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I think it would be more accurate or them to say marijuana does have medical use, they just don’t wish to recognize it. o_O
Another aspect of this is that these laws have been on the books, in one form or another, for generations now. The Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914 is what first essentially made heroin completely illegal, and other powerful drugs illegal to use except by prescription. Marijuana wasn’t mentioned, as the federal government didn’t address that until 1937. Based on my reading I"d say it was mostly about the fear of addiction and moral depravity, in addition to the fact that certain drugs were associated with certain races–cocaine with African Americans, and opium with Chinese Americans, for example. These drugs were thought to foster violence and moral depravity, especially when taken by people of the ethnic groups mentioned. Martin Hyde, I think you are just a bit off base here–it was the Food And Drug Act of 1906 that attempted to deal with labelling, advertising, and purity issues without doing much to prohibit OTC sales or possession.
The condition of these drugs having been mostly illegal for so long has created its own logic of justification. Nobody remembers when such drugs were easily obtainable in a legal fashion, and many people don’t even know they used to be legal. The wrongness of their use, in the eyes of many, arises just as much out the fact that they are prohibited by law as it does out of any original reasons why they were prohibited in the first place. It’s as if the drugs are bad because their illegal, and illegal because their bad.
As heroin was initially developed (by Bayer IIRC - a German company in any case) as a substitute for morphine, I would question that it has no medical use.
This designation is entirely political. Heroin does the same thing as morphine, but at a smaller dose. It is prescribed for severe pain in Britain.
So true. Here in CA, marijuana is legal for treatment of glaucoma and many other illnesses. It’s also quite easy to find a doc who will prescribe you a dime bag for insomnia, chronic aches & pains, and nearly any other malady where a dull yet pleasurable high will alleviate a bit of the hurt. In fact, it’s tough to get arrested in Northern CA for having marijuana, Rx-ed or otherwise, as they’ve realized up here that, contrary to scare films of the 40s and 50s, marijuana does not cause violent behavior. Just an enhanced appreciation of Judge Joe Brown.
Uh-oh, the dreaded o_O, sure sign of someone about to be banned.
Uh, DNFTSP.
I think you could argue for Scedule III. There are medical uses for alcohol, in fact it was sometimes prescribed during prohibition. The existence of “alcoholics” suggests at least some risk of dependency for certain individuals. Were alcohol classified as a controlled substance there would be a huge increase in its price. 
Nicotine would be harder to classify. Its medical uses are mostly archaic, afaik. There is a high dependency risk. Also, there are alternate delivery systems…inectables, patches, gum. I don’t know if cigs would be approved as the vehicle.