Dear Mr. President:
I applaud steps taken by your administration to examine the impact of the “war on drugs” on our society. It has filled our prisons, giving us the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of incarceration among all developed nations. Few other countries even come close. Good luck finding a living wage job or even trying to vote with a felony on your record. But that is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg of injustices created in the name of “protecting” the public from the menace of drug abuse.
I want to call your attention to one simple policy issue. Let’s call it reefer madness. That is where marijuana is labeled by the federal government as a Schedule I drug, hazardous with no legitimate medical uses. You and I both know that is a crock of crap. Evidence-based assessments of drug toxicology clearly demonstrate the low risk associated with cannabis (h/t Walter Einenkel).
The classification of cannabis as a Schedule I drug was a scourge designed by the Nixon administration. Mr. President, tear down this wall. I do not want to speculate about the reasons for Mr. Nixon’s reefer madness. As long as cannabis remains classified with drugs that have a high risk for physical addiction and fatal overdose, reefer madness will continue. According to the controlled substances schedules, marijuana represents a greater public health risk than cocaine, opium, and synthetic opiates. Or try explaining why synthetic THC (“Marinol”) is a Schedule III drug but cannabis plant derivatives warrant a Schedule I classification as a threat to public safety.
Let me remind you of the prophetic words of Raymond Shafer, head of the Shafer Commission to study marijuana use for Congress way back in 1970:
The criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use. It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only with the greatest reluctance.
Mr. Shafer recommended decriminalization of marijuana but "Tricky Dick" Nixon and friends were not to be deterred by common sense.
And isn’t it ironic that the last three presidents of these United States have admitted to recreational use in their youth. I am beginning to think pot has become a gateway drug to the Oval Office. Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush even made it clear that he inhaled deeply and frequently during his youthful indiscretions, but still believes in tough penalties, especially for poor kids of color. That is, after all, his legacy as governor of Florida but I digress.
As for legitimate medical uses, it is hardly a secret that cannabinoids provide pain, anxiety, insomnia, and gastrointestinal symptom relief. It has only been used as an herbal medicine remedy for thousands of years. The U.S. Surgeon General said recently that “marijuana can be helpful” for treating some medical conditions. There is even a rare bipartisan proposal to increase access to cannabis for combat veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorders. Twenty three states have legalized it for compassionate medical use but state-licensed dispensaries continue to be frequent targets of federal investigation.
Thanks to reefer madness, we have an amazing Catch-22 for research on the medical effects of cannabis. The National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine summarized it nicely in a 2003 review of the scientific literature on cannabinoids.
Clinical studies of marijuana are difficult to conduct: researchers interested in clinical studies of marijuana face a series of barriers, research funds are limited, and there is a daunting thicket of regulations to be negotiated at the federal level (those of the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, and the Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA) and state levels (see chapter 5). Consequently, the rapid growth in basic research on cannabinoids contrasts with the paucity of substantial clinical studies on medical uses.
In other words, medical researchers cannot conduct controlled clinical trials of cannabis because it is a Schedule I drug, which explicitly states there is no legitimate medical use despite ample promising observational study evidence to the contrary. The FDA requires clinical trials to demonstrate efficacy and safety but researchers cannot conduct those trials because of reefer madness among our spineless political leaders. The DOJ points to the lack of clinical trials as proof there is no clear medical benefit and continues to reject petition after petition to reclassify marijuana. And the wheels go round and round, grinding up lives in the criminal justice system and shutting down research on the efficacy and safety of cannabinoids for treating medical conditions. I can only conclude that our political leaders are ethically bankrupt to have created and perpetuated such a system. Franz Kafka is smiling somewhere.
I got a taste of reefer madness when my son developed a rare form of cancer. After Illinois passed its medical marijuana pilot program, he asked his oncologist if he thought it might help with some difficult to control pain and gastrointestinal symptoms. The oncologist said that he has quite a few patients that swear by it, but he cannot personally authorize it because the DEA has threatened the investigational drug licenses of physicians that sign off on medical marijuana for their patients. As for my son, he is in hospice care now and his primary care physician is supporting his application for participation in the pilot program. However, by the time the state gets the program off the ground, it will be too late for him to benefit from it.
As an aside, oncologists have long been at the forefront of medical marijuana advocates. A large scale survey of American oncologists conducted in 1990 demonstrated conclusively that marijuana does have an accepted medical use as an antiemetic for patients undergoing radiation or chemotherapy.
More than 44% of the respondents report recommending the (illegal) use of marijuana for the control of emesis to at least one cancer chemotherapy patient. Almost one half (48%) would prescribe marijuana to some of their patients if it were legal. As a group, respondents considered smoked marijuana to be somewhat more effective than the legally available oral synthetic dronabinol ([THC] Marinol; Unimed, Somerville, NJ) and roughly as safe. Of the respondents who expressed an opinion, a majority (54%) thought marijuana should be available by prescription.
Need more proof of insanity? The state of Illinois recently awarded a license to grow medical marijuana to a not-for-profit organization that serves the disabled. That license is now being
challenged because not-for-profits are required to follow federal laws and that Schedule I classification of cannabis is a no-no.
Mr. President, is it worth expending political capital to get cannabis kicked down to a Schedule III, IV, or V controlled substance? That is something only you can decide. Can you live with the continuing injustices created by the horrible policies of Nixon and expanded by Reagan? If so, then your moral compass is broken.
Doing nothing also carries a price for the Democratic Party. It would not be a good optic if a Republican took over for you in 2017 and then scores points with the general population for taking a “common sense” approach to the problem. Another Democrat in the Oval Office too squeamish to end reefer madness would be equally harmful to public perceptions.
I know you told Jake Tapper during a 2014 interview on CNN that you lack the authority to reclassify marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), but that was not true. Tapper pointed it out. So have others, including Forbes' columnist Jacob Sullum.
In light of President Obama’s recent observation that marijuana is safer than alcohol, CNN’s Jake Tapper wondered if he was open to reconsidering marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug. When Tapper asked him that in an interview that aired last week, Obama derailed the conversation by denying that the executive branch has the power to reclassify marijuana. That clearly is not true, since the CSA gives the attorney general the authority to move drugs between schedules. The attorney general has delegated that authority to the DEA (a division of the Justice Department), which is why that agency has been the recipient of petitions urging it to put marijuana in a less restrictive category.
Mr. President, you have the power to stop reefer madness. It is a question of political will. Do you have the courage to undo a part of the vicious legacy of Richard Nixon? Tear down this Schedule I wall that has imprisoned too many and benefited too few.