The Rundown

The DEA’s announcement was a response to two new petitions asking the agency to reclassify cannabis. The plant is currently a Schedule I illegal drug. Substances in that category are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.

Schedule I drugs are also considered the most dangerous of all drugs and they are usually accompanied by the heaviest criminal charges.

Critics of the U.S.’s cannabis laws have repeatedly asked the DEA to move marijuana out of the Schedule I category. Nevertheless, the agency once again denied those requests.

Here’s how the DEA explained its decision. “Marijuana will remain a schedule I controlled substance,” the agency said in a statement. “It does not have a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, there is a lack of accepted safety for its use under medical supervision, and it has a high potential for abuse.”

DEA Attempts To Improve Cannabis Research

The DEA sad it will try to make it easier for scientists to study cannabis. Under current rules only the University of Mississippi can grow cannabis for research purposes. Many researchers say this system creates a lot of challenges that make it hard to carry out effective studies.

Now, the DEA it will allow more universities to grow cannabis for use in research. The agency said the change will make it possible for more research to be completed. If that research can produce enough evidence, the DEA said it might reconsider its decision.

“If the scientific understanding about marijuana changes—and it could change—then the decision could change,” the DEA’s statement said.

Critics Wanted More

Pro-cannabis lawmakers and activists said the DEA’s newest decisions simply aren’t enough.

“I welcome the decision to lessen barriers to marijuana research,” Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer said in a statement. Blumenauer helped to organize the most recent petitions to reclassify cannabis.

“However, this decision doesn’t go far enough and is further evidence that the DEA doesn’t get it. Keeping marijuana at Schedule I continues an outdated, failed approach.”

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Responding to a 2015 letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and seven other Democratic senators urging the federal government to facilitate research into the medical benefits of cannabis, it doesn’t indicate whether it will reclassify the drug as less dangerous.

The U.S. has five categories, or schedules, classifying illegal drugs or chemicals that can be used to make them. Schedule I is reserved for drugs the DEA considers to have the highest potential for abuse and no “current accepted medical use.” Cannabis has been classified as Schedule I for decades, along with heroin and LSD. Rescheduling marijuana wouldn’t make it legal, but it may ease restrictions on research and reduce penalties for marijuana offenses.

“DEA understands the widespread interest in the prompt resolution to these petitions and hopes to release its determination in the first half of 2016,” the DEA said in the 25 page letter.

The letter, signed by Acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, explains in great detail the cannabis supply available at the University of Mississippi, the federal government’s only sanctioned marijuana garden.

The Food and Drug Administration has completed a review of the medical evidence surrounding the safety and effectiveness of marijuana and has forwarded its rescheduling recommendation to the DEA, according to the letter. The document didn’t reveal what the FDA recommended.

If demand for research into marijuana’s medical potential were to increase beyond the University of Mississippi’s supply, the DEA said it may consider registering additional growers.

This isn’t the first time the DEA has been asked to reconsider marijuana’s classification. In 2001 and 2006, DEA considered petitions, but decided to keep marijuana a Schedule I substance.

The DEA response is signed by Rosenberg, Sylvia Burwell, secretary of HHS, and Michael Botticelli, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. In addition to Warren, the letter was sent to Democratic Sens. Jeffrey Merkley (Ore.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Barbara Mikulski (Md.), Edward Markey (Mass.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.).

Those senators, with the exception of Warren, are co-sponsors of a sweeping bill introduces in 2015 designed to drastically reduce the federal government’s ability to crack down on state-legal medical marijuana programs while also encouraging more research into the substance.

Tom Angell, founder of Marijuana Majority, a marijuana reform group, said there was “absolutely no reason marijuana should remain in Schedule I.”

“Almost half the states in the country have medical cannabis laws and major groups like the American Nurses Association and the American College of Physicians are on board,” Angell said in a statement. He said the Obama administration should use its authority to make the change “before this president leaves office.”

Click here to read the letter from the DEA.

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