Welcome To The Era Of Schedule III Cannabis

Medical science is more dynamic than people outside the medical profession realize. This is why, before you file a medical malpractice lawsuit, your lawyer must consult three physicians who have recent clinical experience, review your medical records and write statements about what they would have done in the defendant physician’s situation. These corroborating experts must have recent clinical experience in the defendant physician’s subfield of medicine. An orthopedist does not know what a gastroenterologist should have done, and a gastroenterologist who last practiced medicine ten years ago does not know what the standard of care is for gastroenterologists today. Likewise, the Daubert standard, which applies in civil and criminal cases, sets strict criteria for testimony about medical research. Physicians in clinical practice keep publishing case reports, and research teams keep testing the results of previous studies or designing new studies to build on existing ones. Meanwhile, laws are behind the times. The drug schedules of the Controlled Substances act are risk categories, not pharmacological categories, and how do you assess risk except by studying data and conducting controlled experiments? The fact that clinical trials on Schedule I controlled substances is illegal is an impediment to advances in medicine and law, so doctors and potheads alike should be relieved to find out that cannabis is now a Schedule III controlled substance. If you are facing charges for possession of a drug recently added to a drug schedule, contact a West Palm Beach drug offenses lawyer.

Order by Acting Attorney General Enables Clinical Trials on Cannabis Products

Until last month, cannabis was a Schedule I controlled substance at the federal level. Schedule I is the category of drugs that are never legal, not even in a hospital setting. It includes heroin, but also LSD, MDMA, and a host of entheogens which have a long history of use in traditional medicine and religious rituals in various parts of the world. Medical cannabis has become a reality in the past decade; 45 states now have medical cannabis programs, even as the drug remained Schedule I according to federal law. It is illegal to conduct clinical trials on Schedule I drugs, which gave medical cannabis recommendations an air of inexact science, with no formal studies to back up physicians’ recommendations.

On April 23, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order reclassifying cannabis as a Schedule III controlled substance, a pharmaceutical drug with moderate risk of abuse. Other Schedule III drugs include ketamine and anabolic steroids. This means that unauthorized possession of cannabis is still a crime. It also means that researchers can conduct clinical trials to reach more specific conclusions about the medical indications for cannabis and to make cannabis products safer and more effective.

Contact a West Palm Beach Criminal Defense Lawyer Today

Attorney William Wallshein has more than 42 years of experience, including five years as a prosecutor in Palm Beach County.  Contact William Wallshein P.A. in West Palm Beach, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-administration-eases-regulation-on-state-licensed-marijuana/ar-AA21yZiP?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=69e975cef44a4541905e104dd6477412&ei=11