DEA Forced to Scrub Misleading Info on the American Medical Association’s Position on Marijuana
On November 10th, the AMA reversed its long-held position that marijuana has no acceptable medicinal value and adopted a new policy position favoring medical marijuana. The AMA called on the U.S. government to reconsider its current classification as a Schedule I substance. (The government categorizes drugs into “Schedules.” Four of the five actually regulate the use of substances, but Schedule I drugs—such as marijuana, heroin and LSD—are completely banned.)
However, a week after the announcement of this historic reversal, the DEA still hadn’t removed mention of the AMA’s old, anti-medical-marijuana position from its website.
So, the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an organization of cops, judges and prosecutors calling for the legalization and regulation of all drugs, created an action alert asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to order the DEA to scrub the bogus statements from the web.
After just one day of emails from activists, the information disappeared. One might conclude this quick response was the handiwork of Obama’s tech-savvy team, if it weren’t for the other government websites still spreading misinformation about the AMA's position on medical marijuana. Both the White House "drug czar's" office and the DEA's “scare the children” youth website still contain inaccurate statements about AMA's position on medical marijuana.
