Rescheduling marijuana would put politics ahead of science

The Drug Enforcement Administration will soon begin hearings on a proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. This is more than a bureaucratic reclassification. If approved, it would represent a federal determination that all cannabis products — including marijuana flower, pre-rolls, vape cartridges, concentrates, edibles, and tinctures — have a currently accepted medical use.

Before making one of the most consequential drug policy decisions in decades, Americans should ask a simple question: Is this conclusion based on scientific evidence or on politics?

The question of legalizing recreational marijuana is one of personal ideology. Reasonable people can disagree about whether adults should be allowed to use marijuana, just as Americans disagree on the legality of gambling, flavored nicotine vapes and alcohol.

On the other hand, whether a substance qualifies as a medicine is a scientific fact that can be proven or disproven.

Drugs become medicines by demonstrating safety, efficacy, manufacturing consistency, known dosing, and an acceptable risk-benefit profile through rigorous scientific evaluation. The marijuana sold as medicine in state-legal dispensaries meets none of these criteria.

The issue is not whether certain marijuana derivatives have medical uses. Over 40 years ago, the FDA approved a purified form of tetrahydrocannabinol — the psychoactive chemical in cannabis — as a medication. Today,........

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