Editor's Note: The fact that marijuana is legal in 23 states plus Guam (with approved medical uses) and now legal for recreational use in 4 states and D.C., but yet it is still classified as a Schedule 1 drug is just perplexing. Here's an insightful opinion column from The Daily Tribune that explains what seems to be happening as two government entities pass the buck back and forth:
The crowning inconsistency of the federal drug control system has always been the classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance under federal law, which makes it among the Worst of the Worst drugs as far as the DEA is concerned -- literally as bad as heroin, and worse than cocaine! Drug reform advocates have pushed the DEA to change its position for years, citing decades of research on the relative harmlessness of weed compared with other drugs -- including alcohol -- but the agency hasn’t budged, even as public opinion has rapidly evolved.
The Controlled Substances Act, which set up the drug schedules in the early 1970s, explicitly places drug scheduling authority in the hands of the attorney general, and even instructs him or her to “remove any drug or other substance from the schedules if he finds that the drug or other substance does not meet the requirements for inclusion in any schedule.”
