A group of six progressive U.S. senators criticized the Biden administration's "extraordinarily disappointing" response on Wednesday to their request last year to remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, a category reserved for drugs that have no accepted medical use.
The Justice Department took six months to provide the senators with a half-page response that simply said the Department of Health and Human Services doesn't recognize marijuana as a safe treatment for any disease or condition, a determination that the senators took issue with.
"It is obvious that cannabis has widely accepted medical benefits, affirmed by medical and scientific communities both here and across the globe," Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Ed Markey, D-Mass., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wrote in the letter to the president.
