[loeg]

Cocaine is Schedule II, actually. While it can be used as a topical anesthetic, I don't think it is especially common anymore.

Xanax has significant medical use supported by actual studies. (Yes, it's kind of a problem that the Federal government essentially blocks studies of many substances.) There's not a lot of real distinction between schedules III-V other than "less potential for abuse than the last one" (per DEA, not any science). Schedule II is nominally "high potential for abuse," like Schedule I.

> The DEA Scheduling system is not fact-based and needs to be completely redone.

Yes, current scheduling is absurd and not based in evidence.

I don't really agree with the policy that drugs must have medical value to be legal (which is enshrined in the distinction between Schedule I and II as they are today); it's certainly hard to reconcile with the legal status of (potable) alcohol or tobacco, which have more or less negative medical value.

[claudiawerner]

This makes even less sense to me (as someone who knows only very little about drugs other than trying weed a couple of times), but doesn't cannabis also have medical use, and further have a lower potential for abuse, at least along the addictiveness axis?

[loeg]

> doesn't cannabis also have medical use?

There isn't much evidence for medical use of cannabis and what there is is super weak. That's not to say it won't be proven effective in time, just that the research isn't definitive.

> and further have a lower potential for abuse, at least along the addictiveness axis?

I am not super well versed on cannabis abuse/addictiveness research but anecdotally, sure; as far as I know, it's relatively nonaddictive and harm of regular high-dose use is pretty mild.