The right schedule for marijuana (among other drugs) does not yet exist.

In the process currently underway to reconsider the status of marijuana under US law, many have urged the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to engage in rigorous, evidence-based policy-making. But the agency's choices about how to regulate marijuana are sharply—and irrationally—constrained by the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and its menu of drug "schedules." These schedules often force regulators into a Hobson's choice between overcriminalizing drugs, through prohibitions that predictably backfire, or overcommercializing drugs, through hands-off approaches that leave users vulnerable to corporate exploitation. Analogous limits constrain scheduling choices under the United Nations (UN) drug conventions. The policy that must change to bring rationality to the regulation of marijuana, along with many other controlled substances, is not the schedule in which marijuana is placed but rather the scheduling system itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]