US regulators might change how they classify marijuana

NEW YORK (AP) — The news lit up the world of weed: United States health regulators are suggesting that the federal government loosen restrictions on marijuana.

Specifically, the federal Health and Human Services Department has recommended taking marijuana out of a category of drugs deemed to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

The agency advised moving pot from that “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.”

So what does that mean, and what are the implications? 

Technically, nothing yet. Any decision on reclassifying — or “rescheduling,” in government lingo — is up to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which says it will take up the issue.

The review process is lengthy and involves taking public comment.

Still, the HHS recommendation is “paradigm-shifting, and it's very exciting,” said Vince Sliwoski, a Portland, Oregon-based cannabis and psychedelics attorney who runs well-known legal blogs on those topics.

“I can't emphasise enough how big of news it is,” he said.

It came after President Joe Biden asked both HHS and the attorney general, who oversees the DEA, last year to review how marijuana was classified. Schedule I put it on par, legally, with heroin, LSD, quaaludes and ecstasy, among others.

Biden, a Democrat, supports legalising medical marijuana for use “where appropriate, consistent with medical and scientific evidence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “That is why it is important for this independent review to go through.”

No. Schedule III drugs — which include ketamine, anabolic steroids and some acetaminophen-codeine combinations — are still controlled substances.

They're subject to various rules that allow for some medical uses, and for federal criminal prosecution of anyone who traffics in the drugs without permission. 

It's unlikely that the medical marijuana programmes now licensed in 38 states — to say nothing of the legal recreational pot markets in 23 states — would meet the production, record-keeping, prescribing and other requirements for Schedule III drugs.

Because marijuana is on Schedule I, it's been very difficult to conduct authorised clinical studies that involve administering the drug. That has created something of a Catch-22: calls for more research, but barriers to doing it. (Scientists sometimes rely instead on people's own reports of their marijuana use.)

Schedule III drugs are easier to study.

In the meantime, a 2022 federal law aimed to ease marijuana research.

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