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Hitting war on drugs, Bernie Sanders says U.S. puts marijuana in same class as heroin
By Tom Kertscher on Friday, April 22nd
Campaigning for president in the liberal oasis of Madison, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont rose to the defense of marijuana.
Critical of the nation’s war on drugs, Sanders said the lives of millions of Americans have been "ruined" because they got a police record for possessing marijuana.
"Today, under the federal Controlled Substance Act, marijuana is listed in the same Schedule I as heroin. That is nuts," Sanders declared March 26, 2016, 10 days before he defeated Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary.
"Now people can argue -- although I suspect in this audience there may not be much of an argument -- about the pluses and minuses of marijuana," he said, drawing cheers from some of the thousands in attendance at the Alliant Energy Center. "But everybody knows marijuana is not a killer drug like heroin."
Sanders then noted he had introduced legislation to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substance Act because possession of it "should not be a federal crime."
We found that Sanders wasn’t smoking anything funny in claiming that both marijuana and heroin are Schedule I drugs, which he has continued to say while campaigning in New York and Pennsylvania.
But his claim is somewhat misleading: That classification is based on a drug’s acceptable medical use and the drug’s abuse or dependency potential, not on criminal statutes.
The law
The Controlled Substance Act, adopted in 1970, uses five schedules to classify drugs and narcotics by medical use and potential to incite substance abuse.
On the low end is Schedule V, which includes substances such as cough medicines with small amounts of the narcotic codeine.
At the high end is Schedule I, which lists the "most dangerous" drugs -- those that have "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."
Marijuana is stronger than when the Controlled Substance Act was adopted (as ex-GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina correctly stated).
Nevertheless Schedule II includes some drugs often considered more dangerous than marijuana.
Here’s a look at some of the drugs in the two schedules:
cont http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin...g-war-drugs-bernie-sanders-says-us-puts-mari/
By Tom Kertscher on Friday, April 22nd
Campaigning for president in the liberal oasis of Madison, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont rose to the defense of marijuana.
Critical of the nation’s war on drugs, Sanders said the lives of millions of Americans have been "ruined" because they got a police record for possessing marijuana.
"Today, under the federal Controlled Substance Act, marijuana is listed in the same Schedule I as heroin. That is nuts," Sanders declared March 26, 2016, 10 days before he defeated Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary.
"Now people can argue -- although I suspect in this audience there may not be much of an argument -- about the pluses and minuses of marijuana," he said, drawing cheers from some of the thousands in attendance at the Alliant Energy Center. "But everybody knows marijuana is not a killer drug like heroin."
Sanders then noted he had introduced legislation to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substance Act because possession of it "should not be a federal crime."
We found that Sanders wasn’t smoking anything funny in claiming that both marijuana and heroin are Schedule I drugs, which he has continued to say while campaigning in New York and Pennsylvania.
But his claim is somewhat misleading: That classification is based on a drug’s acceptable medical use and the drug’s abuse or dependency potential, not on criminal statutes.
The law
The Controlled Substance Act, adopted in 1970, uses five schedules to classify drugs and narcotics by medical use and potential to incite substance abuse.
On the low end is Schedule V, which includes substances such as cough medicines with small amounts of the narcotic codeine.
At the high end is Schedule I, which lists the "most dangerous" drugs -- those that have "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."
Marijuana is stronger than when the Controlled Substance Act was adopted (as ex-GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina correctly stated).
Nevertheless Schedule II includes some drugs often considered more dangerous than marijuana.
Here’s a look at some of the drugs in the two schedules:
cont http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin...g-war-drugs-bernie-sanders-says-us-puts-mari/