Chuck Rosenberg, the recently appointed head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, said in an interview with Fox News last week that cannabis should not be reclassified under federal law.
Though he acknowledged that marijuana “certainly is not as dangerous as other Schedule I controlled substances,” he said that he doesn’t “frankly see a reason to remove” it from the Schedule I category.
The category is supposed to be reserved for drugs that are easily abused and have no medical purpose. Although Rosenberg supports continuing research on marijuana’s medical uses, he claims that the evidence isn’t there yet: “If we come up with a medical use for it, that would be wonderful. But we haven’t.”
Paradoxically, Rosenberg acknowledged the failure of alcohol prohibition while remaining opposed to marijuana legalization.
“We tangled with [prohibition] as a society in the 1930s. And we know how that went,” he said. “I choose not to drink alcohol, but I’m not going to impose that on anyone else.”
“I’m not willing to say that [cannabis is] good for you, or that it ought to be legalized. I think it’s bad for you and that it ought to remain illegal,” he argued.
Source:
http://www.marijuana.com/blog/news/2015/09/new-dea-chief-marijuana-has-no-medical-use-should-stay-in-schedule-i/
Photo Credit: Brett Neilson