Pot push in Congress

Members of Congress, including six representatives from California, are making a push for President Obama to remove marijuana from the federal government’s list of most dangerous drugs.

Obama said in an interview with New Yorker magazine last month that he doesn’t consider marijuana any more harmful that alcohol, according to SFGate.com. But during a Jan. 31 interview with CNN, he said that possibly removing marijuana from Schedule 1, the federal government’s strictest prohibition of narcotics, was “a job for Congress.”

However, the Controlled Substances Act allows the attorney general—a presidential appointee—to remove a drug from Schedule 1 if it has legitimate medical uses. As such, 18 members of Congress signed a letter to Obama on Feb. 12 that recommended moving marijuana to Schedule 3, which would authorize medical prescriptions and allow for legal marijuana businesses to deduct expenses from their taxes.