(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is moving toward reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The Justice Department’s proposal would recognize the medical uses of cannabis but would not legalize it for recreational use.
The proposal would move marijuana from the “Schedule I” group to the less regulated “Schedule III” group.
So what does this mean and what are the implications?
What really changed? What happens next?
Technically, nothing yet. The proposal must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget and then go through a public comment period and review by an administrative law judge, a potentially lengthy process.
Still, the move is considered a “paradigm shift and it’s very exciting,” Vince Sliwoski, a cannabis and psychedelics lawyer in Portland, Ore., who runs well-known legal blogs on these topics, told the Associated Press when the The federal Health and Human Services Department recommended the change.
“I can’t emphasize enough how big the news is,” he said.
This came after President Joe Biden asked HHS and the attorney general, who oversees the DEA, last year to review how marijuana was classified. Schedule I put it on the same level, legally, as heroin, LSD, quaaludes and ecstasy, among others.
Biden, a Democrat, supports legalizing medical marijuana for use “when appropriate, consistent with medical and scientific evidence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “That’s why it’s important that this independent review is approved.”
See more information: Where are US marijuana laws as Biden pardons thousands
If marijuana is rescheduled, would that legalize recreational cannabis nationwide?
Schedule III drugs—which include ketamine, anabolic steroids, and some acetaminophen-codeine combinations—are still controlled substances.
They are subject to several rules that allow for some medical uses and federal criminal prosecution of anyone who traffics drugs without permission.
No changes are expected to the medical marijuana programs now licensed in 38 states or the legal recreational cannabis markets in 23 states, but they are unlikely to meet federal production, recordkeeping, prescribing, and other requirements for Schedule III drugs.
There haven’t been many federal prosecutions for simply possessing marijuana in recent years, even under marijuana’s current Schedule I status, but the reclassification would not have an immediate impact on people already in the criminal justice system.
See more information: Do Americans have a constitutional right to use drugs?
“Simply put, this move from Schedule I to Schedule III is not getting people out of prison,” said David Culver, senior vice president of public affairs at the U.S. Cannabis Council.
But the rescheduling alone would have some impact, particularly on marijuana research and corporate taxes.
What would this mean for research?
Because marijuana is on Schedule I, it has been very difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies involving administration of the drug. This has created something of a dead end: calls for more research, but barriers to carrying it out. (Scientists sometimes rely on people’s own reports of marijuana use.)
Schedule III drugs are easier to study, although reclassification would not immediately reverse all barriers to study.
“It’s going to be very confusing for a long time,” said Ziva Cooper, director of the Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids at the University of California, Los Angeles. “When the dust settles, I don’t know how many years from now, the research will be easier.”
Among the unknowns: whether researchers will be able to study marijuana in state-licensed dispensaries and how the federal Food and Drug Administration will be able to oversee that.
Some researchers are optimistic.
“Lowering the timeline to Schedule 3 will open the door for us to be able to do human research with cannabis,” said Susan Ferguson, director of the Institute on Addiction, Drug and Alcohol at the University of Washington in Seattle.
What about taxes (and banking)?
Under the federal tax code, companies involved in “trafficking” marijuana or any other Schedule I or II drug cannot deduct rent, payroll or various other expenses that other companies can write off. (Yes, at least some cannabis companies, especially state-licensed ones, pay taxes to the federal government despite marijuana prohibition.) Industry groups say the tax rate often ends up at 70% or more.
The deduction rule does not apply to Schedule III drugs, so the proposed change would substantially reduce taxes for cannabis companies.
They say it would treat them like other industries and help them compete against illegal competitors who are frustrating licensees and authorities in places like New York.
“You’re going to strengthen these state legal programs,” says Adam Goers, an executive at medical and recreational cannabis giant Columbia Care. He co-chairs a coalition of companies and other actors pushing for rescheduling.
It could also mean more cannabis promotion and advertising if those costs could be deducted, according to Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Center.
The rescheduling would not directly affect another problem facing the marijuana business: difficulty accessing banks, especially for loans, because federally regulated institutions are cautious about the drug’s legal status. The industry has instead looked to a measure called the SAFE Banking Act. It has repeatedly passed the House but stalled in the Senate.
Are there critics? What they say?
In fact, there are, including the national anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. Chairman Kevin Sabet, a former Obama administration drug policy official, said the HHS recommendation “goes against science, smacks of politics” and gives a regrettable nod to an industry “desperately searching for legitimacy.”
Some legalization advocates say the rescheduling of weed is too gradual. They want to stay focused on removing it completely from the list of controlled substances, which does not include items like alcohol or tobacco (they are regulated, but not the same thing).
Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that simply reclassifying marijuana would “perpetuate the existing divide between state and federal marijuana policies.” Minority Cannabis Business Association President Kaliko Castille said the rescheduling merely “re-brands prohibition” rather than giving authorization to state licensees and definitively ending decades of arrests that disproportionately attracted people of color.
“Annex III is going to leave it in this kind of amorphous, dirty environment where people won’t understand the danger of it still being federally illegal,” he said.
___ Peltz reported from New York. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington and Carla K. Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
