The Holy Inquisition, Hitler's Nazis, and Stalin's Soviet would all salute the DEA.
August 19, 2016. Tom Angell on Weedmap.com's "Marijuana" blog reported that many newspapers published editorials criticizing DEA's decision to keep Cannabis ("marijuana") in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act.
On the other hand, he quoted several important papers which endorsed the DEA's arbitrary ruling.
From Mr. Angell's blog post:
But although the vast majority of editorial boards that weighed in on the ruling slammed the DEA, a handful of outliers actually praised to the decision to keep marijuana in Schedule I…
Colorado Springs Gazette:
It is reassuring to see DEA officials resist political pressure to reclassify, in absence of sound scientific rationale for doing so. Most civilized societies have avoided marijuana free-for-alls, respecting potential pitfalls of a drug known to lower the IQs of teens and children. Colorado’s poorly regulated drug trade remains a crude venture, condemned by federal law, with unknown long-term consequences.
We rolled the dice, enacting a law created by majority whim. In Washington, by contrast, sound judgment and patience have prevailed at the DEA. Science will light the way.
Boston Herald:
We’re in the habit of using quote marks around “medical” marijuana because, well, despite the branding effort by the pro-pot lobby there really is no such thing as “medical” pot. There is just pot, and many patients say it makes them feel better.
But drug laws and regulations aren’t generally determined solely by popular opinion, and the decision by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to keep close control over research into the medical use of marijuana reflects that.
Here's a slightly revised version of a comment by Oliver Steinberg in the comments box of the Marijuana blog:
One newspaper celebrates the fact that drug laws aren’t made by popular vote, and another praises DEA for ignoring “majority whim”—that’s very interesting, because it shows that prohibitionists really can’t stand the basic idea of democracy. The prohibitionist attitude–practiced by the DEA and nearly all politicians; and proclaimed by these ignorant newspaper editors–boils down to this: People cannot be trusted to govern themselves. In the immediate sense, that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted to decide wisely what to eat, drink, or smoke; and in the extrapolated sense that those foolish peasants and sweaty commoners must never really be permitted to decide which laws they are to live under. What a conceited bunch of arrogant elitists they are! And, as when the Nazis denounced “Jewish science” and taught “scientific” racism; or when the Soviet Union at Stalin’s orders embraced Lysenko’s erroneous ideas and imprisoned bona fide geneticists, the DEA now commits the USA to exalting totalitarian lies and delusions for the purpose of upholding their tyrannical power. They know that they only hold their power, and they only get away with their nonsensical ruling, by holding the rest of American society at gunpoint. Time will tell if their usurpation will succeed. We remember that when the Holy Inquisition forced Galileo to recant and deny the motion of the earth around the sun, a legend says that the aged scientist muttered to himself, “And still, it moves.” We know it took 300 years for the Catholic Church to admit its error and apologize—which didn’t help the long-dead Galileo—but at least they finally did so. The DEA could last for twice 300 years, exacting its toll of human sacrifices every day, month, and year, and still they’d refuse to recognize either the honest truth itself, or that we the people have the right to make the laws under which we must live. Free or “drug-free”—America can’t be both.