DEA to decide on cannabis re-classification by mid-year

The Drug Enforcement Administration plans to decide whether cannabis 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 cannabis'’s medical benefits, doesn’t indicate whether it will reclassify cannabis 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 cannabis wouldn’t make it legal, but may ease restrictions on research and reduce penalties for cannabis 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 cannabis supply available at the University of Mississippi, the federal government’s only sanctioned cannabis garden. 

The Food and Drug Administration has completed a review of the medical evidence surrounding the safety and effectiveness of cannabis 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 cannabis'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 cannabis’s classification. In 2001 and 2006, DEA considered petitions, but decided to keep cannabis 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 cannabis programs while also encouraging more research into the substance.

Tom Angell, founder of Marijuana Majority, a cannabis reform group, said there was “absolutely no reason cannabis 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.”