Forget Rescheduling, It’s Time to Deschedule Cannabis
Originally published in Weed World Magazine issue 166 (Sep 2023)
Over a century ago a small cabal of industrialist robber barons, venture capitalists, and ignorant politicians conspired to constrict, condemn, and criminalise the common man for utilising and consuming cannabis in the United States of America.
In the decades since, the vast majority of psychoactive drugs (other than tobacco, alcohol, and sugar) have been governed and regulated by the federal Controlled Substances Act - with the enforcement of the legislation being carried out by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
Cannabis is currently classified as a Schedule I drug along with Diamorphine (Heroin), Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), Peyote, Methaqualone (Quaaludes), and Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). This means that it is characterised as a “drug with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
In practice, this means that the US government and the DEA believe, as stated on the DEA website, that these substances have “no currently ACCEPTED MEDICAL use” Which is a rather interesting and diabolically clever use of the English language. The use of the word ‘medical’ rather than ‘medicinal’ alters the nature of the statement dramatically.
To truly appreciate the depths of the deception behind this linguistic lie we must first explore the definitions and usage of these two seemingly interchangeable terms. The Oxford Dictionary defines each term as follows; Medical - “Of, relating to, or designating the science or practice of medicine in general, or its practitioners.” Medicinal - “Having or designating healing or curative properties or attributes, therapeutic; used as a medicine; of or relating to medicines”.
Simply put ‘medical’ is defined as relating to the science or practice of medicine - whereas, ‘medicinal’ is defined as relating to the use of substances as medicines and their therapeutic properties. Which could, in my opinion, be read as ‘medical’ meaning pertaining to the pharmacological industry of patented and profitable medical interventions and drugs and ‘medicinal’ meaning the use or consumption of a substance(s) for its therapeutic, healing, and curative properties to treat, relieve, or cure an ailment, illness, or disease.
For something to be ‘medical’ it requires the input, permission, and profiteering of a qualified ‘medical’ individual, authorised institution or organisation to ‘approve’ or ‘accept’ the usage of something medically. The use of something medicinally on the other hand is an entirely subjective, personalised experience, and hyper-individualised activity.
Anything can be medicinal; it just depends on the situation, context, and consciousness of the individual consumer. For example, many people with social anxiety self-medicate with a few drinks of alcohol when they go out with friends. It is reported by these individuals that a couple of drinks ‘loosens them up’ and helps them to ‘be in the moment’ and mitigate and manage their anxieties.
There are plenty of other individuals that may develop a problematic relationship with or dependency on alcohol though – with it having the exact opposite effect on them. So the substance isn’t necessarily the issue, the context of its consumption, the mental health of its consumer, epigenetics, the socio-economic environment in which it’s consumed, and a myriad of other factors all play a role in whether something is being consumed medicinally.
Several studies have also found that individuals with ADHD/ADD have a higher propensity for consuming and self-medicating with tobacco and nicotine-containing or derived products to ease issues with concentration and focus.
Yet should the individuals who find their conscious consumption medicinal be forced to involve a doctor and obtain their permission and approval to manage their condition or life in this way? Of course not! Alcohol and tobacco are freely available for people to choose to self-medicate with because it is not a federally controlled drug – as cannabis should be.
This kind of self-medicating is tolerated/allowed because neither drug, regardless of the annual death toll directly attributable to their consumption, is a federally controlled substance. There is no need for a ‘medical’ alcohol or tobacco industry because the establishment recognises that they have no ‘accepted medical use’. Well, except for smoking cessation/nicotine replacement therapy tools and isopropyl and rubbing alcohol – this could be considered medical.
Another great example of this linguistic medical/medicinal misdirection is Diamorphine. Back in 1898, another Schedule I drug Diamorphine was openly sold under the brand name Heroin as an over-the-counter medication to treat numerous common conditions. The drug was a popular pharmaceutical preparation that initially enjoyed a plethora of ‘accepted medical uses’ in early twentieth-century America.
The drug was freely available up until the Harrison Narcotics Act 1914 required a doctor to prescribe it – before later being prohibited under the so-called ‘Anti-Heroin Act 1924’. After its criminalisation, there was no “accepted medical use’ as a doctor could no longer lawfully prescribe it and thus the modern pharmacological machine could no longer profit from it.
However, there is still the ‘medicinal use’ of Heroin – which has continued for millions of consumers around the world despite its continued criminalisation, vilification, and extreme stigmatising of consumers. This ‘reverse medicalisation’ of Heroin from standardised prescription medicine to an unregulated medicinal ‘street drug’ is now happening with Fentanyl and other prescription opioids – with dire consequences.
The establishment does not allow or want individuals to be self-medicating or medicinally consuming Opium, Opioids, or any other drug it cannot control without first paying them for the privilege. All while ‘their drugs’ continue to cause the most harm to individuals and wider society.
The modern pharmacological industrial complex protects its highly profitable prescription racket by spending vast sums of its ill-gotten gains on lawful bribery - sorry lobbying. This fiscal pressure results in successive governments demonising the medicinal consumption of non-authorised/non-prescribed drugs, the production of mountains of scientifically illiterate propaganda, and compounding the potential negative consequences of substances through the perpetuation of drug prohibition.
So in effect, the Controlled Substances Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act, or any other national/international prohibitive drug legislation is effectively just an act of government that prohibits citizens from lawfully medicinally (or otherwise) consuming substances that the establishment doesn’t deem desirable, control or directly profit from.
In early September 2023, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) filed a proposal with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recommending the federal ‘rescheduling’ of cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III under the federal Controlled Substances Act.
The recommendation comes 10 months after US President Joe Biden asked his attorney general and secretary of health to review whether cannabis could be reclassified as a lower-schedule drug. As part of its investigation, the HHS claims to have conducted a ‘scientific and medical evaluation’ - although the data is not currently publically available. The DEA will now conduct its own investigation as it is ultimately the final authority on the scheduling of drugs in the US.
The news was welcomed by the large venture capital-backed multinational conglomerates in the ‘medical cannabis industrial complex’ and lawful cannabis industry – with stock prices gaining a healthy 20% average increase upon the news.
It is claimed by its supporters that making cannabis a Schedule III drug would facilitate the creation of more research, reduce criminalisation, and allow for the cannabis industry to more easily access federal banking and financial services.
However, this wouldn’t necessarily be the case; even if cannabis was made a schedule III drug federally the licensed adult-use state operators would still be violating federal law for ‘trafficking’ in controlled substances and thus would still see their federal financial and banking options limited. The 'Medical Cannabis Industrial Complex' on the other hand.
If the recommendations are accepted, then cannabis would finally have ‘accepted medical use’ in the US and would join ketamine, anabolic steroids, and low-dose codeine-containing drugs as schedule III drugs. It is worth noting here that they are all drugs that require FDA approval, and strict regulation/licensing, and are only available as a prescription medication.
The silver lining here for the little guys is the Tenth Amendment and state’s rights. The US already has 23 states that lawfully permit the limited adult use of cannabis and a further 38 states that allow for the limited lawful use of cannabis medicinally under some form of legal state framework despite the Schedule I classification.
The federal rescheduling of cannabis appears as though it would not reduce individual states' ability to regulate a ‘legalised’ adult cannabis use industry within its borders. So the limited home growing and commercial access models that have emerged over the last few decades are likely not a risk.
No, the risk here is that the carrot of rescheduling is so alluring that we speedily sleepwalk into the complete medicalisation of cannabis/cannabinoids and the corporate capture and commodification of cannabis by the monoliths of modern neoliberal capitalism - as we did with opioids and other drugs in the past.
Ultimately, if anything is to be done with cannabis and the Controlled Substances Act, it should be ubiquitously descheduled. To quote DNA Genetics, Rezwan Khan, “Rescheduling is recriminalizing; descheduling is decriminalizing.”
https://mjbizdaily.com/biden-health-officials-say-marijuana-should-be-rescheduled/
Written for Weed World Magazine By Simpa
