Is marijuana a medicine, or is it a vitality-sucking, life-destroying devil weed? Cannabis advocates and law enforcement don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on this crucial point — but for the first time, a judge will be called in to decide.
A federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., has agreed to hear oral arguments in a 10-year-old rescheduling petition filed by Americans for Safe Access, a marijuana advocacy group. ASA wants the Drug Enforcement Administration to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I controlled substance — which means the government considers cannabis highly addictive, with no medical value — to a classification that reflects its medicinal application.
The court hearing would be the first time the medical merits of cannabis would be examined in a federal courtroom since 1994 — before 17 states and the District of Columbia approved the medical use of marijuana — and a mere 10 years after the petition was filed.
The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Americans
for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration on Oct. 16, according to ASA chief counsel Joe Elford.
“This is a rare opportunity for patients to confront politically motivated decision-making with scientific evidence of marijuana’s medical efficacy,” Elford said in a statement issued late Monday. “What’s at stake in this case is nothing less than our country’s scientific integrity.”
– Read the entire article at San Francisco Weekly.
