WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general on Thursday signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, a major policy shift long sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government.
The order signed by Todd Blanche does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use under federal law. But it does change the way it’s regulated, shifting licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. It also gives licensed medical marijuana operators a major tax break and eases some barriers to researching cannabis.
Partisans of either color will never acknowledge forward movement when it originates from the other side. Their public hatred of each other is part of the pageant that passes for a political system in our country.
But considering how many millions of lives have been sold to the private prison system over a harmless plant, I’m inclined to agree with you in that this is a massively positive development and I’m glad it happened, even if I’m certain it only happened because of Donald’s dementia and need for a distraction.