Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday called on the federal government to move “as quickly as possible” to change the way it officially classifies marijuana, saying that “nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”
“I cannot emphasize enough that they need to get to it as quickly as possible,” Harris said. “We need to have a resolution based on their findings and their assessment. This issue is stark when one considers the fact that on the schedule currently, marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin ― as dangerous as heroin ― and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd, not to mention patently unfair.”
Marijuana is currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration. That classification designates it one of the most dangerous drugs possible, with no medicinal uses. Other substances in the same category include heroin, ecstasy and LSD. Marijuana advocates have been pushing for years for the federal government to either reschedule marijuana to a different category or deschedule it entirely.
They’ve been “calling for it” since Biden campaign. And reschedule? It should be descheduled.
And the DEA is actively working on it, which just so happens to be the final step in rescheduling a drug.
I work in the space industry and this just reeks of the “hurry up and wait” that I live in. If the right pressure was there, it’d be rescheduled already. I’m 50/50 on if they are actually working on it or if feet are being dragged due to institutional friction.
They’re doing as little as possible to say they’re working on it.