The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has scheduled an administrative hearing to get additional feedback from experts about its renewed push to ban two psychedelics after abandoning its original scheduling proposal in 2022.
More than a year after DEA announced its intent to classify 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI) and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine (DOC) as Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the agency has agreed to hold a hearing before issuing a final rule.
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram signed off on the hearing notice on Thursday. It says that the agency’s administrative law judge will convene the meeting on June 10, at the request of three interested parties, including Panacea Plant Sciences, which had filed a motion contesting the proposed scheduling action last year.
Panacea Plant Sciences founder and CEO David Heldreth told Marijuana Moment on Monday that the company is “prepared to fight the DEA attempt to schedule DOI & DOC.”
“Beyond the scheduling attempt, we believe the DEA administrative law judges and system are unconstitutional,” he said, arguing that there’s legal precedent based on prior Supreme Court rulings. “We expect to file federal challenges to the ALJ prior to the hearing.”
In its notice about the psychedelics ban last year, DEA said its arguments about the merits of the scheduling action remained the same as in its prior abandoned ban attempt. It is maintaining that DOI and DOC hold high abuse potential with no established medical value. But it also notably described a change in the process to request an administrative hearing, which left some with the impression that the agency was deliberately complicating the procedure in the face of likely challenges from the psychedelics research community.
But, ultimately, DEA accepted the multiple requests for a hearing.
“Upon review of the requests for hearings, I have authorized a hearing, and direct the Chief Administrative Law Judge to assign the matter to an Administrative Law Judge who will complete all prehearing procedures, conduct a due process hearing…and issue a recommended decision for the Agency’s review and action,” Milgram said.
A DEA spokesperson told Marijuana Moment on Monday that they expect the notice to be posted on the online docket on Tuesday.
DEA backed down off its original proposed ban of the psychedelics following challenges from Panacea and researchers from Emory University. It remains to be seen how the agency will navigate the scheduling issue following the hearing with experts.
DEA separately withdrew from a proposal to ban five different tryptamine psychedelics in 2022 amid sizable pushback from the research and advocacy communities.
Hellbound and Down 