The Drug Enforcement Administration plans to decide whether marijuana should reclassified under federal law in “the first half of 2016,” the agency said in a letter to senators.

DEA, responding to a 2015 letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and seven other Democratic senators urging the federal government to facilitate research into marijuana’s medical benefits, doesn’t indicate whether it will reclassify marijuana 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.”Marijuana has been classified as Schedule I for decades, along with heroin and LSD. Rescheduling marijuana wouldn’t make it legal, but 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,” DEA said the 25-page letter, obtained by The Huffington Post.

The letter, signed by Acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, explains in great detail the marijuana 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 the University of Mississippi’s supply, DEA said it may consider registering additional growers.

This isn’t the first time 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 introduced 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.”

Read the DEA letter here.

Source: Huffington Post

Marijuana and the United States government have had a rocky relationship for the last 70 or so years, but now, it’s becoming clear that cannabis can actually help the very people the government has damaged through endless warfare.

As many as 20% of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans return home with Post-traumatic stress disorder, a debilitating disorder that makes even the most mundane daily tasks nearly impossible. Often, antidepressants are prescribed, as well as some other heavy medications.

Now, several Democrats in Congress want to change the law to allow veterans access to medical marijuana. Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D–Oregon) and Dana Rohrabacher (R–California) introduced the Veterans Equal Access Act, which would open up the VA system to prescribing medical marijuana. Currently, it is off the table.

“They can’t discuss all the options available to them that they could discuss if they literally walked next door to a non-VA facility,” Senator Steve Daines, R-Montana, told The Washington Post. “I don’t believe we should discriminate against veterans just because they are in the care of the VA.”

Most marijuana studies don’t look at usefulness, but rather, the harm they may do. But now, more studies are coming out that prove the effectiveness of marijuana on PTSD.

“Conclusions: Cannabis is associated with reductions in PTSD symptoms in some patients,” writes George Greer in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. “And prospective, placebo-controlled study is needed to determine efficacy of cannabis and its constituents in treating PTSD.”

With any luck, soldiers in the near future will be able to access this life-saving drug.

Source: Higher Perspective

U.S. Marine Sgt. Sean Major is pushing hard to become the first active duty service member allowed to use medical marijuana.

Major, 25, has had a physician’s recommendation for medicinal cannabis use since last October, reports Robert Burns at Fox 5 San Diego. He currently is prescribed more than 20 different pharmaceutical pills.

The wounded warrior suffered four traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) during his seven years of military service.

“I sustained my first traumatic brain injury in 2010 on the Pacific Rim,” he said. “I’ve had one coming back from my deployment.”

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A study put out by the Journal of the American Medical Associationin 2014 made an interesting discovery.  In every state that had legalized medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010 (13 states in all), there was a 25% reduction in deaths related to the overdose of legally prescribed opioids.

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Australia is expected to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical or scientific purposes with a bill introduced to parliament on Wednesday — the first step towards doctors eventually prescribing it to patients with chronic pain.

The bill will see Australia create a national licensing and permit scheme to supply medical cannabis to patients with painful and chronic conditions on clinical trials.

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Today, the California Medical Association (CMA) – representing more than 41,000 physician members statewide — announced its formal endorsement of the ballot measure known as the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act.

Consistent with the organization’s historic White Paper of 2011 (https://www.cmanet.org/news/detail?article=cma-urges-legalization-and-regulation-of) urging legalization and regulation of cannabis to allow for greater clinical research, oversight, accountability and quality control, CMA has endorsed the Adult Use of Marijuana Act so:

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The federal ban on medical marijuana is finally a thing of the past. Slipped inside a major budgetary spending bill that was purported to prevent the government from shutting down, is an interesting earmarked section that finally lifts the federal ban on medical marijuana.

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