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FIRST ON FOX: A group of House Republicans is urging President Donald Trump against an expected move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., are leading 24 other GOP lawmakers in a letter to Trump, urging him to keep marijuana a Schedule I drug under Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) regulations.
“We write to urge you to oppose rescheduling marijuana, a harmful drug that is worsening our nation’s addiction crisis,” the letter said. “Reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug will send the wrong message to America’s children, enable drug cartels, and make our roads more dangerous.”
The letter has support from a wide cross-section of the House GOP that includes moderates, House Freedom Caucus members, and mainstream Republican lawmakers.
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Marijuana is currently considered a Schedule I drug, the same classification level as heroin, ecstasy, and LSD. Schedule I drugs are considered to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” according to the DEA website.
The president said as recently as Monday that he is weighing downgrading marijuana to Schedule III, alongside Tylenol and anabolic steroids, which are considered “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”
“We are considering that. A lot of people want to see it, the reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that can’t be done unless you reclassify,” Trump said in the Oval Office this week. “So we are looking at that very strongly.”
Similar plans under the Biden administration, based on a recommendation from former President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS), were paused in January.
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“The Biden administration rescheduling decision was wrong. Rather than following the science, the Biden White House tried to expand the use of an addictive drug for partisan gain,” the House Republicans said.
“Contrary to the marijuana industry’s assertion that rescheduling will result in more research, the U.S. has already conducted research for decades on this drug. Congress even passed a bipartisan law to expand marijuana research while keeping the drug in Schedule I.”
The lawmakers argued marijuana is “addictive” and has “no medical value.”
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“According to a recently published fifteen-year review of medical research, marijuana has no real medical value, and 30% of medical marijuana users have an addiction to the drug,” they wrote. “Rescheduling tells our youth that marijuana use is acceptable and safe, a dangerous falsehood that will sink us deeper into our country’s drug crisis.”
The most common use for medical marijuana in the U.S. is pain control, according to a 2020 report by Harvard Health, while being less addictive than opioid drugs used for the same reasons.
It’s also used to manage nausea, while some veterans groups like the American Legion have pushed for more research into its effects on PTSD.
Rescheduling marijuana does not automatically legalize it, but it would make open more lanes for research and certain business operations involving the drug.
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But the House Republicans argued that it would also provide a boon to Chinese government-linked cartels “that operate thousands of marijuana farms nationwide” and will “make our roads more dangerous.”
“Under Schedule III, pilots, truck drivers, and other safety-sensitive professions will not be tested for marijuana. Marijuana is already imperiling safety: over 40% of fatal car crashes today involve THC. Rescheduling will exponentially worsen this crisis,” they wrote.
“Rescheduling marijuana will not make America great. You have always been a role model for America’s youth, telling young people for years that they should never do drugs. We hope that you consider the harms of marijuana rescheduling and continue sending that strong message of hope to the next generation.”
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