Drug Enforcement Administration
Scottsdale Research Institute v. DEA, No. 19-1120 (DC Circuit)
Washington v. Barr, No. 18-859 (2nd Circuit)
Footnote 4: Petitioners also quarrel with the Administrator's decision that marijuana lacks "accepted safety for use." Since the Administrator based this determination on his decision that no medical uses are possible (and thus any use lacks "accepted safety"), we do not see that "safety" issue as raising a separate analytical question.
Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics v. DEA, 930 F.2d 936, 940 (D.C. Cir. 1991)
The scheduling criteria of the Controlled Substances Act appear to treat the lack of medical use and lack of safety as separate considerations. Prior rules of this Agency purport to treat safety as a distinct factor. 53 FR 5156 (February 22, 1988). In retrospect, this is inconsistent with scientific reality. Safety cannot be treated as a separate analytical question.
57 FR 10499, Vol. 57, No. 59, p. 10504, Thursday, March 26, 1992
DEA Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg (2016):
Schedule I includes some substances that are exceptionally dangerous and some that are less dangerous (including marijuana, which is less dangerous than some substances in other schedules). That strikes some people as odd, but the criteria for inclusion in Schedule I is not relative danger.
DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis Young (1988):
Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.