Next Step, Remove Marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) took a significant step in reducing the scope and harm of the US government’s war on marijuana when they jointly announced in April the immediate easing of some aspects of marijuana prohibition under US law. The changes include the moving of marijuana regulated under a state medical marijuana license from the most restrictive Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to the less restrictive Schedule III of the act.

The announcement also suggested future easing of marijuana prohibition may be on the way in noting the initiation of an expedited administrative hearing process to consider the broader rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III.

While all cutbacks in the US government’s war on marijuana are welcome, what is really needed is for the US government to just call it quits on the war. That is an argument put forward well by National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Deputy Director Paul Armentano in a May 12 editorial at the NORML website. Armentano addressed in the editorial various benefits of his suggested approach. He then noted that entirely removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act that provides for its illegality “would affirm America’s longstanding principles of federalism and appeal to Americans’ deep-rooted desires to be free from undue government intrusion into their daily lives.”

Hear! Hear! The US government’s war on marijuana is more than a war on a drug or a plant; it is a war on people, freedom, and the constitutionally defined system of American government.

Read Armentano’s editorial here.