To the Editor:
As an Einstein graduate (1976) and longtime addiction psychiatrist, I appreciated your comprehensive article, Cannabis: From Menace to Medicine, in the Summer/Fall 2023 issue of Einstein magazine. I thought the article was balanced and accurate, providing the medical profession with much-needed information about this important public health topic. I do want to mention two minor inaccuracies. First, cocaine is referred to as a schedule 1 substance (p. 33). In fact, cocaine is in schedule 2, as it is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a local anesthetic (although rarely used for that purpose nowadays). Second, the timeline of cannabis history (p. 34) omits what many consider the most important date in its U.S. history. The “Marihuana Tax Act” of 1937 (passed over objections from the American Medical Association) made cannabis functionally illegal by subjecting its possession or transfer (including by prescription) to a heavy excise tax.
Keep on publishing high-quality articles on topics of broad interest.
Sincerely,
David Gorelick, M.D., Ph.D., DLFAPA, FASAM
Professor of Psychiatry
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Baltimore, Md.
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Cannabis Research
