Indopedia All Things Marijuana
Ohio Lawmaker Urges Rescheduling of Cannabis
When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its controlled substances scheduling or drug classifications in 1970, they intended to classify drugs based on their potential for abuse, their medical use, and how addictive they may be. Few drugs scheduled as a Schedule I drug – that is, a drug without medical benefit and with a high potential for abuse and addiction – have been as controversial lately as marijuana. Currently, 28 states have legalized medical marijuana and eight states in addition to Washington, D.C. have legalized the drug recreationally. One Ohio lawmaker is urging the FDA to reclassify marijuana into a lower class.
To put it in perspective, marijuana is considered a schedule I drug along with heroin, LSD, peyote, and ecstasy. Even the FDA admits that there have been no reported deaths due to overdosing on marijuana. Compare that to the data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which shows a 6.2 fold increase in the number of deaths relating to heroin from 2002 to 2015. Comparatively, Fentanyl, a prescribed opioid medication classified as Schedule II, which there have been tens of…
