Tag: dea

A Psychedelic Ban Would Disrupt Important Research

You have probably never heard of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI), much less worried about its possible abuse. Yet the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) wants to ban this synthetic psychedelic, a promising research chemical used in more than 900 published studies, by placing it in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), which defeated a previous DEA attempt to ban DOI in 2022, is determined to stop the agency’s interference with science again.

A DEA administrative law judge has scheduled a 10-day hearing on the proposed ban, beginning on November 12. SSDP, which filed a prehearing statement on behalf of more than 20 scientists, argues that placing DOI in Schedule I would impose “onerous financial and bureaucratic obstacles on researchers.” SSDP also opposes the scheduling of another psychedelic, 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine (DOC), under the same proposed rule, which the DEA published last December.

“DOI and DOC are important research chemicals with basically no evidence of abuse,” says SSDP alum and legal counsel Brett Phelps. Phelps is working with Denver attorney Robert Rush, who represents 
University of California, Berkeley, neuroscientist Raul Ramos.

“The DEA’s attempt to classify DOI, a compound of great significance to both psychedelic and fundamental serotonin research, as a Schedule I substance exemplifies an administrative agency overstepping its bounds,” Rush says. “The government admits DOI is not being diverted for use outside of scientific research yet insists on placing this substance in such a restricted class that it will disrupt virtually all current research.”

SSDP describes the two compounds as “essential research chemicals in pre-clinical psychiatry and neurobiology,” noting that their unscheduled status has made them accessible as tools for studying serotonin receptors. It says DOI, in particular, has been “a cornerstone in neuroscience research” due to its selectivity for the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, crucial for understanding the therapeutic effects of psychedelics. Scientists have used DOI to “map the localization of an important serotonin receptor in the brain critical in learning, memory, and psychiatric disease,” SSDP notes, and DOI studies “have shown encouraging results in managing pain and reducing opioid cravings.”

The DEA argues that DOI and DOC “have a high potential for abuse.” While the two compounds “are available for purchase from legitimate chemical synthesis companies,” the DEA concedes, “there is no evidence of diversion from these companies.” But it notes that both drugs “have been encountered by law enforcement in the United States,” indicating their “availability for abuse.” Because “DOI and DOC are not found in FDA-approved drug products,” the DEA says, people who use them must be doing so “on their own initiative, rather than based on medical advice.”

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DEA Marijuana Rescheduling Hearing Delayed Until 2025, Agency Judge Rules

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) hearing on the Biden administration’s marijuana rescheduling proposal is being delayed until 2025, Marijuana Moment has learned.

After DEA Administrator Anne Millgram signed off on over two dozen witnesses to participate in the hearing on Monday, Chief Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) John Mulrooney issued a preliminary order on Thursday signaling that the information provided on those set to testify was insufficient and requesting additional details and potential availability for a formal hearing in January or February 2025.

When the Justice Department proposed moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III in March following a scientific review, advocates and stakeholders had hoped the rule would be finalized this year. And DEA did schedule the hearing for December 2—after the presidential election but before the January inauguration that will see an administrative changeup.

Now the latest order from Mulrooney clarifies that won’t be the case.

The reason being is that DEA’s list of hearing participants who were selected and sent to the ALJ’s office provided “no indication in the four corners of the document as to whether the ‘participants’ support or oppose the [notice of proposed rulemaking] or how the ‘participants’ satisfy the ‘interested person’ definition set forth in the regulations,” the judge’s order says.

“Indeed, the [Participant Letter] contains only a list of persons and organizations accompanied by one or more email addresses, without the benefit of notices of appearance, addresses, or even phone numbers,” it says.

The order from the DEA ALJ says that selected participants must provide such details by November 12. DEA is mandated to provide “its counsel(s) of record who will be appearing in these proceedings, as well as any known conflicts of interest that may require disclosure” on the same date.

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DEA Seeks To Block Experts From Giving ‘Incompetent’ Testimony At Hearing On Proposed Psychedelics Ban

The Drug Enforcement Administration is seeking to block certain experts from testifying in an administrative hearing about the agency’s proposal to ban two psychedelic compounds that scientists say hold significant therapeutic potential.

Ahead of the 10-day hearing that a DEA administrative law judge (ALJ) scheduled for next month, the agency pushed back against the inclusion of multiple experts in the proceeding on the basis that the “proposed testimony and exhibits are incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, and/or unduly repetitious.”

DEA further asserted that while the head of the agency can consider arguments on “barriers or hinderances to research” in the event that the psychedelics—2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI) and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine (DOC)—are placed in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), allowing scientific experts to testify about the potential research harm without qualifying evidence “would result in a waste of judicial time and resources.”

“The Government argues that research harm evidence is not relevant to the issues and factors discussed above,” DEA said. That’s in spite of the fact that federal officials have repeatedly discussed the barriers to research associated with a drug’s placement in Schedule I.

Following a public comment period, DEA ALJ Paul Soeffing in August set an administrative hearing on the issue from November 12-22, with a final meeting on November 25, according to a recent notice that was shared with Marijuana Moment by the advocacy group Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP).

On Thursday, SSDP filed a motion responding to DEA’s brief, saying that agency is “purporting much of the testimony and exhibits are incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, and/or unduly repetitious despite the less rigid evidentiary rules that exist for administrative hearings where courts have repeatedly established that the [ALJ] has great deference in deciding what evidence may be permitted.”

“What is the DEA so scared of that these leading scientists must be muzzled?” Robert Rush, a Denver-based attorney who is working with SSDP on the DOI and DOC case, said in a press release.

“By trying to silence the world’s leading experts in neuroscience and pharmacology, the DEA is attempting to prevent the tribunal—and the public—from understanding the true potential of these substances,” he said. “We vigorously oppose the DEA’s efforts to stop scientific research and call on the tribunal to reject the Government’s motion and ensure that all relevant evidence is heard.”

This all comes as DEA separately scheduled a December hearing to gain additional input on the Biden administration’s marijuana rescheduling proposal—a move that will delay that reform from potentially taking effect until after the presidential election.

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DEA Calls To Increase Production of Psychedelics For Clinical Research

This week, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) proposed increases to the production quotas of psilocybin, psilocin, and ibogaine for use by researchers investigating therapies with psychedelic compounds. The DEA oversees the regulated synthesis and cultivation of restricted psychoactive materials for scientific investigations.

A revised production agenda for 2024 calls for psilocybin and psilocin production to be increased by 50% – from 20,000 to 30,000 grams for psilocybin, and 24,000 to 36,000 grams for psilocin. These are the gram amounts planned for 2025 as well.

The DEA’s plans for 2025, posted as a notice in the Federal Register, includes the increased manufacturing of ibogaine from 150 to 210 grams. There is no change to the manufacturing level of other psychedelics such as MDMA or 5-MeO-DMT.

“This opens the door to more research, more clinical trials, and a better understanding of how we can apply emerging therapies,” says Representative Morgan Luttrell (R-TX). Luttrell is a former Navy SEAL whose therapeutic experiences with ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT inform his advocacy for the government to fund psychedelic research, including allocations made in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. 

Expanding Research

The Controlled Substances Act, signed into law in 1970 by Richard Nixon, created five schedules under which to list drugs and allowed governmental regulation of how much of each drug could be produced for any purpose. Many psychedelics were placed under Schedule 1, the most limited schedule.

Researchers studying psychedelics in subsequent years faced scarce supplies of these substances, but their availability in recent years has grown significantly. In 2020 the DEA planned the production of just 30 grams of psilocybin; by 2024, the DEA increased the production to 20,000 grams.

The re-emergence of psychedelics as medicines is supported by expanding interest by researchers to study these compounds for their potential for effective treatments for mental health issues including depression, PTSD, and substance use disorder. Substances like psilocybin, psilocin and ibogaine are still listed in Schedule 1, which declares that they have no currently-accepted medical use. Researchers are investigating new treatments for mental health disorders through a variety of proposed mechanisms – such as by re-opening critical periods of learning or by collapsing default mode network activity in the brain. 

Despite promising areas of research to find new mental health treatments, DEA scheduling has been a major impediment into research on psychedelics, says Dalibor Sames, a professor of chemistry at Columbia University who studies iboga alkaloids. “While we have the DEA license, it is highly inefficient and cumbersome to share scheduled substances with collaborators,” he says. “Research in these days is highly collaborative and thus sharing compounds and other research items is an essential part of doing science and drug discovery today.”

By increasing their production quotas, DEA appears to be signaling their intent to support psychedelic research, stating in the revised 2024 notice: “These proposed increases demonstrate DEA’s support for research with schedule I controlled substances,” writes the agency. “The proposed increases reflect research and development needs as part of the process for seeking the FDA approval of new drug products.”

For researchers like Sames, who uses small amounts of iboga alkaloids in the study of psychedelic chemistry, the new quota has no immediate impact. But the increased availability of these three drugs could influence their availability for use in clinical trials with human subjects. 

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Georgia Pharmacy Begins Selling Medical Marijuana To Patients In Defiance Of DEA Warnings About Federal Law

Nearly a year after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sent letters to dozens of Georgia pharmacies warning them against dispensing medical marijuana in accordance with state law, at least one pharmacy is now selling cannabis in open defiance of the federal agency.

Georgia’s medical marijuana law is the first in the nation that, at least in theory, allows registered pharmacies to dispense cannabis. That plan, however, has largely been on hold following DEA warnings last November that pharmacies licensed with the agency “may only dispense controlled substances in Schedules II-V of the Controlled Substances Act.”

But a pharmacist in Augusta is now flouting that guidance. Vic Johnson, who owns the Living Well Pharmacy, began selling medical marijuana to state-registered patients earlier this month, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) report on Thursday.

“It’s a new frontier,” he told the paper. “I really think pharmacies are an ideal outlet for dispensing medical cannabis, because if you come to my pharmacy already, we can talk about what medications you already are taking.”

He also said that many patients are already taking highly addictive drugs, “and the quality of life that can happen when they come off those medications is just incredible.”

Johnson is selling products produced by Botanical Sciences, one of the state’s two licensed producers. Prior to the DEA letters—in October of last year—at least three pharmacies had begun dispensing Botanical Sciences products, the company said in a press release at the time.

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THC-O Qualifies As Legal Hemp Under Federal Law, Appeals Court Says, Rejecting DEA’s Restrictive Stance

A U.S. appeals court has ruled that the hemp-derived cannabinoid THC-O-acetate is federally legal under the 2018 Farm Bill, rejecting the position of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that the chemical is a Schedule I controlled substance.

The opinion, published on Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, comes in an employment case that rests in part on the federal legality of the cannabinoid. In it, the majority of a three-judge panel ruled that DEA’s interpretation of what qualifies as illegal marijuana is overbroad and does not apply to THC-O, which can be synthesized from other cannabinoids found in legal hemp.

In rejecting DEA’s 2023 interpretation of the law, the Fourth Circuit panel sided with an earlier opinion out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled the Farm Bill’s legalization of hemp removed restrictions on a wide range of cannabinoids, for example delta-8 THC.

“Because the statute is subject to this other reasonable (and, we think, better,) interpretation,” says the new Fourth Circuit opinion, “we reject [the employer’s] contention that the DEA’s interim final rule or letter mandates a finding that THC-O is illegal.”

“Between the DEA’s February 2023 letter and [the Ninth Circuit opinion], we think the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the 2018 Farm Act is the better of the two,” judges wrote. “And we’re free to make that determination ourselves, despite a contrary interpretation from the DEA, because we agree with the Ninth Circuit that [the federal definition of hemp] is unambiguous.”

Specifically, the opinion says, “The Ninth Circuit held that it didn’t need to consider the DEA’s position on synthetically derived substances because the definition of ‘hemp’ under the 2018 Farm Act was unambiguous in its application to all products derived from the cannabis plant, ‘so long as they do not cross the 0.3 percent delta-9 THC threshold.’”

To further justify its reasoning, the court cited a Supreme Court decision from this year that overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine of providing deference to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutes, writing that it means judges need not defer to DEA’s own interpretation of the law.

The opinion says of the federal hemp definition: “Even if it were ambiguous, we needn’t defer to the agency’s interpretation, see Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo.”

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The US Is Being Accused of Three Coups

The U.S. has a long legacy of coups. During the Cold War, the U.S. participated in no less than sixty-four covert coups. They did not end when the Cold War ended. Since then, the U.S. has carried out or facilitated several coups, including in Haiti, Venezuela, Brazil, Honduras, Paraguay, Bolivia, Egypt and Ukraine.

Recently, the U.S. has been accused of participation in three more coups. The degree of evidence and clarity varies, and, unlike in the above cases, these cases are not yet closed.

Haiti has a horrible history of American interference and coups. The latest confusing chapter reads like a convoluted novel. The United States, who at first seemed to be backing the enormously unpopular and increasingly authoritarian President of Haiti, Jovenal Moïse, has now been accused of involvement in his assassination.

Moïse was assassinated in 2021 in a confusing plot by men armed with high-caliber weapons who claimed to be with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a claim the U.S. State Department says is “absolutely false.”

But two of the plotters of the assassination now seem to have been revealed as DEA informants and a third as an informant for the FBI.

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Accused financier of Moise assassination apparently advised by US intelligence

Two plotters of the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse were exposed as DEA informants. Another was unmasked as an FBI informant. Now, newly-released court documents provide the most startling evidence yet linking the conspirators with the US government.

A South Florida businessman accused of funding the plot to assassinate former Haitian President Jovenel Moise received legal advice endorsing a mission to capture the head of state from a confidential informant of a US intelligence agency, court documents unveiled in July 2024 allege. According to the accused’s legal team, “the discovery received from The Government redacts the U.S. intelligence agency with which [the informant] is affiliated,” but “it is clear that he is a [confidential informant] for a U.S. Intelligence Agency.”

The businessman, Walter Veintemilla, and his company, Worldwide Capital Lending Group, stand accused of providing a $175,000 line of credit to Florida defense contractor CTU Security LLC, which reportedly carried out the assassination. 

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The DEA Claims To Be Able To Search Your Bag Without Your Consent. But Can They?

Can federal law enforcement demand an impromptu spot-check of your bag after you pass through airport security?

Recent footage released by the Institute for Justice (I.J.) shows an officer from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attempting to do precisely that. In the video, which was recorded earlier this year, a DEA agent repeatedly attempts to search the bag of a man identified as David C., who had already passed through a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint and was attempting to board his flight. At one point, the agent implies that he could search David’s backpack without his consent.

“I don’t consent to search, sir,” David tells the officer. “You don’t have to consent,” the officer responds, adding moments later, “I don’t care [about] your consent stuff.”

The video shows the officer offering David the choice between boarding the plane for his flight and staying with his bag. “Set your bag down and then you can walk on the plane,” the agent says. “You can do that, but you can’t take the bag.”

“Am I being detained right now?” David asks. “Not you, but your bag,” the officer replies.

David had good reason to be disquieted by the prospect of his bag being searched, even notwithstanding the fact that it contained no contraband. According to a 2016 USA Today report, the DEA annually seizes hundreds of millions of dollars from thousands of airport travelers through a controversial process called civil asset forfeiture. Civil forfeiture allows federal agents to take large quantities of cash from individuals—sometimes for years—without ever charging them with a crime.

David’s situation is, in a way, familiar to many Americans. He was in Cincinnati for a business trip, but got sick and had to rebook his flight back to New York at the last minute. On the day of his flight, he passed through TSA and entered the airport terminal as normal, but was thereafter approached by the agent, who asked him for his ID and for permission to search his bag.

When David initially declined, the agent pulled out his badge.

The officer told David that he was suspected of illicit activity because he had booked his flight shortly before it took off. “When you buy a last-minute ticket, we get alerts,” the officer explains to David. “We come out, and we talk to those people, which I’ve tried to do to you, but you wouldn’t allow me to do it.” 

David was initially skeptical that the agent had the authority to search through his bag without consent, but the officer told him, “We wouldn’t do this—and be doing this across the country—if it wasn’t legal.”

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The DEA Wants To Ban Scientifically ‘Crucial’ Psychedelics Because People Might Use Them

You probably have never heard of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI), let alone heard that it is commonly abused. Yet the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) wants to ban the synthetic psychedelic, a promising research chemical that has figured in more than 900 published studies, by placing it in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, a category supposedly reserved for drugs with a high abuse potential and no recognized medical applications—drugs so dangerous that they cannot be used safely, even under a doctor’s supervision. Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), which defeated a previous DEA attempt to ban DOI in 2022, is determined to stop that move again.

On Tuesday, acting on behalf of more than 20 scientists, SSDP filed a prehearing statement objecting to DOI’s placement in Schedule I. That step, SSDP notes, would impose “onerous financial and bureaucratic obstacles on researchers,” since “obtaining a Schedule I license involves a daunting array of red tape and substantial costs, which can be prohibitive for many research institutions, particularly smaller labs and academic departments.” SSDP also opposes the scheduling of another psychedelic, 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine (DOC), that is covered by the same proposed rule, which the DEA published on December 13.

“DOI and DOC are important research chemicals with basically no evidence of abuse,” says SSDP attorney Brett Phelps. “We are excited to fight on behalf of SSDP scientists so that they can continue the critical work they are doing with these substances.”

Phelps is working with Denver attorney Robert Rush, who represents University of California, Berkeley, neuroscientist Raul Ramos. “The DEA’s attempt to classify DOI, a compound of great significance to both psychedelic and fundamental serotonin research, as a Schedule I substance exemplifies an administrative agency overstepping its bounds,” Rush says. “The government admits DOI is not being diverted for use outside of scientific research yet insists on placing this substance in such a restricted class that it will disrupt virtually all current research.”

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