DEA set to reschedule to schedule II this summer?
- Thread starter BOBBY_G
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BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
dandyrandy
Well-Known Member
Bad deal
Rrog
Well-Known Member
Exactly. It's still a legal rod in our ass
bertaluchi
Well-Known Member
From what I understand it will still be up to states to regulate the medical and recreational use. I wish they would just make it legal for people to grow their own stash. Then we could at least be able to grow without the very real threat of getting busted.
bertaluchi
Well-Known Member
And has anyone taken a look at what else is schedule II? There are some really gnarly drugs on that list like oxycontin and percocet . If they are going to reschedule then it should be schedule V like Robitussin.
RM3
Well-Known Member
A DEA official responded at length today to a widely-circulated report that the DEA plans to effectively legalize medical cannabis this August.
In an interview with aNewDomain today, DEA staff coordinator Russ Bear wouldn’t confirm the Santa Monica Observer report that the DEA will reschedule cannabis as a prescription-only Schedule II drug on Aug. 1, 2016. But he did comment at length about the agency’s thoughts around legalizing medical cannabis and how rescheduling cannabis from its current Schedule I status would have to work.
Bear, in his comments, went well beyond the prepared statement the agency gave to the The Houston Chronicle and other media covering the story earlier today. Check out his comments and our takeaway below.
“This is a complicated plant.”
First off, the decision to reschedule cannabis isn’t a simple one because cannabis biochemistry is so complex, Bear said, and the variety of forms medical cannabis now takes are many.
“What is under-reported right now is how complex the marijuana plant is,” he added, pointing out that it has hundreds of chemical actors, or cannabinoids.”
THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and Cannabidiol (CD) are two main ones, but even those are dramatically different. “Also, we are talking about synthetic THC, CBD (based treatments), oils, extracts edibles.” The challenge for researchers and government agencies is to “identify the parts of the plant that might have benefit, and separating out (the beneficial) parts from the ones that “aren’t beneficial or harmful.”
That the DEA is thinking about various cannabinoids as well as the many forms nascent treatments, like THC tablets for nausea in AIDs and cancer patients or CBD for easing seizures in epileptic children suggests the DEA may not be contemplating an all-or-nothing decision for cannabis, where rescheduling cannabis as a prescription, Schedule II drug means state-legislated cannabis laws are dead.
If the DEA is truly thinking hard about the different parts of the plant and the some 480 compounds it contains, as well as all the forms medical cannabis can take, that suggests a more comprehensive, structured approach is possible.
Consider this thoughtful editorial that ran a few days ago in The Denver Post. In it, cannabis policy attorney Tom Downey examined the myriad of ways the DEA decision could go. The DEA, Downey said, “could partially legalize medical marijuana, and the federal government could usher in a new era with a comprehensive and multi-structural approach to pot policy” by rescheduling cannabis to a “federal prescription system,” leaving state decisions on medical and recreational use intact.
As you’ll see below, many of the DEA’s comments today stand in line with such an approach.
“We aren’t holding ourselves to any artificial timeframe.”
Since April, media reports have been reporting that the DEA will announce its decision on how or whether it is rescheduling cannabis, or medical cannabis products. is due on June 30 or July 1. That date comes from a 28-page DEA memo sent to a group of US senators in April. But that letter, the DEA’s Bear told aNewDomain, was leaked. But plans change. “We are not holding ourselves to any artificial timeline,” he added.
But the DEA “does already have the FDA’s scientific and health recommendation” a required step in rescheduling.
One of the interesting things about the leaked DEA letter, though, is that it fully outlines the multi-step process the DEA must go through whenever it is considering the rescheduling of a drug. That is what is required by The Controlled Substances Act of 1970, he said, “and the CSA is what drives us.”
The CSA “requires us to go through our own analysis, an eight factor analysis,” Bear added. Part of that is getting the FDA’s recommendation on the matter, “and that has already happened,” he said. “But we also have to take into account not just the FDA recommendations, but recommendations from lawyers, chemists, pharmacologists …”
The DEA is “an enforcement agency, we don’t make policy, we enforce the law … the Controlled Substance Act (of 1970) delineates what our concerns ought to be … and we follow it in every instance,” he said, remarking that “everyone thinks the DEA can do anything to anyone at any time. But it can’t. We have to act with the authority vested to us by congress, and it’s all described in the CSA.”
The supposition that the DEA can just summarily go in and change the legality of this or that drug is a big misconception the media seems to have right now, he said. The DEA follows the law, not the other way around.
And laws can change. “Congress could create and pass legislation that reschedules any substance .. they could pass a law to reschedule cannabis, Bear added.
This comment, we should not, seems relevant in light of a sweeping bipartisan bill that stalled in the Senate last year but is reportedly being resurrected this year by US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Called The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States Act of 2015, or the Carers Act for short, that bill called for the decriminalizing medical cannabis so it is available to patients and researchers, while leaving states free to make medical or recreational cannabis available to citizens if they wish.
That is a happy outcome not just for states like Colorado, which now collects some $135 million in recreational and medical cannabis taxes. Prescriptions aren’t taxed, after all. but also for patients in states where cannabis is still illegal and, of course, American research institutions.
Colorado collected nearly $135 million in medical and recreational marijuana taxes and license fees in 2015 on a combined medical and recreational market of nearly $1 billion
“We do want to remove the roadblocks for research … “
One of the main reasons the DEA wants to reschedule cannabis, according to media reports, is so that it can make research easier.
“We do want to remove the roadblocks for research,” the DEA’s Bear told aNewDomain in this interview, pointing out that there are security issues and paperwork that make doing so with an illegal Schedule I substance more daunting.
This suggests that the DEA is seriously leaning toward to rescheduling at least some cannabinoids, like CBD, for instance, in the interest of spurring research.
“We want there to be research on marijuana and its component parts, there needs to be (more) studies about both the benefits and the adverse effects about marijuana,” he said, adding: “We want to remove the roadblocks for (cannabis research.) We want to know more about cannabis— we need rigorous scientific research — the DEA stands behind the scientific process.
“Safe medical cannabis use requires rigorous peer-reviewed studies,” Bear continued. “That’s true whether it’s for PTSD (patients) smoking cannabis or children with epileptic conditions … we support all (studies), but what we don’t support are decisions made on anecdotal evidence.”
And the latest studies do seem somewhat promising, he said, calling to mind the London pharmaceutical firm GW Pharmaceuticals. “GW Pharmaceuticals is showing great preliminary results with CBD (based drug research), but the results are preliminary.
“We are told by NIDA, also, that there are medical studies out there also preliminarily indicate CBD is beneficial,” Bear added.
“We’re not going to go chase after the mom who picks up cannabinol (CBD) in (one) state for her epileptic child and takes it to another state … .”
Further, DEA doesn’t want to have to prosecute “moms who are buying cannabinol for their epileptic children” and taking it over state lines.
“Marijuana is important, but most of our attention is elsewhere.”
The cannabis rescheduling question may be top of mind with the nation’s media and many players in the growing legal cannabis industry, but the DEA’s Bear was careful to point out that it has, well, bigger fish to fry. “We have limited resources, remember,” Bear said. “Marijuana is important, but our efforts are mainly focused on the nation’s growing opioid crisis,” he said. “We’re focusing on fentanyl, fentanyl compounds and on preventing the deaths caused by opioid addiction.” Chasing around private citizens sneaking cannabis tinctures into their bags “just isn’t a priority right now.
In an interview with aNewDomain today, DEA staff coordinator Russ Bear wouldn’t confirm the Santa Monica Observer report that the DEA will reschedule cannabis as a prescription-only Schedule II drug on Aug. 1, 2016. But he did comment at length about the agency’s thoughts around legalizing medical cannabis and how rescheduling cannabis from its current Schedule I status would have to work.
Bear, in his comments, went well beyond the prepared statement the agency gave to the The Houston Chronicle and other media covering the story earlier today. Check out his comments and our takeaway below.
“This is a complicated plant.”
First off, the decision to reschedule cannabis isn’t a simple one because cannabis biochemistry is so complex, Bear said, and the variety of forms medical cannabis now takes are many.
“What is under-reported right now is how complex the marijuana plant is,” he added, pointing out that it has hundreds of chemical actors, or cannabinoids.”
THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and Cannabidiol (CD) are two main ones, but even those are dramatically different. “Also, we are talking about synthetic THC, CBD (based treatments), oils, extracts edibles.” The challenge for researchers and government agencies is to “identify the parts of the plant that might have benefit, and separating out (the beneficial) parts from the ones that “aren’t beneficial or harmful.”
That the DEA is thinking about various cannabinoids as well as the many forms nascent treatments, like THC tablets for nausea in AIDs and cancer patients or CBD for easing seizures in epileptic children suggests the DEA may not be contemplating an all-or-nothing decision for cannabis, where rescheduling cannabis as a prescription, Schedule II drug means state-legislated cannabis laws are dead.
If the DEA is truly thinking hard about the different parts of the plant and the some 480 compounds it contains, as well as all the forms medical cannabis can take, that suggests a more comprehensive, structured approach is possible.
Consider this thoughtful editorial that ran a few days ago in The Denver Post. In it, cannabis policy attorney Tom Downey examined the myriad of ways the DEA decision could go. The DEA, Downey said, “could partially legalize medical marijuana, and the federal government could usher in a new era with a comprehensive and multi-structural approach to pot policy” by rescheduling cannabis to a “federal prescription system,” leaving state decisions on medical and recreational use intact.
As you’ll see below, many of the DEA’s comments today stand in line with such an approach.
“We aren’t holding ourselves to any artificial timeframe.”
Since April, media reports have been reporting that the DEA will announce its decision on how or whether it is rescheduling cannabis, or medical cannabis products. is due on June 30 or July 1. That date comes from a 28-page DEA memo sent to a group of US senators in April. But that letter, the DEA’s Bear told aNewDomain, was leaked. But plans change. “We are not holding ourselves to any artificial timeline,” he added.
But the DEA “does already have the FDA’s scientific and health recommendation” a required step in rescheduling.
One of the interesting things about the leaked DEA letter, though, is that it fully outlines the multi-step process the DEA must go through whenever it is considering the rescheduling of a drug. That is what is required by The Controlled Substances Act of 1970, he said, “and the CSA is what drives us.”
The CSA “requires us to go through our own analysis, an eight factor analysis,” Bear added. Part of that is getting the FDA’s recommendation on the matter, “and that has already happened,” he said. “But we also have to take into account not just the FDA recommendations, but recommendations from lawyers, chemists, pharmacologists …”
The DEA is “an enforcement agency, we don’t make policy, we enforce the law … the Controlled Substance Act (of 1970) delineates what our concerns ought to be … and we follow it in every instance,” he said, remarking that “everyone thinks the DEA can do anything to anyone at any time. But it can’t. We have to act with the authority vested to us by congress, and it’s all described in the CSA.”
The supposition that the DEA can just summarily go in and change the legality of this or that drug is a big misconception the media seems to have right now, he said. The DEA follows the law, not the other way around.
And laws can change. “Congress could create and pass legislation that reschedules any substance .. they could pass a law to reschedule cannabis, Bear added.
This comment, we should not, seems relevant in light of a sweeping bipartisan bill that stalled in the Senate last year but is reportedly being resurrected this year by US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Called The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States Act of 2015, or the Carers Act for short, that bill called for the decriminalizing medical cannabis so it is available to patients and researchers, while leaving states free to make medical or recreational cannabis available to citizens if they wish.
That is a happy outcome not just for states like Colorado, which now collects some $135 million in recreational and medical cannabis taxes. Prescriptions aren’t taxed, after all. but also for patients in states where cannabis is still illegal and, of course, American research institutions.
Colorado collected nearly $135 million in medical and recreational marijuana taxes and license fees in 2015 on a combined medical and recreational market of nearly $1 billion
“We do want to remove the roadblocks for research … “
One of the main reasons the DEA wants to reschedule cannabis, according to media reports, is so that it can make research easier.
“We do want to remove the roadblocks for research,” the DEA’s Bear told aNewDomain in this interview, pointing out that there are security issues and paperwork that make doing so with an illegal Schedule I substance more daunting.
This suggests that the DEA is seriously leaning toward to rescheduling at least some cannabinoids, like CBD, for instance, in the interest of spurring research.
“We want there to be research on marijuana and its component parts, there needs to be (more) studies about both the benefits and the adverse effects about marijuana,” he said, adding: “We want to remove the roadblocks for (cannabis research.) We want to know more about cannabis— we need rigorous scientific research — the DEA stands behind the scientific process.
“Safe medical cannabis use requires rigorous peer-reviewed studies,” Bear continued. “That’s true whether it’s for PTSD (patients) smoking cannabis or children with epileptic conditions … we support all (studies), but what we don’t support are decisions made on anecdotal evidence.”
And the latest studies do seem somewhat promising, he said, calling to mind the London pharmaceutical firm GW Pharmaceuticals. “GW Pharmaceuticals is showing great preliminary results with CBD (based drug research), but the results are preliminary.
“We are told by NIDA, also, that there are medical studies out there also preliminarily indicate CBD is beneficial,” Bear added.
“We’re not going to go chase after the mom who picks up cannabinol (CBD) in (one) state for her epileptic child and takes it to another state … .”
Further, DEA doesn’t want to have to prosecute “moms who are buying cannabinol for their epileptic children” and taking it over state lines.
“Marijuana is important, but most of our attention is elsewhere.”
The cannabis rescheduling question may be top of mind with the nation’s media and many players in the growing legal cannabis industry, but the DEA’s Bear was careful to point out that it has, well, bigger fish to fry. “We have limited resources, remember,” Bear said. “Marijuana is important, but our efforts are mainly focused on the nation’s growing opioid crisis,” he said. “We’re focusing on fentanyl, fentanyl compounds and on preventing the deaths caused by opioid addiction.” Chasing around private citizens sneaking cannabis tinctures into their bags “just isn’t a priority right now.
RM3
Well-Known Member
My forum lol
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
When it is rescheduled it will not be done for the purposes of freeing it.
It will be done for the purpose of controlling who can grow and sell and it will make government and their partners lots of money. Cops will still get to bust people for growing etc. if they haven't paid for the privilege etc.
It will be done for the purpose of controlling who can grow and sell and it will make government and their partners lots of money. Cops will still get to bust people for growing etc. if they haven't paid for the privilege etc.
BM9AGS
Well-Known Member
Yes. I'm sure it will be along the lines of tax stamp firearms. Meaning the ATF is allowed to search you any time. This will be a req for a prescription I'm guessing. Also meaning rec mj will go away. That's my guess
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
I agree.
People will perceive the new privilege of "legalized" as a step towards freedom, but it's really a reinforcement that freedom has been removed and in its place "permission" as a norm has been slipped in.
This reinforces the oxymoronic idea that "freedom" is a revocable privilege, rather than a human right.
dandyrandy
Well-Known Member
I'm buying seeds just in case..... Then I have some breeding stock. If several of the states go legal this year I don't think they can stop us...
NewtoMJ
Well-Known Member
They KNOW they can't stop it, it's not their intent. They've just been trying to figure out how to make it more exclusive and lucrative before they move.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
I smell a great Big Pharma rat.