If you haven't heard yet, the US Drug Enforcement Agency announced today that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they will not be changing marijuana's status as a Schedule I drug.

Yes, that means that pot is classified as "dangerously addictive and with no known medical uses," just like Ecstasy, heroin, LSD, and other Schedule I drugs.

This, my friends, is the biggest crock of shit on the planet.

Full Disclosure Time

All right, before I get started, let's clear the air: I don't smoke marijuana. Makes me cough my goddamn lungs out, doesn't do much for me. However, I do have a vested interest in getting pot off Schedule I for its medical uses: my wife suffers from a host of medical issues (complex PTSD, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue) that are incredibly resistant to modern medicine.

You know what does work for her though? That's right, marijuana. In fact, it's the only thing that works for her. I've seen it firsthand - and yes I understand this is "anecdotal" evidence, but after living together for almost 12 years, the relief she feels after smoking marijuana isn't just a correlation - it's causation.

But What About Medical Marijuana Programs?

Around half the states in the US - plus the District of Columbia - have medical marijuana laws on the books. The state we live in - New York - is one of those states, but it's so goddamn backward that there might as well not be one. It takes hundreds of dollars to be certified for MMJ under the law, and that's only if you find a doctor willing to prescribe it for you. The thing is that NY doctors have been so reluctant to prescribe it because the law is so vague. On top of that, the law in NY authorizes MMJ patients to medicate in one way: through a vaporizer. That you have to buy. From a state-approved source. Meanwhile, few - if any - insurance companies will cover the cost of MMJ prescriptions.

As of January 11 of this year, according to the Vice article linked above, it's so hard to get in to the NY MMJ program that only 71 patients in New York State have done so. In other words, the law is so bad that it's just cheaper and easier to just buy it from a drug dealer. Except for, you know, the whole "buying a Schedule I drug on the black market" thing.

That's What Makes this Decision So Awful

Medical marijuana works. You only have to go so far as to look at the story of Charlotte Figi, the little girl who was suffering hundreds of grand mal seizures a week until her family relocated to Colorado to access medical marijuana. Now she only has one to three seizures a month. The possibilities of MMJ treating a vast array of neurological, psychiatric, and pain disorders is astronomical - yet the DEA has refused to loosen the reins on medical research to move medical science out of the goddamn Dark Ages.

Sure, the DEA in its decision says it "will allow additional entities to apply to become registered with DEA so that they may grow and distribute marijuana for FDA-authorized research" but look at that language. It's going to allow additional entities to apply to become registered. Not that it's going to make it any easier. And then that's only if the Food and Drug Administration - or conversely, the National Institute on Drug Abuse - authorizes the research. You know how many FDA-authorized university programs there are right now? One. At The University of Mississippi. Since 1968. And that was at the behest of the NIDA to not prove how effective pot is as a drug but to prove its harmful effects and the potential for abuse.

This is what happens when centralized government and regulatory bodies get too much power. The DEA has turned my wife into a criminal - and me, by extension, into an accessory.

Suddenly, anarchism doesn't look like such a bad idea, does it?

Image 1 and Image 2 from Wikimedia Commons