Anybody who’s been involved in marijuana policy during the past, oh, 42 years, knows about scheduling. Cannabis was placed into Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, provisionally, and, despite the Commission report which should have removed it, was left there. Since then, every petition to change the scheduling has been blocked, not by scientific evidence, but by political decisions from the executive branch.
Of course, having marijuana on Schedule 1 has led to serious real harms, including the restriction on using a medical necessity defense in federal courts (US v. Oakland Cannabis Buyer’s Cooperative).
The Schedule 1 status has also had potent symbolic political power, with the DEA holding a death grip on the status to protect their enforcement turf (while simultaneously allowing easy and fast rescheduling for pharmaceutical products like Marinol).
Of course, in recent years, it’s become more and more obvious, to even the general population, how absurd it is to have cannabis classified in Schedule 1 (or, for that matter, to be scheduled at all, when alcohol and tobacco are not).
So it’s not likely to be popular to let people know that you have the ability to change that classification… and haven’t. Which may be why President Obama weaseled his way out of any responsibility for it in his most recent interview.
Confused About Power to Reschedule Pot, Advocates Say (by Steven Nelson in US News and World Report):
“What is and isn’t a Schedule I narcotic is a job for Congress,” Obama told Jake Tapper of CNN. “It’s not something by ourselves that we start changing. No, there are laws under – undergirding those determinations.” […]
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., tells U.S. News it’s “very clear” that the law “actually permits reclassification administratively.”
“I don’t dispute that Congress could and should make the change, but it’s also something the administration could do in a matter of days and I hope they will consider it,” says Blumenauer, who is currently circulating a letter among colleagues asking Obama to do so. Eight members of Congress have signed the letter so far.
I, too, would like to see Congress step up, but there’s no doubt that the President can act independently.
Also pointing out the simple and uncontroversial fact that the President has the power to reschedule, was Jacob Sullum, who wrote: Obama, Who Evidently Has Not Read the Controlled Substances Act, Denies That He Has the Power to Reclassify Marijuana.
Obama often speaks as if he is an outside observer of his own administration […]
That led to this bizarre screed by Mark A.R. Kleiman: Futile pursuits: chasing rainbows and rescheduling cannabis. Kleiman, while not identifying a single inaccuracy in Sullum’s report, nevertheless chose to spew this:
The discussion of “rescheduling†marijuana is confused because most of the people engaged in it don’t know how the law works.
Jacob Sullum, always willing to let his ignorance be the measure of other people’s knowledge, utterly unwilling to let mere facts get in the way of libertarian ideology, and eager to please his paymasters by slagging a Democratic President, illustrates my point in his response to the latest CNN Obama interview.
Those who read Mark Kleiman’s blog on a regular basis know that he suffers from an extreme case of libertarian derangement syndrome. Mark is a big fan of nanny-state government and a strong promoter of intervention into the lives of those whom Kleiman believes are unable/unwilling to make appropriate/proper decisions for themselves. (You see this in his preferences for extremely high regulation of currently illicit drugs and alcohol, particularly as relates to those who abuse them.) One of his biggest fears appears to be a net reduction in government authority in our lives.
While he often criticizes government himself, it is with the idea of reforming or replacing the corrupt or improperly working program. Any attempt to suggest ending/reducing (or even criticizing) a nanny-state program without in the same breath pointing out the value of government intervention is met with this same libertarian derangement syndrome reaction.
Of course, I’m just conducting my own little Psychology 101 experiment in trying to read Mr. Kleiman, but the analysis seems to fit. It goes a way toward explaining the also bizarre decision to recently criticize Radley Balko’s work out of the blue.
Note to Radley Balko: Congratulations on your new gig at the Washington Post. Your criticisms of police excess – often spot-on – would have more cred if, just once, you celebrated police success, or noticed that liberty can be threatened by crime as well as by official misconduct. […]
I’m all for Radley’s exposes of police misconduct. I’d just prefer if he occasionally reminded his readers what the police are there for in the first place.
Many of us in drug policy reform have received the brunt of Mark’s wrath many times for merely being activists. We see our job as being primarily to bring an end to the destruction of prohibition, and don’t all agree that the best replacement for it is heavy regulatory interference, regardless of whether we are liberal, libertarian, conservative, or something else. We also see the discussion of what to do about drug abuse post-prohibition to be its own valuable separate discussion.
And yet, Mr. Kleiman regularly takes honest anti-drug war activism (if it doesn’t also explicitly call for a sufficient level of nanny-statism), and equates it with the corruption and dishonesty of prohibitionists (worse-yet, the corruption and dishonesty of prohibitionists utilizing the power of government). That equation just doesn’t balance.
I have, in the past, pointed out that I believe Mark Kleiman to be quite intelligent and knowledgeable about drug policy, and I have noted numerous times when I have agreed with him.
But to use his own words, I think his policy recommendations would “have more cred” if he was able to accept the fact that there are critiques of specific government actions/programs (by libertarians, drug policy reformers, or others) that can be valid per se, without also providing some shibboleth of supporting governmental intervention.
Kleiman has really gone off the deep end lately. He’s such a hard-core partisan Democrat, and he is really scared of the libertarian current in modern American politics that’s getting stronger daily.
It’s kind of similar to the way the prohibitionists are starting to implode in the news lately. They’re losing the battle, badly, because they don’t really have things like “logic” or “reason” on their side.
Kleiman’s arguments in favor of massive taxation of pot will never be met with anything but derision when it comes time to actually govern. And he knows that. And he’s irritated that the libertarians are so OBVIOUSLY going to win the marijuana fight, when he’s been preaching this “3rd way” crap for years.
Speaking of which, it’s no wonder that Kleiman imagines that he and Obama would be best buddies if they met in real life, that Obama is the president he’d most like to “have a beer with”. They both think that taking both sides in a policy argument, without endorsing either, is bold thinking.
Who is Ben and why doesn’t he post more?
It would only take one wrong address ‘no knock’ SWAT style raid on Kleiman’s house for him to gain a cosmic ‘understanding’ about what we’re talking about.
Not that the laws of Karma would do that to him.
Am I a bad person to wish that upon Mr.Kleiman?
It is never being a bad person to wish someone a well earned karmic lesson.
There is only one reason Cannabis is illegal other than ignorance and hysteria is the 100 Billion Dollar a year cash cow for the prohibition Industry profiteers.
It looks like the Attorney General has all of the power that he needs to remove any drug or other substance from the schedules in 21 U.S.C. § 811.
You guys should check out the rescheduling page on cannabis (wikipedia). The reasons the DEA argue for retention of Schedule I status borders on insanity. For example, mice don’t seem to show dependence for cannabis unlike heroin, but unlike smack cannabis used by so many people that it has to lead to dependence.
Government Says You Can’t Overcome Addiction, Contrary to What Government Research Shows
http://tinyurl.com/mqpet4k
David Simon is well worth a listen. Puts some valuable perspective on things drug war and related: http://youtu.be/DNttT7hDKsk -its about an hour and 19 mins
America as a horror show
http://youtu.be/SL6Jv2Jpnpg -27 minute short version in a conversation with Bill Moyers
The DEA will NEVER reschedule. It’s going to take a lot of noise to get it done.
Klieman says: Cannabis has 2+ million users meeting diagnostic criteria at any one time. That’s not a low abuse potential in my book.
Straight out if the DEA’s play book. Well done.
Not.
In 1988 Judge Young estimated 20 million to 50 million Americans were using marijuana as medicine and recreationally illegally and every since the government has claimed less than that,,the actual numbers can’t be estimated from people willing to admit breaking a federal law too a stranger on the phone..the government doesn’t want US citizens to know how many of us smoke marijuana.
Yeah Paul, we’re having a good debate on that one. Here’s my latest comment, which I’d LOVE for Dr. Kleiman to respond to:
Freeman says
February 2, 2014 at 5:44 am
Yes, “less dangerous than alcohol†is a low bar to cross, which is why I drew a comparison to caffeine instead. (I realize that part of your reply was in response to Barry’s comment). As I mentioned above, the abuse potential of cannabis and caffeine are roughly comparable, certainly more comparable to each other than either one to alcohol.
Care to discuss how the 2+ million cannabis number is inflated by it’s legal status? (Are those US numbers or worldwide?) Let’s consider the 750,000 annual marijuana possession arrests in the US, add in the tens of thousands more workplace drug-tests that show positive for marijuana, factor the courts’ and employers’ proclivity for offering a degree of clemency in exchange for “voluntary†commitment to drug rehab programs where one must “confess†to some sort of addictive behavior in order to progress through the program. As you often say, very few of those arrests lead to federal or state prison sentences. The bulk of them are diverted to rehab programs whether the arrestee needs it or not.
If we could imagine caffeine in a similar legal predicament, how high do you think the number of caffeine consumers meeting the “diagnostic criteria†would be? Considering these factors, do you continue to insist that marijuana actually meets schedule 1′s “high potential for abuse†criteria?
Well, Mark’s been back to comment since I left the one above, and so far has declined to continue the conversation. Anyone wanna bet over whether or not he can come up with a convincing rubuttal?
Bernard King (I’m unfamiliar with this commenter) expanded on my comment quite nicely:
Bernard King says
February 2, 2014 at 2:42 pm
When a person spends $5 + 30 minutes per day on a Starbucks latté and they make less than $100,000 per year, I would say that qualifies as “interference with their lives.â€
Imagine how much greater that interference would be if they could be arrested for possessing Starbucks containers, searched upon the untestable assertion that a police officer “smelled coffe beans,†or cut-off from student loans and job opportunities because they chose to drink coffee for a few years of their youth.
Would “caffeine prohibition†realistically result in less people drinking caffeine? I doubt it. But I bet running “caffeine addiction treatment centers†would be a great way to get rich!
Yep, looks like ol’ Marky-Mark can’t come up with a canned talking point to use in rebuttal. So I called him out on his intellectual dishonesty:
Freeman says
February 4, 2014 at 3:31 am
Yes, lots of people are dependent on caffeine: they get a headache if they miss their morning coffee. Very few of them (though more of them than are aware of it) suffer from substance abuse disorder in the sense that caffeine interferes with their lives, or that they’re aware of the problems, have tried to cut back, and failed.
I find it ironic that Mark doesn’t seem to think suffering from withdrawal symptoms EVERY MORNING until one gets her coffee fix doesn’t qualify as “interferes with their livesâ€, but unmentioned whateveritis that habitual cannabis users suffer from qualifies automatically without even being defined. Intellectual honesty at it’s finest.
“unmentioned whateveritis”
Solid gold, I hope I get an opportunity to use that one!
DEA agents are big mouse lovers. Didn’t you know that?
And the mouse says “Is that all there is?”
“You nail Sullum so perfectly — he is a slave to corporate masters for the ostensible sake of “freedomâ€. More sad than hypocritical, but certainly both.”
This, from Humphreys in the comments, so perfectly encapsulates the whole Kleiman, RAND et al., crew; totally blind to the fact that it is they who are enslaved to masters; the state.
I especially like the way they completely distort both their ideological opponents views and motives, in bad faith, and without a shred of evidence, and engage in nothing but ad hominem attacks. Stay classy.
I’m with Mark here, but in weirder ways than he would expect. “Marijuana” is not in the CSA. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is.
So here’s a scenario;
In my left hand I’m holding a cluster of dried cannabis flowers that contain THC.
In my right hand I’m holding a capsule/pill of Marinol.
Marinol is a synthetic chemical identical of naturally occurring THC in the cannabis plant.
Marinol is a Schedule III substance.
Naturally occurring THC in the marijuana plant is a Schedule I drug (chemically identical to Marinol).
Okay.
Oh! I get it now! 1+1 really does = 475. Damn, I never was good at math…
Thanks Mark.
Please remove all facts,,useless in any argument with mark,,and quit capitalizing these idiots names,,dismiss their importance and claims of being the only guy with a right thinking brain with case letters..please.
Got it Mr. Gooding. mark my words, I’ll commit to not capitalizing “mark” when mentioning
mark Kleiman. Unless a certain Schedule I substance skewers my memory. Where is Marinol when my memory needs it most?
mark k is mentally ill. he believes that clothing and food are scheduled one drugs and we all know that the best dro or mmj has the same properties as hemp. And doesn’t THC make hemp stronger against nature’s destructive properties? So why would we not want decent yielding THC hemp? Maybe mark k wants his pants to unravel in the middle of a meeting because the materials used to make his pants were neglected and mistreated by nature out in the fields. mark k would sure look funny with clothing all torn to shreds and his house crumbling because of neglect in the pre-processing or growth stage. So, I’m not sure how THC can be considered a drug if it helps protect our property and clothing. I’m sure you and I would be ashamed if our pants fell apart in the middle of a toke n’ walk with the dog at the park . . . kind of cold too depending on where you live at as well.
I double checked my calculator. 1+1= 420. That sounds about right.
DMT is on the scheduling and if memory serves, DMT is almost everywhere. The CSA is flawed therefore we have no proof that THC is on the CSA scheduling since flaws negates 100%.
Check your spider plant.
let’s see if I’ve got this right… Mark K lieman (aka Marky the Mark), the same young feller that bilked WA taxpayers out of a lot of money is talking about somebody else’s street cred?
In fact it’s outright insulting (no intellectual mind game that, just rude ass-hattedness) the crap Marky lays (like a rotting egg) down here against Radley and Jacob. That’s class? That’s the crap those “busy people” that can’t be bothered hearing from we the opposition like to read over there?
What are they busy at? Back slapping and circle-jerking? aaargh…
I think in their world it’s circle slapping and back jerking.
Wait, what the hell did I just conjure up? Shield the children, pronto.
It’s quite puzzling indeed that the esteemed professor of public policy from UCLA and the revered professor of psychology from Stanford, gentlemen and scholars of the highest order, would choose a series of baseless ad hominem remarks with nary a hint of “mere facts” in support of them, coupled with transparently diversionary straw-man critiques, to demonstrate their consummate professional expertise at the website where they hawk their books.
Speaking of books, they’re advertising their recent book on sale this weekend only for $1.99 (ebook). So if you haven’t gotten your fill of professional-grade anti-libertarian flamebait, judging by their blog commentary, I would expect there to be a bookload of it to be had at a very small price!
The Michigan Standard left a track-back at the RBC post, so I went there and left this comment:
Freeman
February 3, 2014 at 6:39 am #
It may seem quite puzzling indeed that the esteemed professor of public policy from UCLA and the revered professor of psychology from Stanford, gentlemen and scholars of the highest order, would choose a series of baseless ad hominem remarks with nary a hint of “mere facts†in support of them, coupled with transparently diversionary straw-man critiques, to demonstrate their consummate professional expertise at the website where they hawk their books.
But if you’ve frequented their blog as long as I have, you’ll have already seen ample demonstration of the intense struggles these poor gentlemen endure day to day in writing at a maturity and intellectual level that lives up to their academic credentials.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Backslapping and circle-jerking? Why, yes, of course, Allan! Why do you ask?
surely not out of curiosity!
Yet in the discussion I left this comment: “Seems to me that the President could order the Attorney General (he’s the A.G’s boss, right?) to order the DEA (the Attorney general is THEIR boss, right?) to recognize and abide by their own Judge’s 1988 ruling, provided in PDF format here: http://files.iowamedicalmarijuana.org/imm/young.pdf
Now, will that lead to medical marijuana? I’ll answer my own question… how could it NOT? With the threat of censure and prosecution by the DEA removed from doctors, I can see them being much more willing to try a safe herbal intervention over a costly, side effect plagued pharmaceutical intervention. Not that we NEED the rescheduling to get medical marijuana, witness the many States who have already enacted it. But the biggest hurdle currently facing people who might benefit from cannabis in medical States is the difficulties they face finding doctors willing to prescribe it. The removal of that obstacle alone would be worth the effort we have put out.”
To which he left THIS reply, where he simply admits that he’s wrong and it can be administratively re-scheduled, with out actually admitting that he was wrong. You guys tell me. “Read the original post. If the DEA rescheduled cannabis, that would not give physicians the power to prescribe it or anyone the legal right to produce it.”
Now I been wondering one thing. Why is my post still up??? The guy’s credibility is bleeding out all over the floor.
A guy who names his consultancy “back of the envelope calculations” should be careful about accusing others of not knowing what’s going on.
I’ve always thought of Kleiman as Sabet Lite and will continue to think so. Don’t trust him for a second.
Mark Kleiman is the kind of obstructionist who goes out of his way to constantly object to people’s ideas about reform and to second-guess those working hard to bring about a solution. Yet, he never offers any creative solutions of his own. His type is found everywhere, not just in social policy.
Mark claims he wants to protect the one-tenth of one-percent, or whatever, who might be negatively affected by marijuana use. But I don’t think he ever supported needle exchanges for HIV prevention, nor government sponsored heroin shooting galleries to reduce contamination issues. If modern policy included the witch hunts, Mark would argue in favor of burning witches. If this were Nazi Germany, Mark would be killed because he’s a Jew—despite his ever-loving support for the Nazi regime and its antidrug policies.
The historian H.C. Lea argued that despite their crimes against humanity, inquisitors were mere bureaucrats: “All this was not wanton and cold blooded cruelty; it was merely the pitiless enforcement of a rule which was superior to all the promptings of humanityâ€. The creepy characters played by actor Vincent Price in inquisition horror movies lack historical accuracy. Inquisitors were more like Mark Kleiman and Kevin Sabet. In other words, much scarier.
If anyone with better eyesight than me could search the Hemp thread for my posting on the CNN report that The DEA allowed the Sinola drug cartels a free pass from 2003 until 2012 has disappeared from my Facebook wall and isn’t found searching CNN’s Mexico bureau.
Me thinks we have been NSA’d..perhaps facebook may of pulled it but I don’t think Pete did.
If you shared the link see if it still there and viable.
This one?
Thanks Pete,,I had CNN in my mind when I searched and it was TIME that reported it,,it was also 2 days earlier than my search dates,,so much is happening nowIT is a challenge,,it is still suspicious no update or mention on CNN or MSNBC,,they have me checking MSM now for breaking news but I could have missed it.
Since the article was posted Jan 14 how long does it take to verify court records?
Especially when your reporters in Mexico knew where to look?
Oh, leave the poor man alone. It must be excruciating to know that his entire life’s-work is being rejected by those for whom he’s labored so long and hard. (Sniffle, teardrop-wipe)
The prohibs are always going on and on about ‘The Children’â„¢ . They never delineate which children, it’s always THE children. As if every generation were doomed by a reverse progeria to remain in eternal pre-pubesence, and in constant need of supervision.
Which, by derivation, is how they actually view most adults…excluding their wise, worldly, Olympian philosopher-king selves, of course.
This attitude towards their fellow citizens has always been a component of prohibition; the late Professor Whitebread makes that abundantly clear in his ‘Iron Law of Prohibition’, wherein he stated that prohibitions are enacted against an identifiable THEM by an identifiable US.
In the past, the ‘THEM’ were, as today, minorities, who were seen by the dominant portion of society at the beginning of the last century as hopelessly incapable of the self-regulation that adulthood requires…at best. At worst, the implication was that they were barbarians within the gates, barely civilized savages who would revert to a more base state under the influence.
When it no longer was politically correct to engage in open, overt racism, it became covert, in the form of the drug laws…and the language used to justify it. Hence the use of children as philosophical (as well as budgetary) Human shields, to justify the continued practice of de facto Jim Crow.
But, contrary to the wishes of prohibs, children grow into adults, and as such no longer require their touching concern…or their ‘services’. But that does not deter the prohibs from attempting to reduce grown women and men to infantilized adults through the overweening, unwarranted paternalism of the drug laws. If anything, it (perversely) spurs them on.
Which is why it must really wound their over-inflated egos when members of the generation that they worked so hard to socially engineer (like lab rats) via propaganda and BS about drugs turn around and pull voting levers to re-legalize cannabis. It’s gotta sting really bad to have the majority of that generation say, in essence, “F U and your DrugWar!
So, have some pity for the poor guy. It must really hurt to know he’s a living, breathing anachronism, doomed to eventual irrelevance.
What more needs to be said? Now it is time to spotlight those who will not give up their profits on the harm they cause. Remove them from doing harm. Now they drag out old gossip about hemp and ganja. Before the internet can take you to a website to buy the products they insist don’t exist. The Buck Doesn’t Stop Here eh Barry?
The Politics of Pot
â˜Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894
â˜Panama Canal Zone Report, 1925
â˜LaGuardia Commission Report, 1944
â˜1968 UK ROYAL COMMISSION, THE WOOTTON REPORT
â˜Jamaican Study 1970
â˜US Jamaican Study 1974
â˜The Coptic Study (1981)
â˜The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy 1987
â˜The Economist March 28th 1992
â˜The Kaiser Permanente study
â˜DARE is ineffective
â˜DARE doesn’t work study finds
Possibly the most-studied substance on the planet
Obama Elaborates on Marijuana Policy
By Phillip Smith, Stop the Drug War 2.3.14
Obama added that the federal government doesn’t have enough manpower to bust people “smoking a joint on the corner.” But it doesn’t need to; more than 90% of all marijuana arrests are made by state and local police, not federal law enforcement.
Media and Politicians Call Out Obama Over Marijuana Rescheduling
Biggest Overhaul in Federal Drug Sentencing in Decades Clears Major Hurdle
A greater percentage of black men are locked up in the U.S. than in South Africa at the height of Apartheid—this reform aims to change that.
Shows featuring Pete Seeger democracynow
Project SCAM ecp
Pete, I couldn’t agree more with your reading of Dr. Kleiman and assessment of his work. Either you and I see him from exactly the same perspective, or he comes across that way from a wide variety of perspectives (I have a feeling both factors are at play in this case). I found your rebuttal to his post downplaying the significance of re-scheduling spot-on. Well done, sir. Bravo!
I’d have a lot more respect for Mark Kleiman, if I could find one instance where he acknowledged the role of the endocannabinoid system in health and homeostasis.
It must be nice to get paid $292 an hour for peddling bullshit, eh Mark?
Mark is mentally ill too. He doesn’t see cannabis as being the same plant that can create rope or pants etc. Its a good thing Mark has people reminding him to dress or he’d be arrested 365 days out of the year for not wearing clothing because in his world: all clothing is illegal as is all consumer goods, hence his mental illness. I don’t know why a plant that can produce commercial goods is illegal, even if the plant was named ‘Blue Dream’. I could turn the best kush or dro into a pair of shoes or pants with the right equipment.
The marijuana I could grow has the same properties as hemp in regards to making consumer goods. The last I checked, pants, shoes, concrete, rope, food etc are not controlled substances. The violation of the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act would legally keep cannabis off the CSA and if Cannabis is on the CSA, then the CSA itself is flawed and cannot be legal. So, I’m not sure how rescheduling or knocking pot off the CSA would be hard. Imagine if people like us on the Couch were in office, how much better our nation would be. Some of these office and DEA types were born in the wrong century . . . they’re real roles in life are that of court jesters. Imagine how horrible it is for many of the politicians and all the DEA not living up to their potential as Court Jesters . . . what a wasted life they lead.
.
.
Mark Kleiman Concedes That Obama Has The Power To Reclassify Marijuana Yet Claims It’s Ignorant To Say So
So the regulars here certainly know that Mr. O has the authority to reschedule or even de-schedule any of the popular substances on the Federal naughty lists. What I don’t know is “could Congress flip him the bird and put it back on the really, really, really naught list? I think that’s more than an academic question. It brings a world of political excrementalism into play. Unless I’m missing something it’s going to require a consensus between Congress and the administration.
——————————
“I just can’t cheat on my wife.”
“Have you tried Viagra or Cialis?”
“No, that’s not the problem, I just couldn’t do that to her.”
——————————
Just because a person is physically capable of something doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. No, I’m not saying that re-scheduling is a bad idea, but that there’s a bit more substance that needs to be considered.
We also shouldn’t forget that Barry is a pay to play kind of guy. Speculation that he sold out the cannabis law reform advocates to gain the support needed to get re-elected certainly is baseless or even improbable.
Mark Kleiman has a cult-like devotion to President Obama. Recently, his condition has worsened into a weeks-long priapic erection. When Sullum dared to chastise the object of Kleiman’s affection, all hell broke loose. There is no fury like that of a scorned suitor.