In case you missed it, the Drug Enforcement Administration decided this week to maintain Marijuana as a Class I drug, equating it with heroin. They consider Oxycontin less dangerous at Class II.
Most of us think this is effed up, but we don't expect to hear that from a Fox News personality. Shepard Smith is often the exception to that rule, and in this case he is just as incredulous as anyone here at C&L. Transcript via Mediaite:
At one point, Smith sarcastically said, “DEA officials also say that marijuana’s benefits do not outweigh the risks […] LSD, MDMA, weed — it’s all the same thing. Thanks, DEA. You’ve really got a lot of credibility.”
His guest, Fox News legal analyst Mercedes Colwin, pointed out that in spite of widespread decriminalization, time and resources are wasted every year on arrests and enforcement of anti-weed laws. She said, “Now it’s becoming a fiscal reality. Do you know what it is to try to manage marijuana when you do these types of arrests? 700,000 people get arrested. It costs $10 billion to this country to just manage these infractions […] so someone at the federal level is saying, ‘We have to do something about this.'”
“Is it weird to you that it’s such a big part of the economy — and it is: you can order weed, I’m told, as quickly as you can pizza in big cities — and yet it’s not taxed and it’s not part of our economic system?” asked Smith. “I don’t understand why that product should be eliminated.”
Big pharma has a lot to do with politicizing and lobbying when it comes to pot. The "plant that grows in your yard" means it's hard to turn a profit on it. This is yet another example where the people will have to do battle with corporations to win what is only logical.
