The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is taking another shot at banning two psychedelics after abandoning its original scheduling proposal last year, teeing up another fight with researchers and advocates who say the compounds hold therapeutic potential.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, DEA again proposed placing 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI) and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine (DOC) in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
The agency said that its scientific and medical basis for proposing the ban “remains the same” as it was last year, so it’s making an identical argument that the phenethylamine hallucinogens hold high abuse potential with no known medical value. What’s changed in the new notice appears to be related to the administrative process of requesting a hearing challenging the facts or laws governing the scheduling action.
When it withdrew its earlier notice, DEA mentioned that it would be “publishing a new proposed rule using an amended procedure.”
DEA doesn’t explain why the amended procedure was necessary, but it is the case that scientists rallied last year to request a hearing on its DOI and DOC scheduling proposal. The psychedelic research company Panacea Plant Sciences had also filed a motion contesting the policy change, which could’ve resulted in an administrative judge scheduling a hearing.
Unlike the previous notice, this latest filing says that the “decision whether a hearing will be needed to address such matters of fact and law in the rulemaking will be made by the Administrator.” There are suspicions that DEA is effectively complicating the process for outside parties to challenge the proposal.
In any case, Panacea Plant Sciences is again sounding the alarm. Founder and CEO David Heldreth told Marijuana Moment on Friday that the “response to our rallying cry to fight the DEA’s illogical rule making has been amazing.”
“The psychedelic community from lawyers and researchers to community activists and even individual people have really come together in opposition to the DEA prohibition mindset,” he said. “Panacea have had contact with at least 10 groups that want to be involved or support the legal fight against the DEA attempt to criminalize DOI and DOC. These compounds are intrinsically important to researchers and the scientific study of the mind and body.”
Hellbound and Down 