A nine-year effort to get the government to reclassify marijuana as a drug with at least some legitimate uses ended in a FAIL today after the DEA just said no.

Pro-pot forces, however, say they'll appeal the decision to the U.S. Circuit Court in Washington.

As it stands, cannabis is still a top-level “Schedule 1” federal outlaw drug — considered more illicit than even cocaine, which has some legit medical uses. Weed advocates were trying to get Washington to realize what we know here in Cali:

That pot has at least some medicinal uses.

But the 9-year-old petition for reclassification by the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis, including a recent lawsuit that prompted the DEA to get off its ass on this, was denied by the agency today.

The drug agency states that …

… marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.

The pro-pot troops, including Joe Elford, chief counsel of Americans for Safe Access, still have high hopes that the government will overcome is cannaphobia.

Elford:

Although this superficially looks like a defeat for the medical marijuana community. It simply maintains the status quo. More importantly, however, we have foiled the government's strategy of delay and we can now go head-to-head on the merits, that marijuana really does have therapeutic value.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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