Marijuana meets criteria for reclassification as lower-risk drug, FDA scientific review finds

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Marijuana meets criteria for reclassification as lower-risk drug, FDA scientific review finds | CNN
cnn.com

Marijuana has a lower potential for abuse than other drugs that are subjected to the same restrictions, with scientific support for its use as a medical treatment, researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration say in documents supporting its reclassification as a Schedule III substance.

Marijuana is currently classified as Schedule I, reserved for the most dangerous controlled substances, including heroin and LSD. In 2022, President Joe Biden asked US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and the attorney general to begin the administrative process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Rachel Levine wrote a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration in August in which she supported the reclassification to Schedule III, a list that includes “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence” such as ketamine, testosterone and Tylenol with codeine.

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Rescheduling marijuana could open up more avenues for research, allow cannabis businesses to bank more freely and openly, and have firms no longer subject to a 40-year-old tax code that disallows credits and deductions from income generated by sales of Schedule I and II substances.

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This article seems to imply that stopping heavy marijuana use can lead to withdrawal symptoms.

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that.

There's definitely symptoms. Irritability being the main one.

Trouble sleeping is another one. It's not a heroin withdrawal, but it's there.

Inability to sleep and lack of appetite are also pretty common.

People can get that from not watching TV or listening to music.

Should we also ban those?

The body is going to react to anything that it stops getting after it has been getting it consistently. Caffeine is perfectly legal and I get bad migraines from quitting it.

Irritability, sleep problems, night sweats, appetite issues, etc. These are 100% withdrawl effects for some heavy or frequent cannabis users who stop cold turkey.

Is it cocaine or heroin withdrawl? Absolutely not. But we don't do anyone any favours pretending that people don't experience these symptoms when stopping (though, on the other hand, not everyone does. Depends how heavy/long you've been imbibing and individual differences in body chemistry).

Crazy vivid dreams after stopping long term use as well.

Not necessarily a negative withdrawal effect, although the sudden vivid dreams can be extra scary if the dreams aren't happy dreams

Very vivid dreams for a week count?

That's about it. I am getting a good amount of pushback from people who very much like the idea that being able to dream again and not being high are withdrawl.

And sure, they're all technically correct in the most pedantic way.

longtime user here, i tuck in with a bowl every night, and every morning i wake up with a dream still dancing in my head. when i go on a break i don't "start dreaming again", I have extremely vivid and bizarre dreams for like a week and then it settles back to normal. Drugs have more effect on dreaming than just "stop" and "go". I suspect the issue is less others being pedantic and more you being unwilling to challenge a deeply oversimplified take.

Wow, you remember vivid dreams. That's clearly withdrawl.

....In the most technical sense, only. You're technically correct, the best form of correct. Which is pretty much the definition of pedantry.

you seem like a very informed and educated person. please, do continue gatekeeping the term "withdrawl" based on your rigorous and well-sourced scientific definitions - oops I'm sorry, I mean petty judgment, scorn, and dismissiveness toward anyone who uses language appropriately despite your weird feelings about how words ought to be used. I'm sure you were a joy to have in class. Do you also have a breakdown about pedantry when the dictionary definition of a word isn't what you feel like it should be?

You seem irritable. Maybe it's withdrawl, eh?

You're just straight up provoking me now without even the pretense of trying to make any kind of point, so I'm going to just hit that block button and be done with this exchange.