Last week’s announcement from the American Medical Association — calling for a federal review of marijuana’s legal status — has been well received in the media, reaching the pages of The Washington Post, LA Times, and other publications. One group that hasn’t got the message is the Drug Enforcement Administration. This is no surprise, as the DEA has been ignoring recommendations to research marijuana’s medical benefits for decades.

But this example is particularly egregious. On the DEA Web page “Exposing the Myth of Smoked Medical Marijuana,” the agency writes, “the American Medical Association recommends that marijuana remain a Schedule I controlled substance.” That statement directly contradicts the new policy that the AMA issued last week.

The DEA also has a contact page where you can call them out on this (likely) willful ignorance of recent news: http://www.justice.gov/dea/contactinfo.htm

In its official response to the AMA’s recent call for a review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug (barring any medical use) under federal law, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy stated that it would defer to “the FDA’s judgment that the raw marijuana plant cannot meet the standards for identity, strength, quality, purity, packaging and labeling required of medicine.”

While we’re not used to factual accuracy from ONDCP, in this case they’re wrong not once, but twice.

First, there is absolutely no reason that plant medicines can’t be standardized and controlled for purity and potency. Indeed, the Netherlands has been doing just that for years, with medical marijuana distributed in Dutch pharmacies that is “of pharmaceutical quality and complies with the strictest requirements,” according to the Dutch government.

Second, the FDA has never said that a natural plant product can’t be a medicine. Indeed the agency has a lengthy “Guidance for Industry: Botanical Drug Products,” specifically designed to aid developers of plant medicines. The document not only doesn’t rule out plants as medicines, it even states, “In the initial stage of clinical studies of a botanical drug, it is generally not necessary to identify the active constituents or other biological markers or to have a chemical identification and assay for a particular constituent or marker.” Given that the active components of marijuana are already well-known and extensively researched, marijuana is well ahead of where the FDA says plant products need to be to start the process of seeking FDA licensing.

Yes, the FDA did put out a press release in 2006 saying that “smoked marijuana” had not been shown to be a safe and effective medicine. That statement was utterly unscientific, as we pointed out at the time, but it was absolutely not a declaration that the plant could never be a medicine.

Big news: The American Medical Association adopted a new policy position today calling for the review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug.

The revised policy “urges that marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.” While it goes on to explain that the AMA is not stating support for state medical marijuana laws, the new policy does fall in line with what is quickly becoming a universal understanding in American medicine: Marijuana has undeniable medical uses and federal law should reflect that reality.

The new policy marks a historic shift from the AMA’s previous position, which recommended that “marijuana be retained in Schedule I,” grouping marijuana with drugs such as heroin, LSD, and PCP that are deemed to have no accepted medical uses.

The AMA’s previous position was often cited by medical marijuana opponents as evidence that the drug’s medical efficacy was in question. This new policy will go a long way to convincing politicians and policy makers that the compassionate use of medical marijuana should not be blocked by outdated marijuana laws.