Hillary Clinton promises to decriminalize marijuana just enough

As of Saturday, every Democrat running for president promises to, if elected, take marijuana off the list of Schedule 1 drugs — a move that doesn't require approval from Congress. At a Democratic candidate's forum at Clafin University — a traditionally African-American college in Orangeburg, South Carolina — on Friday, Hillary Clinton backed demoting marijuana to a Schedule 2 drug, a new position for her. Clinton said she supports the use of medical marijuana, explaining: "There is a lot of anecdotal evidence about how well it works for certain conditions. But we haven't done any research. Why? Because it is considered that is called a Schedule 1 drug and you can't even do research in it."

"I would like to move it from what is called Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 so that researchers at universities, National Institutes of Health can start researching what is the best way to use it, how much of a dose does somebody need, how does it interact with other medications," Clinton said. She added that unlike challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — who has introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level — she wants to wait and "see how it works" in Colorado, Washington, and other states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use. "What I do want is for us to support research into medical marijuana because a lot more states have passed medical marijuana than have legalized marijuana, so we have got two different experiences or even experiments going on right now," she explained. The third Democrat in the race, Martin O'Malley, proposed rescheduling marijuana earlier this year.

Tom Angell, chairman of pro-legalization group Marijuana Majority, called rescheduling marijuana "a step in the right direction" that "may make research slightly easier," adding that "only going down to Schedule 2 is mostly a symbolic move." Under the Controlled Substances Act signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, Schedule 1 drugs have "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse" and carry hefty prison sentences; other drugs in the category include heroin, LSD, ecstasy, and peyote. Schedule 2 drugs are those with "high potential for abuse" but "less abuse potential than Schedule I drugs," and include cocaine, Vicodin, cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone (OxyContin), the ultra-potent opiate fentanyl, and Adderall.

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