An industry association that represents drug testing companies and a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical corporation are asking a federal appeals court to block the Trump administration from moving forward with federal marijuana rescheduling while ongoing litigation challenging the reform is considered—claiming that cannabis is a “dangerous drug that destroys lives.”
The National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association (NDASA), along with MMJ International Holdings and its subsidiaries, argue in the new filing on Tuesday that the cannabis rescheduling move is “a brazen agency overreach in which the Acting Attorney General ignored restrictions on his authority set by Congress—and a binding decision of this Court—to carry out one of the most sweeping reductions in restrictions on a dangerous narcotic in the history of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).”
“Nearly fifty years ago, this Court held that the Attorney General lacks authority to unilaterally decide how marijuana ought to be restricted—that is, which Schedule it should be placed under—pursuant to the CSA. The Court explained that Congress constrained the Attorney General’s authority by requiring him both to secure recommendations from the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and to make detailed findings through a formal rulemaking on the record. While the CSA contains a limited bypass of those procedures to allow the Attorney General to ensure that the U.S. complies with certain treaties…this Court made clear that the bypass cannot be invoked when the Attorney General is simply deciding to move a drug between two Schedules under the CSA, either of which would comply with treaty obligations.”
“The Department of Justice complied with this Court’s construction of the CSA for over four decades—until now,” the joint motion for a stay pending review that was filed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit argues.
While HHS had issued a recommendation to reschedule marijuana during the Biden administration, the recent move by the Trump Department of Justice canceled ongoing proceedings related to that proposal and issued a new final rule.
Hellbound and Down 