"I say you go to jail."

[dreamnightwind]

54. Can't say I see it either

I just read the FDL article, and also the law (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/811). While I'm entirely on the side of legalization, the FDL article is a very sloppy one written by a Rand Paul supporter who is getting everyone excited that President Paul can and will repeal the drug laws via executive order.

I see nothing in the the FDL article nor the law that supports this about an executive order.

I think the AG is supposed to be independent of the POTUS.

There are other points of leverage in the law (besides the Attorney General). One is the Secretary of Health and Human Services (currently Sebelius) may request a rescheduling. She actually does work for Obama, it would seem appropriate to me that he could make such a request of her.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/811

The recommendations of the Secretary to the Attorney General shall be binding on the Attorney General as to such scientific and medical matters, and if the Secretary recommends that a drug or other substance not be controlled, the Attorney General shall not control the drug or other substance. If the Attorney General determines that these facts and all other relevant data constitute substantial evidence of potential for abuse such as to warrant control or substantial evidence that the drug or other substance should be removed entirely from the schedules, he shall initiate proceedings for control or removal, as the case may be, under subsection (a) of this section.

The other points of leverage have to do with international standards:

Whenever the Secretary of State receives notification from the Secretary-General of the United Nations that information has been transmitted by or to the World Health Organization, pursuant to article 2 of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which may justify adding a drug or other substance to one of the schedules of the Convention, transferring a drug or substance from one schedule to another, or deleting it from the schedules...

...

Whenever the Secretary of State receives information that the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the United Nations proposes to decide whether to add a drug or other substance to one of the schedules of the Convention, transfer a drug or substance from one schedule to another, or delete it from the schedules, the Secretary of State shall transmit timely notice to the Secretary of Health and Human Services of such information who shall publish a summary of such information in the Federal Register and provide opportunity to interested persons to submit to him comments respecting the recommendation which he is to furnish, pursuant to this subparagraph, respecting such proposal. The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall evaluate the proposal and furnish a recommendation to the Secretary of State which shall be binding on the representative of the United States in discussions and negotiations relating to the proposal...

It looks to me like Sebelius could get it done, and Obama could tell her he wants it done. They'd have to be able to show the science behind legalization (which should be quite easy, marijuana is one of the more harmless things I know of). If I'm not mistaken, such a review was recently done, and incredibly didn't give marijuana a clean bill of health, so it was not rescheduled. I'm not very clear on the details of this, could be wrong. And regarding my reading of the law above, I'm not a lawyer so there are probably some things I missed.

But it really looks to me like the key to the whole situation is getting an honest scheduling evaluation done by the Dept. of Health and Human Services, and President Obama could unilaterally make such a thing happen. Not the same as an executive order for rescheduling though, I don't see anywhere that such an order would be appropriate under the law.