Marijuana Moment
A former U.S. attorney general who served during President Donald Trump’s first term says marijuana “poses horrific health risks,” has no medical value and should not be rescheduled under federal law.
“Rescheduling marijuana would create the false impression that it is safe, would reduce penalties for peddling the drug illegally and would give those who purvey it legally a huge tax windfall,” William Barr wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post on Wednesday that was coauthored by Kevin Sabet, CEO of the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana. “That would be a disaster.”
The op-ed comes as the Trump administration is moving ahead with cannabis rescheduling.
Under an order issued by U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April, marijuana products regulated by a state medical cannabis license immediately moved from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III, as did any marijuana products that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
An administrative hearing is considering broader marijuana rescheduling, with Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) charged with defending the cannabis reform highlighting testimony on marijuana’s medical benefits and its relative safety compared to other substances such as alcohol and opioids. That included appearances from a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientist and a medical doctor from New Hampshire who detailed how medical marijuana provides relief to pain patients and can serve as an alternative to opioids.
But Sabet and Barr, who was attorney general under Trump from 2019-2020, argued that “evidence presented at the hearing utterly failed to support rescheduling marijuana” and instead “confirmed what decades of data have shown: Raw marijuana has no scientifically established medical value and carries a high risk of abuse.”
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Marijuana Has ‘Horrific Health Risks’ And No Medical Value, Former Trump Attorney General Claims
