Our friends at Firedoglake are petitioning the FDA to reschedule marijuana from a drug with “no medical benefit” to a drug that has acceptable medical uses. This tactic would eliminate the need for medipot states to come up with creative ways for doctors to give the go ahead to their patients who could benefit from medicinal marijuana. Currently, doctors can’t actually prescribe marijuana (because the FDA says it has no benefit); instead, they can only “recommend” certain patients use the drug. As it stands now, each medipot state has its own rules governing the sale of marijuana to needy patients.

Firedoglake and its subsidiary, JustSayNow, want to get state governors and legislators to pressure the FDA to reschedule marijuana. In order to get your governor to put pressure on the Feds, you (yes, YOU, too) need to put pressure on your governor and representatives. The first basic step to take is to add your name to the following petition:

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/reschedule-mmj

Although we all know the obvious benefits that would occur in the realms of healthcare and economics (state tax revenues increase, drug enforcement costs decline), this is going to be a tough fight.

Because marijuana is a naturally occurring drug that patients can grow themselves, the FDA, which is heavily influenced by the giants of the pharmaceutical industry, will not be easy to convince. When they do agree to budge on this issue, it will probably be to approve a compound derived from marijuana like THC that a drug company wants to market as relieving nausea in chemotherapy patients. We can’t be satisfied with that outcome because such a drug would likely cost much more and work no better than medical marijuana does currently. Therefore, they would have to give full approval to the entire whole foods version of cannabis on humanitarian grounds.

I rest my case.