DEA Chief Finally Says It: Heroin Clearly More risky Than Marijuana

In recent years as public opinion on marijuana has shifted and the science on the drug becomes more settled and accepted, the DEA has stuck with its anti-marijuana stance.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), a longtime marijuana advocate, is renewing his call for the Obama administration to legalize pot.

The head of the country’s Drug Enforcement Administration has acknowledged that marijuana is safer than heroin. That means at a federal level, marijuana is listed alongside drugs like heroin and LSD as a Schedule I drug with no known medical uses. Although he’s stated that marijuana enforcement is certainly not a priority for his agents, he has not gone out of his way to redirect the agents from “the biggest and most important cases there are”.

Other topics at the event included the escape of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman from a Mexican prison, cartel violence, synthetic drugs and internal management issues, says Payne, who couldn’t recall particular points Rosenberg made in contrasting heroin and marijuana.

While Rosenberg still thinks marijuana is risky and harmful, he now believes heroin is far more unsafe, The Huffington Post reports. Do I think it’s as unsafe as heroin? It could of course be classified as less unsafe than heroin and still be considered extremely risky. Methamphetamine and cocaine are less severely categorized as Schedule II drugs.

The latest comments suggest that the DEA may be changing its mind and could eventually get on board with legal marijuana.

In fact, some of that pressure is already growing within the federal government itself.

And in February, the U.S. surgeon general spoke rather open-mindedly about the possible worthiness of studying marijuana for medicinal use.

“We are in the midst of a revolution to reform and modernize marijuana policy in the United States”, Blumenauer said.

But now, 23 states have medical marijuana programs while four states – in addition to the District of Columbia – legalized marijuana for recreational purposes.