A new scientific review is challenging the foundations of U.S. drug law, arguing that the legal system governing controlled substances no longer reflects modern scientific understanding of risk.
According to the analysis, drugs such as marijuana are regulated far more harshly than evidence would justify, while substances responsible for widespread harm often face looser oversight or fall outside the system altogether.
American drug policy has largely been shaped by the Controlled Substances Act, passed in 1970. The law created a series of fixed schedules meant to classify drugs based on their danger and potential for abuse. More than five decades later, researchers say those categories have not kept pace with scientific research or real-world outcomes. The new study concludes that official legal rankings frequently clash with expert evaluations of harm, both in the U.S. and internationally.
Despite broad public acceptance and legalization at the state level, marijuana has remained in the most restrictive federal category for years. Although President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month instructing the attorney general to accelerate the process of reclassifying cannabis as a Schedule III drug, the change has yet to be finalized.
To conduct the review, the researchers used a structured evaluation approach known as multi-criteria decision analysis. A group of 17 specialists examined 19 widely used substances, scoring them across 18 measures of harm. These included fatal overdoses, chronic health effects, social disruption, criminal activity, and economic impact. The combined scores produced an overall ranking of harm for each drug.
One of the study’s notable conclusions is that most substances cause more damage to users themselves than to the wider public. That finding, the authors argue, has important implications for how governments respond. They suggest that policies focused on punishment have failed to reduce drug use and have coincided with a surge in overdose deaths. Instead, they call for expanded harm reduction measures.
The authors argue that public funds and attention would be better spent on prevention, treatment, and community health rather than incarceration. They describe a policy environment that has remained largely unchanged while patterns of drug use and harm have shifted dramatically. With fentanyl-related deaths rising and alcohol continuing to cause significant health and social damage, they warn that updating drug laws is no longer a theoretical exercise.
The paper also outlines practical steps tied to its findings. Since fentanyl ranked as the most dangerous substance overall, the researchers point to measures such as wider access to naloxone, drug-checking tools, and supervised consumption sites as evidence-backed responses. They also encourage further studies that consider additional substances, potential therapeutic benefits, vulnerable groups like young people, and different methods of consumption.
This study is likely to trigger plenty of discussion within the scientific community and in marijuana firms like Canopy Growth Corp. (NASDAQ: CGC) (TSX: WEED) due to the important questions raised about the basis upon which drug laws were formulated.
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