Pressure is mounting for the federal legalization of medical marijuana. As the list of states that have legalized recreational and medical marijuana continues to grow, increasing scientific evidence points to the potential efficacy of marijuana for some medical conditions and associated symptoms. Furthermore, late last year, Congress stopped the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana cases in the states where it is legal.
Federal practitioners—especially those who practice in states where medical marijuana is legal—face challenging ethical and legal dilemmas when it comes to marijuana use. Little more than a month after his confirmation, Surgeon General VADM Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA, is already making waves on this controversial topic.
“We have some preliminary data showing that for some medical conditions and symptoms that marijuana can be helpful,” Surgeon General Murthy said in a February 4, 2015, interview with CBS. “I think we need to use that data to drive policymaking, and I’m very interested to see where that data takes us.”
Related: Legal and Clinical Evolution of Veterans Health Administration Policy on Medical Marijuana
The data from experiments in states where marijuana is legal could force the U.S. federal government to rethink the current Schedule I classification, which defines marijuana as a substance with no recognized medical use but a high risk of dependency and, thus, illegal to use and distribute.
