The fight to have marijuana reclassified by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to Schedule II so it can be prescribed by doctors is an ongoing battle, despite the evidence for its beneficial effects in many diseases. Medical marihuana has been shown to reduce the nausea associated with chemotherapy for cancer and the nausea associated with AIDS or from the use of AIDS medications (Medical). It has also been found beneficial in the treatment of glaucoma to reduce intraocular pressure, in multiple sclerosis to limit muscle pain and spasticity, to prevent epileptic seizures in some forms of epilepsy, and for the relief of chronic, debilitating pain in many disorders and injuries. Medicines containing marijuana were legal prior to the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which prohibits its use. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 placed marijuana into Schedule 1, which meant it was defined as having no accepted medicinal use in the United States, had a high potential for abuse, and lacked accepted safety for use under medical supervision. In 1972 the DEA's chief administrative judge ruled that it could be placed in Schedule II, meaning it could be prescribed by doctors.
The proposition presented here is that the federal government should legalize marijuana for medical purposes.
In 1975, Robert Randall, a glaucoma patient, was allowed to use marijuana under the Investigational New Drug (IND) compassionate access program, a program which was closed to all new applicants by President Bush in 1992 because of a flood of applications from AIDS patients, because it had proved such a benefit to these patients (Medical). The federal government has no legal authority to prevent states from removing state criminal penalties for the medical use of marijuana, but the federal government has used its overriding prohibitions against marijuana to prevent it from being sold legally in pharmacies. Only Congress has the power to make marijua...