The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has ruled that marijuana remain a Schedule I controlled substance and should not be allowed for medicinal purposes under federal law.
Despite two pending petitions to remove marijuana from Schedule I classification, the DEA kept its stance that the drug has “no currently accepted medical use” in the United States and precludes doctors from prescribing it.
The DEA’s decision was informed by a lengthy analysis by the Food and Drug Administration.
“Right now, the science doesn’t support it,” Chuck Rosenberg, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, told the Washington Post.
In an announcement in the Federal Register and a letter to petitioners, the agency announced one policy change that could increase the amount of research conducted on marijuana, however. The DEA will expand the number of places allowed to grow marijuana for studies of its value in chronic pain relief, as a treatment for epilepsy and for other purposes. Currently, only the University of Mississippi, which holds an exclusive contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is federally licensed to grow marijuana for research purposes.
Read more about today’s DEA announcements.
SEE ALSO:
CADCA’s online course: “What Do We Know About Marijuana?”
Register for CADCA’s Research Into Action webinar on marijuana science.