Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine asked Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram to reclassify marijuana as a lower-risk drug, a move that would have major implications for the legal status of the popular drug nationwide.
Levine recommended in a letter that cannabis, which is a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, be downgraded to a Schedule III substance based on a recent Food and Drug Administration review of the substance, according to Bloomberg.
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Schedule I drugs include highly addictive substances that have no legal medical purpose, such as heroin. Schedule III drugs have significantly less abuse potential than Schedule I or II substances but “may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence,” according to the DEA.
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In October, President Joe Biden issued a blanket federal pardon to all those with simple possession of marijuana charges at the federal level and encouraged state governors to do the same.
In the same executive order, Biden asked Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland to initiate a review process of the scheduling classification of cannabis to progress federal drug policy.
