Half a century ago, Congress approved the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which established a system for classifying drugs based on their "medical use" and "potential for abuse." But as a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) notes, the statute does not clearly define either criterion, opening the door to debatable and changeable regulatory judgments with far-reaching criminal justice implications.
Schedule I of the CSA is supposedly reserved for drugs that have "a high potential for abuse," "no currently accepted medical use," and "no accepted safety for use under medical supervision." Those drugs, which include heroin, LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA, are prohibited except for government-approved research purposes.
