Reclassify marijuana as a schedule 2 drug to allow more objective research into its medicinal qualities

Marijuana has long been demonized by the federal government as a highly addictive, extremely dangerous schedule 1 drug with no medicinal qualities, precluding reasonable efforts by the medical community to study its therapeutic benefits. Miles of red tape and a myriad of federal agencies prevent widespread, unbiased legitimate research into medical marijuana, regardless of the many widely reported cases of marijuana providing relief for patients, most recently children suffering from severely debilitating seizures. In 1988, DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young found that marijuana "is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known," yet it is still banned as a schedule 1 drug. We petition President Obama and the DEA to reschedule marijuana as a schedule 2 drug.