DEA Pulls Back From Calling Marijuana One Of The 'Most Dangerous Drugs'

Last week, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency disappointed many critics when it announced that marijuana will remain, at least for now, a "schedule I" drug, subject to the most restrictions and highest level of scrutiny that the law allows. But without much notice, the agency made a subtle change to its communication strategy regarding scheduling that may prove to be important.

As of Thursday, Aug. 12, marijuana was listed on Drug Enforcement Agency's website as more dangerous than cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone and fetanyl, and lumped in with very dangerous drugs like heroin — despite the fact that almost no one believes that to be true.

"The idea marijuana and heroin are as dangerous as each other, no one in their right mind would agree with that," said Michael Collins, deputy director at the Drug Policy Alliance, advocacy group promoting drug law reforms.

But as of this week, the DEA has changed its website to reflect the fact that no, marijuana is not actually one of the "most dangerous drugs" on the agency's schedule. In fact, the DEA's scheduling was never meant to communicate relative levels of danger, and its labeling marijuana as one of the "most dangerous drugs" was a mistake.

Drug scheduling is meant to classify drugs by two main criteria, as set out by Congress in the Controlled Substances Act: potential for abuse and dependency and accepted medical use. One key reason marijuana has been and remains a schedule I drug is that the DEA, following the guidance of the Food and Drug Administration, has concluded that there is no accepted medical use for the cannabis plant or its extracts.

Yet until now, the DEA's website claimed that schedule I drugs are "the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules":

To be absolutely clear, this is not how the law defines schedule I drugs.

Both schedule I and schedule II drugs, according the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, have a "high potential for abuse," but schedule I drugs lack any accepted medical use. The schedules are not supposed to be distinguished by the relative danger of the drugs.

Patch spoke to Russ Baer, a spokesperson for the DEA, on Friday about the agency's labelling of schedule I drugs as the "most dangerous."

"That is not a completely accurate statement," Baer said, referring to the agency's website. "We are in the process of changing that. The scheduling system is not about relative danger from one substance in comparison to another.

"We intend to make the correction on our website," he continued.

As of this week, the correction has been made, and the website's text shown above has been altered to entirely remove the second sentence.

Why does all this matter?

Critics of the DEA's scheduling argue that classifying marijuana as schedule I puts advocates and researchers for the drugs in a double-bind. The drug is schedule I because it has no accepted medical uses, but research that could find evidence of medical uses for marijuana is heavily restricted because it's a schedule I drug.

"The scheduling system and the way the DEA approaches drugs is inherently contradictory," said Collins, from the Drug Policy Alliance. "It limits the way they can be researched; schedule I is very difficult to research."

Researchers can investigate medical uses for marijuana. In 2015, the National Institutes for Health spent $111 million research marijuana and its byproducts. But it hasn't been easy for many researchers. Until now, only the University of Mississippi has been allowed to grow marijuana for medical research purposes; last week, the DEA said it would allow more growers.

But as CNN's Sanjay Gupta explained, even as the DEA eases restrictions on growers, keeping marijuana a schedule I substance imposes significant hurdles:

Even if a license is granted, to study a Schedule I substance, institutions must have heavy-duty safes and high-grade security systems installed, which can be expensive. There is also the more subjective consideration of getting approval from your academic institution to do the research on a Schedule I status substance in the first place. Even if individual faculty members want to do that research, the university leadership may not want the hassle or the potential fallout of bad press.

Beyond those restrictions, any research must also be approved by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has primarily been interested in research about the negative effects of marijuana, rather than its benefits, according to Gupta.

But with the DEA clarifying that the scheduling does not refer to relative levels of danger, some of the stigma around marijuana as a "schedule I" drug may lessen. Perhaps this change seems trivial, but it's had a surprising effect on the way the DEA's scheduling decisions have been reported.

Numerous reports on the recent decision by the DEA had headlines similar to this one from Fox 7 News: "DEA keeps marijuana ranked as most dangerous drug." This mistaken reporting is a natural outcome of the DEA's misleading (and, as Baer admitted, inaccurate) description of its own classification system.

Still, many will take this messaging shift from the DEA as meager solace, when they argue that the agency could have reclassified the drug last week and declined to do so.

"The DEA can decide that a drug can move up and down the scheduling, they’ve done it before," said Collins. "They just really have a thing about marijuana."

Baer disagreed, putting the onus on Congress and arguing that the DEA's hands were tied because the FDA found no accepted medical uses for the drug.

"We’re restricted by what we can do, and what we do every day, and we simply have to follow statutory criteria which is set forth in the controlled substances act," he said. "The FDA has determined that marijuana does not have a currently accepted medical use, that is the crux of the issue."

Collins dismissed these arguments, saying that it's in the DEA's financial interest to keep marijuana criminalized and classified as schedule I. "It’s a rotten agency, rotten to the core," he said.

But ultimately, both Collins and Baer acknowledge that the most important power lies with Congress. "We need to de-schedule marijuana, we need Congress to end federal prohibition, and allow states to set their own policies," said Collins.

"We don’t consider ballot initiatives, popular opinion, unless and until Congress changes the laws that we’re restricted to follow," said Baer. "DEA has no discretion in this matter."

The DEA does have discretion over its own communication strategy, and the way it characterizes the drugs in its classification system. On that front, it has moved, if only slightly.

Photo credit: Shay Sowden via Wikimedia Commons