Little Known Facts in the Medical Marijuana Debate: Marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 drug by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, meaning it is considered to have a "high potential for abuse," "no currently accepted medical use," and "a lack of accepted safety." Rescheduling marijuana to the less restrictive Schedule II or III (PDF 45 KB) remains a contentious issue. The University of Mississippi has grown marijuana (including a placebo with virtually no THC) for U.S. government-approved research since 1968. Each year the university grows 1.5 acres, 6.5 acres, or none, depending upon demand. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrative Law Judge ruled in Feb. 2007 that "there is currently an inadequate supply of marijuana available for research purposes." Marijuana contains over 400 different identifiable chemical constituents, including steroids and Vitamin A. Smoked or inhaled marijuana takes only a few minutes to reach the brain, where a series of cellular reactions occur that ultimately produce the "high" feeling. When eating or drinking marijuana, this process can take up to an hour. When swallowing marijuana (in teas, brownies, etc.), the main active ingredient, Delta-9-THC, is transformed by the liver into the more psychoactively powerful Delta-11-THC. The British Lung Foundation reports that 3-4 marijuana cigarettes a day are as dangerous to the lungs as 20 or more tobacco cigarettes a day. A UCLA study presented in May 2006 found no association between marijuana and lung cancer, and it suggested that marijuana may even have "some protective effect." In 1978 the U.S. government started the Compassionate Investigational New Drug (IND) program. Although closed for new patients in 1991, it still supplies about 300 marijuana cigarettes monthly to each of the seven seriously ill patients remaining in the program. The 1999 U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) report , commissioned by the U.S. government, recommended that under certain narrow conditions marijuana should be medically available to some patients, even though "numerous studies suggest that marijuana smoke is an important risk factor in the development of respiratory disease." Read more about the report's conclusions. Marijuana-related arrests increased from 400,000 in 1975 to 800,000 in 2005 (according to the FBI’s "Uniform Crime Reports"). Over this 30-year period, the percentage of 12th graders who said that getting marijuana was "easy" or "fairly easy" remained at 80-90% (according to the Dept. of Health and Human Service "Monitoring the Future" reports). If you have any little known, straightforward, and interesting facts that you'd like to share, please contact us. Please include a link or reference to your source.