The US Court of Appeals is reviewing the Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2011 rejection of a 2002 petition seeking to reclassify marijuana’s status in the Controlled Substances Act. Cannabis is currently a Schedule I narcotic – a classification reserved for substances with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
 
The 2002 petition was submitted by the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis – a coalition led by HIGH TIMES contributor Jon Gettman (read Jon’s detailed account of his efforts to reschedule marijuana).  
 
Pot advocacy group Americans for Safe Access opened the hearing in Washington, DC Monday by arguing that the DEA demonstrated a “bias” against pot by downplaying its medicinal efficacy while embellishing its alleged danger.
 
As reported by the L.A. Times, attorney Joe Elford argued that this bias explains the current classification of cannabis as being “as harmful as heroin and PCP and even more harmful than methamphetamine, cocaine and opium.” The latter trio all having accepted medical use in the United States. Elford maintained that this is due to the fact the feds “have failed to weigh the evidence” from increasingly numerous medical research and studies clinically demonstrating marijuana’s ability to provide pain relief as well as many other medical benefits.
 
Military veterans are among the group of plaintiffs challenging the feds' archaic scheduling of pot and Elford noted that Veterans Administration physicians were not legally permitted to provide medical pot to treat disabled vets’ chronic pain during his oral arguments.
 
To varying degrees, the three-justice panel questioned whether they had the authority to overturn the DEA's rejection of the rescheduling petition. Judge Merrick Garland asked, “Don't we have to defer to their judgment? [On what the medical studies show?] ... We're not scientists. They are” (an odd statement given the DEA' s denial of the science behind thousands of medical marijuana studies).
 
Judge Harry Edwards was more specific: “The real question is to what extent we have to defer to the agency.” Both judges agreed they couldn't override the DEA unless the federal agency's decision is found to be “arbitrary and capricious.”
 
Elford had an answer for the judges, advising they should send this case back to the DEA and require they have a hearing as to whether or not the agency should consider the voluminous research on medicinal cannabis. 
 
The significance of this review is heightened by the U.S. Court of Appeals being among the most influential courts in the nation, with the power to set legal precedent in many cases. 
 
More @ www.latimes.com