DEMAGOGUERY AND THE ADVOCACY OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA REFORM

The drug policy reform community is woefully ignorant about the federal
rescheduling process. As a result patients, the public, and activists have
all been misled about the actual mechanisms by which medical marijuana must
be approved by the federal government.

Advocates have a responsibility to know what they are talking about. In
this area it is a responsibility to know about the legal mechanisms of the
scheduling process, and to educate the public about them. (Details of the
federal rescheduling process can be found in the U.S. Code - the legal
citation is 21 USC 811.)

It is true that state initiatives can put pressure on the federal
government to take steps to expedite the availability of medical
marijuana. It is misleading, though, to talk about legalizing medical
marijuana by way of state initiatives, as many advocates do. It is one
thing for states to decide, by legislative process, initiative, or
prosecutorial discretion, not to subject patients who use medical marijuana
to criminal sanctions. Such action is justified on several grounds - most
particularly recognition that patients who use cannabis medically do not do
so with criminal intent. However such action at the state level does not
in any way legalize medical marijuana use, and until the Supreme Court
rules otherwise state laws of this kind in no way over-ride the federal
laws about the manufacture, distribution, sale and use of cannabis as a
controlled substance.

It is also misleading to imply, as many advocates do, that the federal
government can reschedule marijuana by way of a presidential order. Indeed
that sort of arbitrary use of power is exactly what the rescheduling
process is designed to prevent and protect against. Advocates frequently
imply that state level medical cannabis reform will pressure the federal
government into rescheduling cannabis without paying any attention to just
how the government would be able to do so. State level reform in this area
does put pressure on the government to reschedule; however the only way the
federal government is authorized by Congress to reschedule cannabis is
through use of the rescheduling process laid out in the Controlled
Substances Act. Under their strategy we are supposed to spend several
years passing state-level reform, and then wait several more years in the
distant future for the government to conduct rescheduling proceedings.

Interestingly the most prominent national advocates of using state level
initiatives to pressure the federal government into rescheduling cannabis
declined to support the cannabis rescheduling petition filed by this writer
and High Times in 1995. Had these advocacy organizations supported the 1995
effort marijuana may have already been rescheduled today. The 1995
petition ran into a roadblock that prevented judicial review by the federal
courts. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that petitioners (this writer and
High Times) were not sufficiently harmed by DEA's refusal to reschedule to
gain access to the federal courts. The involvement of more individuals and
organizations would have made a difference in this prior action, and a
coalition of patient advocacy groups joined with the prior petitioners to
launch a new rescheduling action in 2002.

Advocacy groups that tell the public that winning the battle over medical
marijuana will result in the end of marijuana prohibition are not only
misleading but incompetent. They are misleading because the rescheduling of
marijuana will only address medical access to cannabis, and for that matter
rescheduling only addresses the regulatory framework necessary to expedite
the investment, research, and Food and Drug Administration approval
required to make cannabis available as medicine. Not only does the
rescheduling process take several years at best, the follow-up steps
required to gain approval of specific cannabis medical products will take
several more years after that. None of these developments will have much
affect, if any, on the arrest of individuals for cannabis use. For most
cannabis users marijuana prohibition will continue if and after medical
cannabis has been approved. Consequently advocating such positions is not
only misleading but incompetent, because advocates of public policy
positions ought to take the time to know what they are talking about -
advocates of reforming the marijuana laws ought to know how those laws can
be reformed. Anything else is demagoguery, a blatantly self-serving appeal
to public emotion used as a source for political power and personal
financial gain.

State level reform on medical marijuana should be pursued vigorously;
however national groups seeking to exploit these local efforts to advance
their national agendas should be more honest about the significance of
local reform. Misleading rhetoric harms the movement far beyond the short
term gains it provides in media exposure and fundraising. It detracts from
other reform efforts and priorities, such as working to reduce arrests for
marijuana possession as well as attempts to build support for the
rescheduling at the federal level. It also risks tremendous backlash from
supporters who will eventually realize they have been misled, manipulated,
and exploited.

However there is a connection between medical marijuana reform and reducing
if not ending arrests for marijuana related offenses. The connection is
that the scientific basis for both policies is the same. However unlike
state level reform the federal rescheduling process provides a mechanism
for a thorough review of all the scientific evidence relevant to the
cannabis issue. A breakthrough at the federal level will certify formidable
scientific evidence that cannabis is not the drug many people fear it is,
and can have a tremendous impact on public and political attitudes about
the wider cannabis reform. For this reason rescheduling at the federal
level, unlike state level medical marijuana reform, provides not only a
tremendous opportunity for public education but also will make a
significant contribution to ending the wider prohibition on marijuana
use. In other words, federal rescheduling can actually deliver what some
national advocacy groups can only vaguely promise.

It is counter productive to imply to patients, activists, and the public
that all that is needed to reschedule cannabis are more state-level
initiatives. In fact it is an outright lie. There are plenty of reasons to
support state-level reform without lying to the public about how the
federal status of marijuana can be changed. When the federal government
decides it wants to reschedule cannabis they will have to use the
rescheduling process of the Controlled Substances Act. Some advocacy
groups are content to press on with their current strategies and just wait
for the federal government to reschedule cannabis at some distant point in
the future. However many locally based patient advocacy groups, joined by
NORML, this writer, and High Times, are not content to wait for the federal
government to reschedule cannabis at their leisure and seek to compel
rescheduling as soon as possible. That is the purpose of the current
rescheduling petition - to use the actual mechanism provided by law to both
compel rescheduling now, to educate the public on how current law requires
that cannabis be made medically available to patients in need, and to
provide a much needed boost to efforts to end marijuana prohibition not
just for patients in need but for all Americans.