[420 Girl]

The Obama administration has taken an important step to protect patients in the 13 states with medical marijuana laws. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. confirmed last week that his Department of Justice will uphold President Obama's campaign promise to end Drug Enforcement Administration raids of medical marijuana dispensaries in California. The Bush administration's DEA unleashed hundreds of commando-style raids that intimidated and terrorized patients, providers and caregivers while undermining the capacity of states to defend popular medical marijuana laws they had enacted since 1996. The Obama White House has ended the reign of terror.

But this cease-fire isn't enough.

For medical marijuana patients and their advocates, it's crucial that the Obama administration and Congress acknowledge the value of marijuana as medicine and foster an open, honest discussion about how the federal government can best regulate its use. In particular, the feds should remove marijuana from the list of Schedule I drugs.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 created five schedules for all illicit and prescription drugs. Marijuana wound up in Schedule I, defining it as having a high potential for abuse and no acceptable medical use. Placing marijuana under Schedule I federally criminalized its use as a medicine and severely restricted research into its medicinal value. Nonetheless, there is increasing consensus among medical professionals that marijuana provides substantial therapeutic benefits for a number of conditions, including AIDS, hepatitis C, glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and chronic pain.

To date, 13 states have embraced those findings, rejected the inflexible federal position and taken matters into their own hands. The vast majority of those states adopted medical marijuana laws by ballot initiative, many by a landslide. Every state polled has shown a significant majority of voters in favor of legalizing medical marijuana. Within a year, those 13 states may be joined by as many as six others that are considering medical marijuana legislation or initiatives. Quite simply, most Americans -- including our president -- agree that when a loved one is seriously ill, he or she deserves access to medical marijuana if a doctor recommends it.

The placement of marijuana under Schedule I makes no sense for a drug that is being recommended by doctors from Alaska to Vermont. As The Times editorialized Feb. 25, marijuana "is not nearly as addictive or intoxicating as less-restricted Schedule 2 drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. Moreover, the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, can be sold in pill form as a Schedule 3 drug. So what makes the plant so dangerous?"

The Obama administration has signaled its intention to use a public-health approach to drug policy in general. Medical marijuana is the perfect opportunity to illustrate that sensible new posture. By ending the raids on dispensaries in California, the administration has taken a big step toward protecting Americans who benefit from the medicinal properties of marijuana. But this policy is far too impermanent and leaves far too many Americans outside medical marijuana states unprotected. It's time to reschedule marijuana and make it available as a medicine to all those in need.

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