Three Republican senators are urging the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reject the top federal health agency’s marijuana rescheduling recommendation, arguing that it would put the U.S. out of compliance with international treaty obligations and make it harder to ensure that other countries continue to enforce drug laws, “including for deadly narcotics like fentanyl.”
In a letter sent to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram on Wednesday, Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT), James Risch (R-ID) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said the agency should adhere to precedent and decline to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has advised.
“Any effort to reschedule marijuana must be based on proven facts and scientific evidence—not the favored policy of a particular administration—and account for our treaty obligations,” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee members wrote.
“Marijuana is controlled under the Single Convention—which is not surprising given its known dangers and health risks—and the United Nation’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has fiercely criticized efforts to legalize marijuana in other countries as a violation of the treaty,” they said.
The letter notes that the Senate ratified the Single Convention that contains drug policy mandates for member states in an unanimous vote in 1967. And they pointed out that DEA has previously cited international treaty obligations in denying past rescheduling petitions.
“It is important that the DEA continues to follow the law and abide by our treaty commitments,” they said, listing a series of questions they’re asking the agency to answer.
For example, the senators asked if DEA still considers it necessary to keep marijuana in either Schedule I or Schedule II to comply with the Single Convention, as it concluded under the Obama administration.
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