51 votes

US Food and Drug Administration issues report claiming marijuana has legitimate medical uses - proposes rescheduling

Posted by boxer_dogs_dance
Tags: medicine, usa, drugs, cannabis, policy.drug, regulation, rescheduling, food and drug administration, author.anthony hill, source.abcactionnews, short read
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/national/fda-says-marijuana-has-a-legitimate-medicinal-purpose

Link information

This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.

Title
FDA says marijuana has a legitimate medicinal purpose
Authors
Published
Mar 21 2024
Word count
249 words

6 comments

  1. [2]
    drannex
    Link
    For reference schedule three includes: Ketamine Anabolic steroids (such as Depo-Testosterone) Buprenorphine (Suboxone) Codeine and hydrocodone products mixed with aspirin or acetaminophen

    For reference schedule three includes:

    • Ketamine
    • Anabolic steroids (such as Depo-Testosterone)
    • Buprenorphine (Suboxone)
    • Codeine and hydrocodone products mixed with aspirin or acetaminophen
    19 votes
    1. vord
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Which, while not as good as being fully de-scheduled, and not compatible with recreational use, comes with substantially less criminal penalties. A nice writeup from Reuters. In other words,...

      Which, while not as good as being fully de-scheduled, and not compatible with recreational use, comes with substantially less criminal penalties.

      A nice writeup from Reuters.

      In particular, classifying cannabis as a Schedule III drug would mean that Section 280e of the IRC, which by its terms applies only to controlled substances on Schedules I and II of the CSA, will no longer apply to cannabis businesses. 26 U.S. Code §280E. Rescheduling would also open new avenues for research and medical uses, result in lighter criminal penalties for cannabis-related violations of the CSA, and would likely attract more investors, researchers, and entrepreneurs into the cannabis space.

      In other words, things like banking become a lot less risky for growers, putting it more on-par with pharmaceutical company risk rather than heroin-dealer risk.

      I'd say it's a good stepping stone down towards decriminalization. If the world does not collapse with rescheduling, de-scheduling becomes easier to justify. If the DEA fully de-scheduled, there would be nothing stopping the conservative states from re-banning it on their own terms, while cutting off a lot of wasted effort from the feds that is better spent on almost literally anything else.

      26 votes
  2. tanglisha
    Link
    Wow, there is a room of stuff going on right now around marijuana. A while back there was an issue in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, where growers weren't allowed to use federal irrigation...

    Wow, there is a room of stuff going on right now around marijuana.

    A while back there was an issue in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, where growers weren't allowed to use federal irrigation waters. In the case of Washington and Oregon, growers in the Columbia River Basin couldn't use water from the Columbia River. I can't seem to find how that shook out, does anyone know?

    15 votes
  3. BeanBurrito
    Link
    Now convince the DEA, from what I read they are the real holdup.

    Now convince the DEA, from what I read they are the real holdup.

    5 votes
  4. [2]
    steezyaspie
    Link
    If (when) this eventually happens, it will be interesting to see how existing companies adapt to being licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers subject to FDA inspection, who will now need to have...

    If (when) this eventually happens, it will be interesting to see how existing companies adapt to being licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers subject to FDA inspection, who will now need to have robust quality systems, process controls, etc.

    I’d have to imagine that there are some who are essentially already there, but for others it might require major changes. Seems like a great opportunity for people who are experienced in pharma/med device, but may not have wanted to jump to a company operating in a legal grey area.

    5 votes
    1. Minori
      Link Parent
      To my understanding, there's already a rapidly growing testing industry for marijuana products since it's such a complex plant pharmacologically. In theory, it's really simple to just extract ∆8...

      To my understanding, there's already a rapidly growing testing industry for marijuana products since it's such a complex plant pharmacologically. In theory, it's really simple to just extract ∆8 THC. In reality, there are plenty of things that can go wrong and many growers don't think enough about contaminants.

      I'd definitely feel better if there were strict FDA quality checks!

      2 votes