Plans to reclassify marijuana have been criticized by some experts as exacerbating existing issues in the regulatory environment
Some experts have criticized recent attempts to reschedule marijuana, arguing that doing so will just make the already problematic regulatory system worse.
The Biden-Harris administration said in March that marijuana will be moved from the Schedule I class of drugs, where it is now classified with heroin, mescaline, and LSD, to Schedule III, which is a class of substances with a lesser risk of abuse or dependency.
Following President Richard Nixon’s signing of the Controlled Substances Act into law by Congress in 1970, the federal government has kept cannabis classified as a Schedule I drug.
The government started the protracted approval process in May by submitting the proposed regulation to the Federal Register and formally downgrading the medication.
Nevertheless, three experts—a drug policy researcher and two legal scholars—warned in a Tuesday opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times that lowering the classification would merely further integrate the medicine into the “deeply flawed American pharmaceutical system.”
Although the decision would not result in the drug’s full legalization—which is already the case in 24 states for recreational use and 38 states for medical reasons—it would lessen prohibitions on the purchase and distribution of marijuana for medical purposes.
The authors argue that doing so would be a major mistake that may “adding yet another chapter to the long history of misguided drug regulation in the United States.”
They highlight that Schedule III drugs are “very tightly controlled,” and that the category “covers an incongruous assortment of medications,” ranging from ketamine and Adderall to treatments like the opioid Suboxone or testosterone used in gender-affirming healthcare. They cite practical concerns about this proposal.
They contend that even if these medications are authorized, they are still “highly criminalized” when used for purposes other than medicine.
More seriously, they argue, would be the introduction of cannabis into the United States’ pharmaceutical industry, which is already beset by “high costs, chronic shortages, and gaping disparities.”
The authors claim that “the pharmaceutical sector’s handling of controlled substances is especially abysmal,” citing the nation’s ongoing opioid crisis as proof of the federal government’s current approach to managing these drugs, which was made possible by the “lax regulation of Schedule III opioid painkillers.”
They contend that Schedule III’s regulatory environment “is a rudderless, aging ship taking on water,” and that adding cannabis would be “like piling a whole bunch of new cargo onto this sinking vessel.”
Marijuana’s “diverse uses” outside of medicine are also overlooked by the reclassification, leaving a “blind spot for cultural and spiritual practices that have long been part of cannabis use.”
