It’s not often that marijuana legalization supporters and opponents agree on the negative implications of cannabis’s classification under federal law.
But a group involving some of the leading voices opposing legalization recently told Congress that marijuana’s current Schedule I status “effectively limit[s] the amount and type of research that can be conducted” on the drug.
That’s something activists working to end the criminalization of marijuana and otherwise change its legal status have been saying for decades.
Meanwhile, many of the same legalization opponents who make up the group behind the new congressional submission pointing out research roadblocks have repeatedly argued that federal law doesn’t stand in the way of cannabis studies.
Schedule I is supposed to be reserved for drugs with a high potential for abuse and no medical value. Researchers and advocates have often said that studies on substances classified there have to overcome approval hurdles that don’t exist for other substances.
“At a time when we need as much information as possible about these drugs, we should be lowering regulatory and other barriers to conducting this research,” the group Friends of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (FNIDA) wrote in its submission, which contains suggested language it wants the Senate Appropriations Committee to include in a report attached to legislation funding NIDA and other federal health agencies for Fiscal Year 2018.
FNIDA is a “coalition of over 150 scientific and professional societies, patient groups, and other organizations committed to preventing and treating substance use disorders as well as understanding their causes through the research agenda of NIDA,” its Senate document says.
The group’s Board of Scientific Advisors includes several prominent legalization opponents, including Smart Approaches to Marijuana’s Kevin Sabet, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), former White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey, former National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Robert DuPont and former Office of National Drug Control Policy Deputy Director Bertha Madras, according to the group’s letterhead. Representatives of the Partnership for a Drug-free America, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America and the American Society of Addiction Medicine sit on the organization’s executive committee.
It is unclear when exactly FNIDA submitted the proposal, but it was published as part of a document posted by the U.S Government Printing Office on Wednesday that compiled requests for Fiscal Year 2018 spending legislation.
“The Committee directs NIDA to provide a short report on the barriers to research that result from the classification of drugs and compounds as Schedule 1 substances,” FNIDA wants the Senate panel to demand of the federal agency.
The same organization submitted a similar proposal for FY 2017, and the Appropriations Committee ended up adopting much of the language for its final report that year. The House Appropriations Committee also included criticism of Schedule I’s research roadblocks in its own 2017 report.
As reported by MassRoots when FNIDA’s 2017 submission was published, a number of the group’s members have dismissed the notion that cannabis’s Schedule I status is a barrier to studies:
“Madras, for example, called the Drug Enforcement Administration’s denial of marijuana rescheduling petitions last August “a victory for science that, to me, is very comforting.”
Also last year, she wrote, “Is Schedule I drug a roadblock to marijuana research? Not really,” adding that moving cannabis to Schedule II would be “conceivably unethical.”
Sabet’s group called rescheduling a “red herring” in a 2015 report, saying that it would not “solve the problem of the need for more research, and instead would likely encourage illegal operators to continue to manufacture inferior products.”
In a Huffington Post piece, he wrote that discussion about reclassifying marijuana is “distracting and essentially meaningless” and doing so would “mainly serve as a symbolic victory for marijuana advocates.”
In a 2013 law review article, Sabet argued that “it is not necessary for marijuana to be rescheduled in order for legitimate research to proceed. Schedule I status does not prevent a product from being tested and researched for potential medical use.” (He did acknowledge that “additional Schedule I restrictions can delay a research program,” and in a 2015 Senate hearing, under intense questioning from Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), was forced to admit that moving marijuana to Schedule II would make it “absolutely easier to research.”)
Kennedy and DuPont joined Sabet in signing a 2014 Smart Approaches to Marijuana letter asking the Obama administration not to reschedule marijuana, claiming that a change in status would be “scientifically dubious” and “is not necessary to facilitate research.”
As drug czar, McCaffrey argued that marijuana “can’t be moved to Schedule two.”
Even after the earlier submission was publicized, Sabet continued to publicly dismiss the notion that it is unduly difficult for scientists to study Schedule I drugs.
Sabet and FNIDA did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
