Who decides what schedule drugs are on and are their political influences on this process?

Scheduling of drugs began when the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) was passed in 1961 mainly outlining that narcotic drug manufacturing and distribution in the United States was illegal. The FDA upholds this policy. When Nixon declared a “war on drugs” he began to spend a lot of budget dollars feeding into this ever growing system of federal agencies that cracked down on substance abuse. Nixon declared no knock warrants and a no strike rule for those found with illegal drugs. Among these drugs, marijuana, was the least likely intuitively to be on the list but from the craziness of the ‘60s it was associated with heavier drug use. Once Jimmy Carter took over however, he attempted to decriminalize marijuana in small amounts and decide that it was legal. There was a lot of backlash from this legalization because many parents feared that their kids were using marijuana which not only got in the way of their studies and extracurricular, but could often put them into dangerous situations they would not have otherwise been involved in. Therefore after take a step forward we took two steps back with Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It appears he redoubled efforts to fight drugs and in doing so made taxes go through the roof and overcrowding in prisons due to the one time offense causing you to go to jail rule. For some drugs, I believe this to be fair because they could hurt themselves or someone else while on them, but for marijuana it is very unlikely something like that would happen. I am not an expert but drugs like cocaine and heroin have a much higher danger (deaths) and a higher abuse potential than a drug like marijuana.

 

                As you can see from above a not so pretty picture is painted from all the policy issues involving scheduling. Marijuana is a much safer drug than most of the opiates and narcotics that are on the list, specifically Schedule I drugs. It appears that whoever is in power during the time another spell of drug issues is talked about in Congress or is brought to the public’s attention, then more people will argue with the standing policy.

                I personally think that marijuana should not be on Schedule I of the list. I think that is excessive and nonscientific. I think that money should be invested in finding out how the drugs work instead of just throwing them where they think they should go. Alcohol for instance is a very dangerous drugs in greater quantities, most definitely more dangerous than marijuana and some others. I think that politicians should fund research for drugs and their effects before they just decide to throw the drugs on a list based on how a particular politician feels about a drug. This research should be impartially and based on the findings, decide what schedule to put them in along with the punishment regarding use, distribution, and manufacturing.

 

Reference:

http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war

Seth Mayfield