Marijuana: We Must Still Warn Users of Risks, Especially When Driving, Says Ethicist

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Hi. I'm Art Caplan. I'm at the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Well, I don't know if you saw this, but the Biden administration is pushing to make a big change in federal policy about marijuana. For a long time, marijuana has been on the Schedule I list of highly controlled drugs, much closer to heroin and opiates. There are severe penalties, at least on the federal books, for dealing in marijuana. You can go to jail for 15 years for a second conviction. There are many people still in prison for dealing and selling marijuana.

As I think many watching this know, many states have decided to permit marijuana use for medical reasons and have decriminalized it at the state level, allowing clinics to open where you can get a prescription (say, in the state of Pennsylvania) and get marijuana prescribed for a huge number of conditions. There are even a few states that have allowed this for recreational use, decriminalizing it.

State laws are allowing it in some parts of the country, whereas federal laws are still treating it like a very dangerous drug. The administration is saying, let's shift that from Schedule I to Schedule III.