Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is calling on the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to act with “great urgency” to reschedule marijuana in line with a recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In a letter sent to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram last week, the senator said that while she remains “under the strong conviction that marijuana should be descheduled entirely,” the agency should, “at a minimum,” move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
That’s the recommendation HHS delivered to DEA following an 11-month scientific review into marijuana that it carried out under a directive from President Joe Biden last year. DEA should take the health agency’s assessment “into full consideration when determining the rescheduling of marijuana,” Gillibrand wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Finger Lakes Daily News.
“Schedule I is the same classification used for heroin and LSD, and an even higher classification than medical fentanyl and methamphetamine—the drugs that currently pose a serious public health crisis in our communities,” she said.
It’s time to end decades of injustice and harm.
I still fully believe that marijuana should be legalized and descheduled entirely — but I called on @DEAHQ to, at a minimum, consider rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III substance. pic.twitter.com/XwOAh2OYuC
— Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand…
