 | Cannabis rescheduling in the United States: Encyclopedia II - Cannabis rescheduling in the United States - Arguments for and against rescheduling
Cannabis rescheduling in the United States - Arguments for and against rescheduling
Cannabis rescheduling in the United States - Arguments for rescheduling
The position of Jon Gettman, leader of the rescheduling movement, is that a drug cannot remain in a Schedule unless it fully meets all three statutory criteria for that Schedule [1]. Gettman believes that "high potential for abuse" means that a drug has a potential for abuse similar to that of heroin or cocaine [2]. Gettman argues further that since laboratory animals do not self-administer marijuana, and because marijuana's toxicity is less than that of heroin or cocaine, marijuana lacks the high abuse potential required for inclusion in Schedule I or II.
Gettman also contends: "The acceptance of cannabis' medical use by eight [now twelve] states since 1996 and the experiences of patients, doctors, and state officials in these states establish marijuana's accepted medical use in the United States [3]." Specifically, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have enacted legislation allowing marijuana's medical use by their citizens [4]. A minimum of 35,000 patients are currently using medical marijuana legally in these states, and over 2,500 different physicians have recommended it for use by their patients [5].
Gettman also argues in his petition that marijuana is an acceptably safe medication. He notes that a 1999 Institute of Medicine report found that "except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications." He points out that there a number of delivery routes that were not considered by the Institute, such as transdermal, sublingual, and even rectal administration, in addition to vaporizers, which release marijuana's active ingredients into the air without burning the plant matter [6].
In some ways, cannabis is indisputably safer than prescription narcotics such as oxycodone and morphine, since there are no records of anyone ever dying from a cannabis overdose. The reason for this was revealed in a study by M. Herkenham, A.B. Lynn, et al, Cannabinoid Receptor Localization in Brain, published in a 1990 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, attributing the lack of overdose deaths to a lack of cannabinoid receptors in areas of the brain controlling breathing and the heart [7]. Gettman claims that the discovery of the cannabinoid receptor system in the late 1980s revolutionized scientific understanding of cannabis' effects and provided further evidence that it does not belong in Schedule I.
Cannabis rescheduling in the United States - Arguments against rescheduling
In 1992, DEA Administrator Robert Bonner promulgated five criteria, based somewhat on the Controlled Substances Act's legislative history, for determining whether a drug has an accepted medical use [8]. The DEA claims that marijuana has no accepted medical use because it does not meet all five criteria [9]:
- The drug's chemistry is known and reproducible;
- There are adequate safety studies;
- There are adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy;
- The drug is accepted by qualified experts; and
- The scientific evidence is widely available.
Marijuana is one of several nonaddictive, nontoxic hallucinogens that Congress placed in Schedule I. The DEA interprets the Controlled Substances Act to mean that if a drug with even a low potential for abuse – say, equivalent to a Schedule V drug – has no accepted medical use, then it must remain in Schedule I [10]:
When it comes to a drug that is currently listed in schedule I, if it is undisputed that such drug has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and it is further undisputed that the drug has at least some potential for abuse sufficient to warrant control under the CSA, the drug must remain in schedule I. In such circumstances, placement of the drug in schedules II through V would conflict with the CSA since such drug would not meet the criterion of "a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." 21 USC 812(b).
Therefore, even if one were to assume, theoretically, that your assertions about marijuana's potential for abuse were correct (i.e., that marijuana had some potential for abuse but less than the "high potential for abuse" commensurate with schedules I and II), marijuana would not meet the criteria for placement in schedules III through V since it has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States--a determination that is reaffirmed by HHS in the attached medical and scientific evaluation.
The Department of Health and Human Services rejects the argument that laboratory animals' failure to self-administer marijuana is conclusive proof of its low potential for abuse [11]:
The Secretary disagrees with Mr. Gettman's assertion that "[t]he accepted contemporary legal convention for evaluating the abuse potential of a drug or substance is the relative degree of self-administration the drug induces in animal subjects." As discussed above, self-administration tests that identify whether a substance is reinforcing in animals are but one component of the scientific assessment of the abuse potential of a substance. Positive indicators of human abuse liability for a particular substance, whether from laboratory studies or epidemiological data, are given greater weight than animal studies suggesting the same compound has no abuse potential.
The Food and Drug Administration elaborates on this, arguing that the widespread use of marijuana, and the existence of some heavy users, is evidence of its "high potential for abuse," despite the drug's lack of physiological addictiveness [12]:
[P]hysical dependence and toxicity are not the only factors to consider in determining a substance's abuse potential. The large number of individuals using marijuana on a regular basis and the vast amount of marijuana that is available for illicit use are indicative of widespread use. In addition, there is evidence that marijuana use can result in psychological dependence in a certain proportion of the population.
The Government also considers the fact that people are willing to risk scholastic, career and legal problems to use marijuana to be evidence of its high potential for abuse [13]:
Throughout his petition, Mr. Gettman argues that while many people "use" marijuana, few "abuse" it. He appears to equate abuse with the level of physical dependence and toxicity resulting from marijuana use. Thus, he appears to be arguing that a substance that causes only low levels of physical dependence and toxicity must be considered to have a low potential for abuse. The Secretary does not agree with this argument. Physical dependence and toxicity are not the only factors that are considered in determining a substance's abuse potential. The actual use and frequency of use of a substance, especially when that use may result in harmful consequences such as failure to fulfill major obligations at work or school, physical risk-taking, or even substance-related legal problems, are indicative of a substance's abuse potential.
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 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Arguments for and against rescheduling", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
