals eventually affirmed in 1994. Lawn said he decided against re-scheduling marijuana based on testimony and comments from numerous medical doctors who had conducted detailed research and were widely considered experts in their respective fields.
Later administrators agreed. "Those who insist that marijuana has medical uses would serve society better by promoting or sponsoring more legitimate research," former DEA Administrator Robert Bonner opined in 1992. This statement was quoted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in its membership drives.
"Each of the doctors testifying on behalf of NORML claimed that his opinion was based on scientific studies, yet with one exception, none could identify, under oath, the scientific studies they relied on," DEA Administrator Thomas A. Constantine remarked in 1995.
In 1995, Jon Gettman and High Times Magazine filed a rescheduling petition with the DEA. This time, instead of arguing marijuana had an medical use, the petitioners claimed that marijuana did not have the "high potential for abuse" required for Schedule I or Schedule II status. They based their claims on studies of the brain's cannabinoid receptor system conducted between 1988 and 1994. The petitioners also noted that Marinol, the prescription drug containing tetrahydrocannabinol, marijuana's active ingredient, is in the less-restrictive Schedule III. The DEA issued a final denial of that petition in 2001. The U.S. Court of Appeal upheld the agency's decision in March, ruling that petitioners were not sufficiently injured to have standing to challenge DEA's determinations in federal court.
In 2002, the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis filed a new petition, with new petitioners, such as medical marijuana patients who would be more directly affected by the DEA's decision. That petition is still pending.
Future outlook
Jon Gettman believes that if marijuana is removed from Schedule I, there are at least three possible ways in which the drug could be regulated:
- As a Schedule III, IV, or V controlled substance, similar to anabolic steroids or codeine-containing preparations.
- As an over-the-counter substance, similar to aspirin.
- As an intoxicant, similar to alcoholic beverages.
Reference
- Science and the End of Marijuana Prohibition.
- Coalition Files Federal Administrative Petition To Legalize Medical Marijuana, Oct. 10, 2002.
- Grinspoon, Lester and Bakalar, James B.: The History of Cannabis, From the book Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine, Yale University, 1993.
- Medicinal marijuana: the struggle for legalization, CNN Interactive, 1997.
- 21 USC, Controlled Substances Act.