David Pozen (Columbia University — Law School) and Matthew B. Lawrence (Emory University School of Law) have posted The Right Schedule for Marijuana (Among Other Drugs) Does Not Yet Exist in Science, Vol. 391, pp. 1210-1212 (2026), on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In the marijuana rescheduling process currently underway in the United States, clinicians and researchers have urged the Drug Enforcement Administration to engage in evidence-based policymaking. But the agency’s choices about how to regulate marijuana are sharply—and irrationally—constrained by the Controlled Substances Act and its menu of drug “schedules.” These schedules often force regulators into a Hobson’s choice between overcriminalizing drugs, through prohibitions that predictably backfire, or overcommercializing drugs, through hands-off approaches that leave users vulnerable to corporate exploitation. Analogous limits constrain scheduling choices under the United Nations drug conventions. To improve policymaking for marijuana and other controlled substances, Congress should create new schedules that replace criminal controls on drug offenders with capitalism controls on drug markets. Congress should also reassign scheduling authority to a public health body and expand the range of evidence considered in scheduling decisions. The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs should pursue similar efforts. For these changes to be politically feasible, a broad coalition of patients, physicians, and scholars will need to redirect their reform energies away from the scheduling of specific drugs and toward the scheduling framework itself.
Recommended.
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