Sessions vs. reality

Allow more research on medical marijuana

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under President Barack Obama launched an effort to begin studying the possible medical uses of marijuana.

Easy call, right? About half of the states have some kind of medical marijuana law in place, even as the uses of marijuana and hemp in the medical field continue to be ambiguous and far from accepted by the entire medical profession.

Under Mr. Obama, the DEA began seeking applications for new marijuana researchers in 2016. The DEA said at the time that it “fully supports expanding research into the potential medical utility of marijuana and its chemical constituents.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, at least 26 applications have been submitted and none has been approved or rejected.

The Trump administration, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has expressed strong hostility to the easing of federal enforcement of marijuana laws.

And so far, Mr. Sessions’ department has done nothing to advance this research.

That’s probably because Mr. Sessions is committed to the renewal of a 1950s-like war on marijuana, which is absurd. That war is long lost.

The nation is moving toward more acceptance of marijuana use as part of our culture. Many states are moving tentatively forward with a variety of schemes for allowing medical marijuana or, in a handful of cases, wide-open recreational pot use.

Yet cannabis continues to be listed by the DEA as a Schedule I drug — the most serious category of illegal substances, right up there with heroin and LSD. To the DEA, cannabis is a drug “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Letting the states figure out marijuana, its uses and its legalization is perhaps the most sensible route, both as a matter of federalism and sociological and intellectual pluralism.

Meanwhile, a little scientific and medical knowledge couldn’t hurt.