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.
Tag: reschedule
In October of 2022, I wrote about the underwhelming nature of President Joe Biden’s pardons for some people convicted of marijuana offenses. What Biden proclaimed was a big rollback in the war on marijuana was really much less. The same goes for the new effort by the Biden administration to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act.
Back in April of 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informed members of the United States Congress that the DEA hoped to release in the first half of that year its determination of whether marijuana should be moved from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to another schedule. Such rescheduling could result in a curtailment of aspects of the US government’s war on marijuana. Come August of 2016, the DEA announced it had decided marijuana should be left in Schedule I — the category for which the greatest drug war restrictions and penalties apply.