Cannabis Legalization

Cannabis legalization

Cannabis sativa, popularly known as marijuana, is a plant that has been used for thousands of years for a wide variety of purposes. The earliest registered use of cannabis dates back to the 15th century BC, found in a Chinese Pharmacopeia (Deitch). There is evidence of the usage of cannabis by the Egyptians and the Romans, as well as Arab cultures with hundreds of years of difference (ProCon). Although its widely-spread use, a delicate political situation in the 60s and 70s promoted the prohibition of cannabis and the start of the War on Drugs (Drug Policy Alliance).

Back in 1970, President Nixon signed into a law the Controlled Substance Act. This document, as part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, created a schedule for the different types of drugs following their possibility for addiction, abuse, and damage to the individual. Depending on the schedule of the drug itself would depend the penalties for possession, distribution and consumption.

Without proper scientific research, marijuana and all cannabinoids were classified as Schedule I drugs, labeled as highly addictive and destructive drugs – at the same level as heroin and other opioids, and more than other drugs like cocaine (FDA, Controlled Substance Act). By being included in this category, marijuana automatically became a drug with no accepted medical use.

During the following years, extensive study on the medical use of cannabis was done. With a more educated understanding of the possibilities that cannabis offered in the medical field, people tried to overrule the CSA. In 1988 and 1995 there were petitions to change marijuana’s schedule from Schedule I to II, but both resulted ineffective.

"The bipartisan Shafer Commission (National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse), appointed by President Nixon at the direction of Congress (and chaired by former Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer), considered laws regarding marijuana and determined that personal use of marijuana should be decriminalized. Nixon rejected the recommendation, but over the course of the 1970s, eleven states decriminalized marijuana and most others reduced their penalties." (Frontline)

Regardless of the efforts of the Federal Government to keep marijuana illegal, on November 5th, 1996, the people from California passed proposition 215 with 56% of the votes. This state initiative “[…] permits patients and their primary caregivers, with a physician' s recommendation, to possess and cultivate marijuana for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, muscular spasticity, migraines, and several other disorders; it also protects them from punishment if they recommend marijuana to their patients." California was the first state to legalize the use of medical marijuana. (Institute of Medicine)