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 veggie
Registered: 07/26/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc: 
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 Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug 
#7171761 - 07/13/07 05:32 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug
By Robbie Gennet
July 13, 2007 - Huffington Post
That's right: a lawsuit against the government to prove that Nicotine is NOT a drug. After all, it's not on the DEA's list of scheduled drugs, so what does the DEA consider it to be? Anyone who has ever smoked cigarettes know that Nicotine is a seriously addictive drug. Ever see all those commercials about stopping "the cravings"? Nicotine is one of the most addictive and dangerous drugs on the market YET it's not scheduled as a drug by the DEA. Here is the LINK< link to: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/scheduling.html > to their chart, which lists drugs progressively from Schedule 5 (the least harmful, such as Robitussin) to Schedule 1 (the most dangerous, such as heroin, psilocybin, peyote, mescaline, GHB, etc.) These schedule 1 drugs are known to be highly addictive, generally lethal and lacking in medicinal value. And even though those things are known to be true about Nicotine, it does not exist on the DEA's drug schedule. For the record, Nicotine is lethal at 40-60mg (a cigarette provides about 1mg of Nicotine) and death occurs from paralysis of the respiratory system. Here is the DEA's criteria for drug scheduling:
In 21 USC Sec. 811c (the Factors determinative of control or removal from schedules) the Attorney General shall consider the following factors with respect to each drug or other substance proposed to be controlled or removed from the schedules:
(1) Its actual or relative potential for abuse.
(2) Scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, if known.
(3) The state of current scientific knowledge regarding the drug or other substance.
(4) Its history and current pattern of abuse.
(5) The scope, duration, and significance of abuse.
(6) What, if any, risk there is to the public health.
(7) Its psychic or physiological dependence liability.
(8) Whether the substance is an immediate precursor of a substance already controlled under this subchapter.
Now take a closer look at the list of Schedule 1 drugs and you'll notice two substances called Nicomorphine and Nicocodeine. I wonder how those differ from Nicotine as the morphine and codeine parts alone don't exactly score low on the DEA chart. Is Nicotine an "precursor of a substance already controlled" or just sharing a prefix? I'd like to hear from the medical community on this.
Since Nicotine is currently not scheduled, the onus should be on the federal government to prove that Nicotine does not belong on that drug scheduling list. This way, if they cannot prove it should be left off, then they have no other option but to schedule it. They would then have to schedule it by means of a common criteria for all drugs. This would be a reason to reassess the entire chart and reschedule other drugs by the same criteria to bring The List into some sort of compliance with a reality based on sound medical science and reasoning, not politics, business or the status quo. Asking the government to prove the status quo is the best reality check we've got.
If Nicotine were scheduled and put into Schedule 1 where it belongs, this would have two drastic but ultimately beneficial effects. One would be that cigarettes would suddenly become illegal, as their main ingredient (and reason for existing and addicting so many people) would be outlawed as much as heroin or other Schedule 1 counterparts would. This way, smoking would drop drastically, as the biggest problem with quitting is that cigarettes are available everywhere, making it too easy to get your fix. The second effect would be the restructuring of some of the other drugs on the Scheduling list. I guarantee you that if you put THC (the active ingredient in marijuana, currently and quite unfairly a Schedule 1 listing) against the same criteria as Nicotine, they would not be in the same category at all. But the illegality of marijuana (the most widely used "illegal" drug in America) would be in certain question when judged solely by medical and scientific criteria and not politics, business & societal norms. Indeed, back in 1972, then-President Nixon completely ignored his self-appointed Shafer commission's advice that "Neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety" and started the long and destructive War on Drugs anyway. And if you think this is just about marijuana and nicotene, look at Schedule IV where the popular sleep aid Ambien shares a category with Valium, Xanax, Darvocet and Rohypnol. Yes, that popular date rape drug known as Roofies is no more dangerous than your sleeping medication. Or is it? And they're all still less dangerous than Schedule 3's Tylenol with Codeine and that social pariah Ketamine, or Special K. But even more dangerous than that, in Schedule 2 OxyContin, Percocet and Methamphetamine rub shoulders with Ritalin, which millions of adults and children use daily. Yes, your attention deficit drug is on par with Meth! Though according to the DEA, none are as bad for you as marijuana in Schedule 1. Imagine that.
It could all start with a simple lawsuit to make the US government defend the indefensible status quo. After all, what has changed since 1972 when the Shafer Commission recommended that "possession of marijuana for personal use no longer be an offense, [and that the] casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for no remuneration, or insignificant remuneration no longer be an offense."? What has changed is that since then, more than 13.2 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, including some 735,000 in 2000 alone (the last year for which federal data is available.) That may be one of the more unfortunate effects of the misguided War on Drugs and the mis-scheduling (or non-scheduling) of certain drugs by the DEA. Putting Nicotine to the test of scheduling could be the catalyst for long overdue changes in our national drug policy and our flawed and ultimately failed War on Drugs. And maybe with those 735,000 people a year out of the judicial and correctional systems, we'll have all the resources we need to fight terrorism, enforce immigration laws and secure our borders. Just a thought...
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ToiletDuk
Give me Librium or give me Meth!
Registered: 05/17/03
Posts: 81,256
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: veggie]
#7171842 - 07/13/07 05:56 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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I could attest to the addictive qualities of nicotine for sure.
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 ApJunkie
part-time Ninja
Registered: 08/17/06
Posts: 2,637
Loc: Loc:Loc:Loc:Loc:Loc:
Last seen: 10 months, 24 days
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: ToiletDuk]
#7171978 - 07/13/07 06:37 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think somebody needs to just sue the DEA for being generally retarded. THC is Schedule 1, yet neither addictive or lethal, yet as you mentioned, Nicotine isn't even on the list. I would be willing to bet nearly 90% of the drugs on the schedule lists are mis-classified.
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MUSIC---> www.RocktinGrove.com
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eyesoftheworld
ૐ नमः शिवाय
Registered: 05/27/06
Posts: 666
Last seen: 1 year, 7 months
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: ApJunkie]
#7172040 - 07/13/07 06:58 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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Good read 
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moon_glue
Orwell's Post9/11 Era
Registered: 01/20/07
Posts: 2,263
Loc: Earth, today...
Last seen: 2 months, 21 days
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: eyesoftheworld]
#7172124 - 07/13/07 07:24 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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DEA is ignorance.
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midgard
woodland warriorpoet
Registered: 03/07/07
Posts: 50
Loc: middle earth
Last seen: 4 years, 10 months
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: moon_glue]
#7172250 - 07/13/07 08:10 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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isn't it interesting how thc and psilocybin's classifications are equal that of heroin?
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peace
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badchad
Mad Scientist
Registered: 03/02/05
Posts: 9,141
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: midgard]
#7172311 - 07/13/07 08:34 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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It would be far more relevant to schedule cigarettes, rather than nicotine.
When investigated under controlled circumstances, non-tobacco forms of nicotine have not been conclusively shown to be "addictive".
Cigarettes are somewhat of a curiosity. The reason they are so addicitve isn't fully known (it certainly involves a number of psychological variables). Thus, nicotine probably shouldn't be scheduled as pure, non-tobacco forms of nicotine probably wouldn't fulfill the above 8 criteria.
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...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge. It is an indellible experience; it is forever known. I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did.
Smith, P. Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27.
...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely.
Osmond, H. Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436
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wireless
Thizziswhatis
Registered: 11/06/06
Posts: 3,948
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: badchad]
#7173038 - 07/14/07 12:26 AM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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Obviously the drug scheduling needs major reform. Once this happened then we could maybe baby steps towards decriminalization.
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fastfred
Old Hand
Registered: 05/17/04
Posts: 6,609
Loc: Dark side of the moon
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: wireless]
#7173791 - 07/14/07 06:37 AM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Since Nicotine is currently not scheduled, the onus should be on the federal government to prove that Nicotine does not belong on that drug scheduling list. This way, if they cannot prove it should be left off, then they have no other option but to schedule it.
Yeah, that's real logical reasoning dickhead. I guess everything should be made schedule 1 until someone spends millions in research dollars to prove that it shouldn't be illegal. In fact, lets just throw everyone in prison until they can bail out and go to trial to prove their innocence while we're at it.
Such mental weakness in logic and reasoning makes a bad example for the anti-WOD community.
-FF
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
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Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: fastfred]
#7177422 - 07/15/07 03:05 AM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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The logic was unsound, but nevertheless nicotine does fit the DEA's criteria to be at least a schedule II drug. The criteria for Schedule I are:
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
Although nicotine does have some accepted medical use from recent scientific studies, especially in the correlation between smoking and the lower risks of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's in the effects of nicotine on neurons, it definitely fits the other two criteria more than, say, LSD, marijuana or psilocybin. They do not give you cancer and emphysema or create cravings from withdrawals upon cessation of use as nicotine does.
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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 18,208
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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 Re: Lawsuit I'd Like to See: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug [Re: veggie]
#7177612 - 07/15/07 04:34 AM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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RJR invented a 'smokeless cigarette', called Premier, a few years ago. It essentially worked like a meth pipe by vaporizing nicotine and delivering it to the user, but it looked like a cigarette.
The FDA got interested because drug delivery devices must be regulated. RJR used political pressure (they contribute a lot of money to Washington) to make the FDA back down, but it never caught on because smokers didn't like the taste. Read more here.
How something that is clearly a device for delivering a physically addictive drug can bypass the FDA while relatively harmless marijuana is schedule I is beyond absurd.
I wonder how many DEA agents smoke...
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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