Game changers?

Efforts to get the federal government to downgrade its classification of marijuana from a dangerous narcotic with no medical value and to acknowledge that it has medical uses may be reaching a critical mass.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act in Congress. Frank's legislation would reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug on the federal registry. Schedule I drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, are considered the most dangerous and highly addictive. Schedule III drugs have recognized medical value, and research on them is allowed.

No matter what you think about marijuana use, that marijuana is in the same class as heroin and cocaine flies against all logic. For one thing, there is not one documented case of someone dying from a marijuana overdose.

Frank has introduced similar legislation before, so it's not like he suddenly saw the light and changed sides. However, it came just a couple of days after the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC) filed suit in District of Columbia Circuit Court to compel the Obama administration to answer a nine-year-old petition to reclassify medical marijuana as a Schedule III drug — or downgrade it even further to Schedule IV or V.

The American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians have also called for rescheduling, and pharmaceutical companies are lobbying for the same thing to research medical applications. A synthetic form of THC, one of the most active components of marijuana, is marketed under the name Marinol. It goes off patent this year, and companies seeking to develop generics want to use natural THC derived from the plant because it's cheaper than synthetic production.

Pressure for rescheduling seems at its highest since President Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. In the CRC suit, any government response moves the issue forward for activists. If the administration reschedules marijuana they get what they want. If the administration denies the petition, it opens the door to challenge the assertion that marijuana has no medical value.

"We need a petition answered before we can go into court and challenge the substance of their argument, which is what we intend to do," says Kris Hermes, media liaison for Americans for Safer Access, a member of the CRC. "The reason we're doing this is the government strategy, as far as we can tell, is simply to delay so they don't have to address the issue. It's a political football. ... However a confluence of events that have occurred over last couple of years leads one to believe we have a renewed opportunity to fix this issue."

It seems that given their day in court medical marijuana supporters would have very powerful arguments. A growing body of international scientific evidence shows that marijuana does have medical value. A 2009 report from the AMA concluded:

Results of short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis. However, the patchwork of state-based systems that have been established for medical marijuana is woefully inadequate in establishing even rudimentary safeguards. ... The future of cannabinoid-based medicine lies in the rapidly evolving field of botanical drug substance development, as well as the design of molecules that target various aspects of the endocannabinoid system. To the extent that rescheduling marijuana out of Schedule I will benefit this effort, such a move can be supported.

> Email Larry Gabriel