Earlier this year, a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services wrote to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) head Anne Milgram calling for marijuana to be reclassified as a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The DEA defines Schedule III drugs as “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”

Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug. The DEA defines Schedule I drugs as “drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Few would now argue that marijuana has no currently accepted medical use.

While this would be a welcome change from the status quo and a step towards addressing the government’s failed discriminatory prohibition on marijuana, full descheduling is necessary to address decades of injustice.

Thankfully this is something many in Congress understand. Just last month, a group of 31 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the head of the DEA urging them to consider the merits of legalization.

“The decision to schedule marijuana was rooted in stigma rather than an evidence-based process, and it is time to fully remedy this wrong,” the letter reads. “Moving marijuana to Schedule III would be an important step in the right direction, but it is not sufficient to correct the wrongs of federal prohibition or to meaningfully address the federal-state gap on cannabis policy.”

This bipartisan group of lawmakers is correct in acknowledging that the harsh scheduling of marijuana was never evidence-based. It was never rooted in any real danger posed by marijuana. The CSA and the war on drugs were a project of the Nixon administration rooted in discrimination. Former senior advisor to President Nixon John Erlichman has admitted as much:

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” he is quoted as saying. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Nixon’s administration was lying about the dangers associated with marijuana.

The truth is marjuana has a long history of accepted medical use. Its medical use originated in central Asia or western China. The first documented case of its use dates all the way back to 2800 BC. The father of modern medicine even wrote that marijuana was “probably the most satisfactory remedy” for a migraine.

The DEA should take the recommendation of the Department of Health and Human Services and at least move marijuana to Schedule III. This would be a clear rejection of the fearmongering and discriminatory motivations behind its original Schedule I placement and an acceptance of its clear accepted medical use. Congress should continue to work on a bipartisan basis to legalize marijuana.

The post It’s High Time To Legalize Marijuana appeared first on Free the People.

As overdoses continue to rise across the world, it’s clear that the conventional prohibitionist approach to drug policy has failed us all. As the leader of the war on drugs, the United States has been particularly hard hit. The US has had the highest overdose death rates among wealthy nations and saw an estimated 109,680 overdose deaths just last year. Rather than doubling down on drug war policies, we should turn to a more humane public health approach to the crisis.

Overdose prevention centers (OPCs) are safe, legal locations for individuals to take previously-obtained drugs in a clinical, controlled setting. They are staffed by individuals trained to intervene and prevent an overdose. Many centers also offer drug testing equipment. At a time when fentanyl and other contaminants are fueling rising overdoses, allowing individuals to check the quality of substances is a crucial step to overdose prevention.

Authorities in Glasgow officially committed to adopting this approach when they greenlit the UK’s first overdose prevention center late last month. The establishment of this crucial center will not only help prevent further deaths in Glasgow, it will serve as an example and test case to demonstrate the efficacy of such centers. Allan Casey, Glasgow city council’s addictions convener, shares this sentiment, saying, “Glasgow has a huge responsibility to demonstrate the concept works here in Scotland.”

Allowing drugs to be taken in a controlled environment is a radical departure from the prohibitionist approaches that have defined the last few decades of drug policy. Such policies only made the problems of drug addiction and overdose rates worse.

Fentanyl’s entrance into the drug supply itself is a result of prohibitionist policies. The Iron Law of Prohibition suggests that with more punitive enforcement comes stronger drugs. Researchers at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization explain, “Criminalized suppression predictably causes the illicit drug supply to become more dangerous, because black-market producers and smugglers have an economic incentive to use highly potent additives.” Essentially, doubling down on supply-side interventions and criminal penalties does not prevent drug sales, but drives clients to the black market where sellers are motivated by greed to lace products with highly addictive and potentially deadly additives to secure their clientele. Rising overdose rates fueled by increasingly potent drugs can only be stopped by efforts to reduce demand and evidence-based harm reduction tools like OPCs.

The United Kingdom is not the first developed country to turn to a safe injection approach. There are currently over 200 OPCs operating in 14 different countries. The United States even has two locally sanctioned OPCs operating in New York City. Those two centers have prevented 1,008 overdoses since they opened in November 2021. Other cities and states, including Minnesota and Rhode Island, have also taken steps to open overdose prevention centers. However, federal barriers still persist and local authorities in NYC have even threatened to take action against the OPCs currently operating.

21 U.S.C. Section 856 makes it illegal to knowingly maintain a premises for the purpose of using or storing controlled substances in the United States. While the law was passed before the first OPC opened, many argue that it makes them illegal and those that are currently operating are doing so in defiance of federal law. Federal officials should take action to clarify that this law was not meant to apply to private harm reduction groups seeking to save lives.

US officials must reject fear mongering to see that prevention centers do not encourage or endorse drug use, but rather ensure those who are already using illegal drugs do not die in the process. OPCs are a commitment to valuing and preserving life. Glasgow’s acceptance of such an approach should serve as a model for the rest of the world.

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