Gimme Back my Weed!

Back in January I wrote a blog post about Colorado's revolutionary legalization of marijuana for recreational use. They made history and opened new doors for marijuana policies in the government, and since then, the negative stigma around marijuana in American culture has been slowly disappearing. And just this past week, we got a great reminder of this, in the form of possibly the largest victory for pro-marijuana advocates since Colorado's legalization efforts. But first, a little background.

Although many states have legalized marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes, the DEA still considers marijuana a Schedule I drug (meaning it has no medicinal value whatsoever, which is absurd.) It's classified right alongside MDMA and heroin. So naturally, these state and federal laws have clashed, and it often leads to dramatic DEA raids of dispensaries and medical marijuana grow operations. And while it may seem as though this is simply inconveniencing some people, these dispensaries provide medicinal cannabis prescribed by a doctor, often for patients who have gone through product after product with no results. For many, medical marijuana is a last resort, and it allows a life without constant pain. So you can see how, when dispensaries are raided, their product snatched and lives put on hold, it not only closes a business, but prevents patients from having medicine. 

So now we arrive at the victory. This past Monday, the House passed a bill that effectively prevents the DEA from raiding medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations that are legal on the state level. This is such an important event because it demonstrates a more open attitude towards medicinal and recreational marijuana use than the government has shown in the past, which signals a possible shift towards sensible marijuana policies (or, at the very least, more sensible than the ones we have now.) Does this signal a change in attitude in the government, or is this just a special case?