Reporter Mike Riggs at The Daily Caller has an important story online today revealing how U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials are making plans to reschedule natural THC under federal law.
Under the plan, THC derived from the marijuana plant would be classified as a Schedule III controlled substance, while the plant itself would remain classified as a Schedule I illegal drug. Sound fishy? It is.
As a DEA spokesperson quoted in the story explains, “THC, natural or synthetic, remains a schedule I controlled substance. Under the proposed rule, in those instances in the future where FDA might approve a generic version of Marinol, that version of the drug will be in the same schedule as the brand name version of the drug, regardless of whether the THC used in the generic version was synthesized by man or derived from the cannabis plant.”
So, in other words, if a pharmaceutical product contains THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would be a legal commodity. But if you or I possessed THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that an remains illegal commodity.
Wait, it gets even more absurd.
Since the cannabis plant itself will remain illegal under federal law, then from whom precisely could Big Pharma legally obtain their soon-to-be legal THC extracts? There’s only one answer: The federal government’s lone legally licensed marijuana cultivator, The University of Mississippi at Oxford, which already has the licensing agreements with the pharmaceutical industry in hand.
Riggs writes:
In other words, THC in plant form or as an extract, will still be illegal. What won’t be illegal is if a pharmaceutical company buys THC from a government-licensed provider, puts it in a pill, receives the DEA’s stamp of approval, and sells it a price that will likely be far higher than the price of marijuana.
Armentano said such circular reasoning is a product of decades of hostility towards marijuana research.
“This is the insane rationale necessary for banning medical marijuana,” he said. “Take away the prohibition and the political elements, and you would never have the stretching of logic necessary to pass organic THC but only if it mimics Marinol.”
Expect the DEA’s ‘stretching of logic’ to become even more absurd in the future.
You can read the entire Daily Caller story, “Is the DEA legalizing THC?,” here.
@nate:
February 10th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
it is my honest opinion that the only people that want marijuana legalized and pot heads and they’re are giving reasons like people need it for medical reasons even tho threir only real reason for it to be legalized is so they can smoke weed in public to shove it in the face of police officers, there is absolutely no benifitial value to weed whatsoever, if weed would ever be treated like cigarettes like pot heads want car accidents would quadruple,no work would get done anywhere and if any extra money was made off of it, it would be balanced out by the millions of lawsuits when people get killed by someone driving high, also the national obesity rate would skyrocket due to the obvios side effects that go along with marijuana use, the entire idea of legalizing marijuana is hippies trying to final win a battle against “the man” thankfully they remain winless.
0,00000 deaths from MJ
millions from alcohol
sooo f*cking hypocrit! im not a hippy i just like 2 relax with a nice spliff after a hard day of work.
hahaha “the man” lol who are you 2 say who’s the man??? sounds racist all the way!
Ok this is directed to I belive it was CHEMDOG or the person who said the only reason we want it legalized it to rub it in the face of the police. First off you are a fucking moron because you haven’t even looked up one piece of evidence on the subject. If no work would get done and we’d all be high all the time getting into accidents, I guess the same situation would be reflected in Holland, correct? But they have a thriving industry over there and I don’t recall ANY statistics showing someone ODing or Killing anyone from the use of marijuana. I do however see a TON of alcoholics that kill people every year, make people lose their jobs, cause domestic violence, and cause tax payers millions every single year. Cigs have no health benefit at all but we continue to stock the shelves so the companies make more money as people get cancer from smoking the KNOWN carciongenic chemicals inside. Marijuana however has been proven time and time again to help patients with AIDS, HIV, CANCER and Nerve issues (along with others) to prevent wasting syndrome and resistence or prevent the use of addictive opiate drugs like morphine and Oxys. Maybe you are fortunate enough to now have a family member succomb to cancer, where the chemo drives them to stop eating and they only get sicker from there. But maybe you should seek out the patients that Marijuana has helped and see that this natural medication is non addictive and drove them to eat while getting their treatments making them more likely to survive. No matter what drug we have, Alcohol, opiates, prescription meds, marijuana, there will always be stupid people out there abusing them in some shape or form. This is why we would have laws in place such as not smoking and driving or no public smoking like in Holland. Lastly, with this legalization the millions out of work right now will have a new avenue to make money for their family and the goverment will be able to create a revenue to get us out of the Billions of dollars of debt our country is in.
So before you open your uneducated mouth, do proper research and look at the bigger picture for the individual and the country. Besides we need to pull away from the grip of Pharma companies.
NJBourne
I was diagnosed w/ stage Three colon cancer 4 yrs.ago. Chemotherapy was causing severe weight loss, along with the worst sickness I’ve had in the 56 years on earth, EVERY day. I asked my oncologist if MARIJUANA would help?
To my surprise she said quote: ‘of course it will I can prescribe Marinol. I declined the offer thinking I may get sicker from more synthetic chemicals. Having NOT smoked MARIJUANA since High School I figured if it didn’t help at least I could laugh about it. I didn’t have any trouble getting it and was actually quicker than the Pharmacy. I smoked up until 2 weeks prior to surgery,(advice from my oncologist) this caused my weight to return to normal, eliminated the daily sickness, made me realize how retarded the individuals are who don’t want it legalized, and only God knows, may have saved my life. I’m cancer free today and feel better than ever.
endless war and a corrupt government doen’t scare folks these days.
what scares folks these days are sick people doing bonghits and two queer people who want to get married.
thaqt’s what scares people these days. that and um… democrats and republicans
“DBCooper”? Excellent!!! :o)
endless war and a corrupt government doen’t scare folks these days.
what scares folks these days are sick people doing bonghits and two queer people who want to get married
“Marihuana” is a very dangerous drug and even small amounts can cause hysteria, bed wetting and strokes among members of drug free America cults. If legalized their heads could potentially explode.
[b]Here comes Grubbs Barthwell and Bayer while Ganja and Hemp remain for the outlaws. Hummm sounds familiar…[/b]
Is The DEA Legalizing THC?
That is really funny but if you get caught you’re doomed. Why don’t you just head over to a rehab?
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