Marijuana meets criteria for reclassification as lower-risk drug, FDA scientific review finds | CNN
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Marijuana has a lower potential for abuse than other drugs that are subjected to the same restrictions, with some scientific support for its use as a medical treatment, researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration say in documents supporting its reclassification as a Schedule III substance.

Marijuana has a lower potential for abuse than other drugs that are subjected to the same restrictions, with scientific support for its use as a medical treatment, researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration say in documents supporting its reclassification as a Schedule III substance.

Marijuana is currently classified as Schedule I, reserved for the most dangerous controlled substances, including heroin and LSD. In 2022, President Joe Biden asked US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and the attorney general to begin the administrative process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Rachel Levine wrote a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration in August in which she supported the reclassification to Schedule III, a list that includes “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence” such as ketamine, testosterone and Tylenol with codeine.

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Rescheduling marijuana could open up more avenues for research, allow cannabis businesses to bank more freely and openly, and have firms no longer subject to a 40-year-old tax code that disallows credits and deductions from income generated by sales of Schedule I and II substances.

      • @tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1•11 months ago

        There is an interesting loophole active right now in the US, a person can buy ‘high THCA hemp flower’, which is identical in composition to bud sold at a recreational dispensary, and it is not regulated and can be shipped across state lines legally through even the USPS. There might be some restrictions in certain states, but you can see an example of this bud here: https://www.luckyelk.com/buy/thca/overview

        So long as the THC content is below 0.3% it is not considered cannabis in the same way federally apparently. But most smokable weed has very low THC and high THCA, which is converted to THC when burned, so this bud that falls in this category is just as good as stuff you can get from a dispensary often.