Why Is Marijuana Still a Schedule 1 Narcotic (and Why Are They Trying to Ban It)?

Legislation passed to end the government shutdown would ban recreational weed and edibles.

Despite being legal medically in 41 states and recreationally in 24 (plus Washington, DC), marijuana still hasn’t shaken off its Schedule 1 classification, ranking it alongside heroin, LSD, and Ecstasy. It is considered more dangerous than its Schedule 2 cousins, such as Fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, and OxyContin. As counterintuitive as that may seem, a look back at marijuana’s torturous history could give us an explanation.

It gets worse. Last week, a little-noticed provision tucked into the spending bill passed by congressional Republicans and signed by President Trump would ban the sale of intoxicating THC-infused products such as gummies, drinks, and vapes that have become an ubiquitous part of our landscape.

The provision would close a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that basically decriminalized hemp-based commodities in small amounts. THC is the psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis sativa plant, which remains illegal under federal law.

“They’re taking our gummies?”

The THC ban would take effect one year after its enactment in November 2025. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would be charged with rule-making.

The ban would no doubt disappoint the 60% of Americans who have tried cannabis products and regard them favorably for pain or sleep. It would also upend or outright eliminate “America’s $28.4 billion hemp industry and jeopardize more than 300,000 American jobs.” It could also cost states $1.5 billion in tax revenue.

Equating marijuana to heroin? An outright ban on popular hemp-based products? What has marijuana ever done to merit such abuse?

Marijuana’s Long, Tortuous History

Marijuana’s Schedule 1 classification was not based on thoughtful approaches to public health and public safety when it was classified in 1970. Rather, it was the culmination of decades of policy shaped by racial prejudice and political calculation. It perhaps started soon after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), when Mexican immigrants brought to America their cultural ritual of smoking pot for recreation. The term “marijuana” was chosen by the government instead of the clinical term “cannabis” to make it sound foreign and menacing.

In other words, the prohibition of marijuana became a tool to demonize immigrants and minorities.

Harry J. Anslinger

When Harry Anslinger was appointed chief of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics by President Herbert Hoover in 1930, he was known as a strong advocate of the bully pulpit. Anslinger reasoned that frightening the public about marijuana would bring in the enforcement dollars that had become scarce during the Great Depression.

“Wit and Wisdom”

The quotable narcotics chief revealed his own prejudices through various statements that linked marijuana with all sorts of macabre outcomes:

There are 100,000 total marijuana users in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Phillipinos, and entertainers.

Marijuana causes white women  to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.

Marijuana leads to pacificsm and Communist brainwashing.

Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.

The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerative races.

After 1930, newspapers began screaming headlines like “Youth Gone Loco” (Christian Century), “Marihuana: Assassin of Youth” (American Magazine), “Uncle Sam Fights New Menace–Marihuana” (Popular Science), and “Sex Crazing Drug Menace” (Physical Culture).

Anslinger got his way: The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 (later declared unconstitutional) made it so expensive and burdensome to sell marijuana that it effectively banned it.

Nixon’s War on Drugs

When President Richard Nixon declared his war on drugs in 1971, his motives were best summarized by his chief domestic adviser John Erlichman, who infamously confessed the following:

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be against the [Vietnam] war or [be for] Blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalize both heavily, we could disrupt these communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

In the Name of Science

The federal government has refused to reclassify marijuana several times, as recently as 2023. The DEA continues to maintain that “the drug’s chemistry is not well-known,” “there are no adequate safety studies,” “the drug is not accepted by qualified experts,” and “the known risks of marijuana use have not been shown to be outweighed by specific benefits in well-controlled clinical trials…”

This thinking creates a bit of a Catch-22: To change marijuana’s classification, there needs to be a certain amount of scientific research…but government restrictions make it difficult to fund and conduct that research. In other words,

One reason there isn’t enough scientific evidence to change marijuana’s Schedule 1 status might be, in fact, the drug’s Schedule 1 status.

Coda

It used to be an article of faith among conservatives and Republicans that “states’ rights” ought to have primacy over an intrusive federal government. You could almost imagine right-wingers swooning over Ronald Reagan’s famous declaration that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.'”

Trump and congressional Republicans seem determined to trample over the 24 states and the District of Columbia that have measured the will of their citizens and have democratically enacted laws legalizing pot. Get ready for a “Reefer Madness”  campaign coming to a presidential rally near you.

The voters be damned. They want control.