Tag: dea

Rescheduling Marijuana Does Not Address Today’s Central Cannabis Issue

The Justice Department yesterday confirmed that the Drug Enforcement Administration  (DEA) plans to move marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), a list of completely prohibited drugs, to Schedule III, which includes prescription medications such as ketamine, Tylenol with codeine, and anabolic steroids. The Associated Press notes that the change, which is based on an August 2023 recommendation by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that resulted from a review President Joe Biden ordered in October 2022, “would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.”

That is by no means the only thing rescheduling marijuana will not do. Biden wants credit for “marijuana reform,” which he hopes will help motivate young voters whose turnout could be crucial to his reelection. The announcement of the DEA’s decision seems designed to maximize its electoral impact. But voters should not be fooled: Although moving marijuana to Schedule III will facilitate medical research and provide a financial boost to the cannabis industry, it will leave federal pot prohibition essentially untouched.

Rescheduling marijuana will not resolve the conflict between the CSA and the laws of the 38 states that recognize cannabis as a medicine, 24 of which also allow recreational use. State-licensed marijuana businesses will remain criminal enterprises under federal law, exposing them to the risk of prosecution and forfeiture. While an annually renewed spending rider protects medical marijuana suppliers from those risks, prosecutorial discretion is the only thing that protects businesses serving the recreational market.

Even if they have state licenses, marijuana suppliers will be in the same legal position as anyone who sells a Schedule III drug without federal permission. Unauthorized distribution is punishable by up to 10 years in prison for a first offense and up to 20 years for subsequent offenses. That is less severe than the current federal penalties for growing or distributing marijuana, which include five-year, 10-year, and 20-year mandatory minimum sentences, depending on the number of plants or amount of marijuana. But distributing cannabis, with or without state permission, will remain a felony.

That reality suggests that banks will remain leery of providing financial services to state-licensed marijuana suppliers, which entails a risk of potentially devastating criminal, civil, and regulatory penalties. The dearth of financial services has forced many cannabis suppliers to rely heavily on cash, which is cumbersome and exposes them to a heightened risk of robbery. It also makes investment in business expansion difficult.

Although federal arrests for simple marijuana possession are rare, cannabis consumers likewise will still be committing crimes, even if they live in states that have legalized marijuana. Under 21 USC 844, possessing a controlled substance without a prescription is a misdemeanor punishable by a minimum $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail. Moving marijuana to Schedule III will not change that law, which only Congress can do. Nor did President Joe Biden’s mass pardons for people convicted of simple marijuana possession under that statute, which apply only retrospectively, “decriminalize the use of cannabis,” as he promised to do during his 2020 campaign.

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Marijuana Legalization Opponents Raise Money For Potential Lawsuit Against Federal Rescheduling Move

A day after the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) decision that marijuana will move to the less-restrictive Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, a leading cannabis prohibition group sent an email to supporters asking for money to fuel its fight against the reform.

“SAM will oppose this change at every level, including, if necessary, pursuing legal action,” the group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, wrote in the email on Wednesday.

An included link to what SAM describes as a “Rescheduling Legal Defense Fund” asks for one-time or monthly recurring donations of between $250 and $5,000, though supporters can also choose an “other” amount.

“Our new Rescheduling Legal Defense Fund will be used to support our challenges of marijuana laws and regulations, specifically marijuana’s Schedule III recommendation,” the donation page says.

SAM, one of the most outspoken organizations against legalizing marijuana, then cited its representatives’ multiple recent appearances in national news and print media.

“Let’s be clear: this does not mean marijuana is legalized—it will remain federally illegal,” SAM said in its fundraising email. “But, if implemented, moving marijuana to Schedule III would give Big Marijuana billions in tax write-offs as well as continue the normalization of high-potency THC drugs.”

SAM did not immediately provide more details about the possible legal action in response to a query from Marijuana Moment.

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It Took Me Months To Get the ADHD Meds the DEA Says Are Overprescribed

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been warning that prescription stimulant abuse could be the next opioid epidemic. After a monthslong quest to get my hands on some legally, I can report back that the agency’s fears are not only overblown; they are hurting people who legitimately need medication.

Bloomberg reported last week that a senior DEA official saw the early signs of a drug abuse crisis in the increased demand for stimulants, which are commonly used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy:

“I’m not trying to be a doomsday-er here,” said Matthew Strait, deputy assistant administrator in the diversion control division said in an online seminar. But he compared the current situation with stimulants to the beginning of the opioid crisis and said “it makes me feel like we’re at the precipice of our next drug crisis in the United States.”

Among the factors Strait cited were stimulant abuse, the lack of standard guidelines for diagnosing ADHD, unscrupulous telehealth companies and internet advertisements, and more manufacturers making the drugs. Bloomberg reported that the agency is drafting regulations to restrict telehealth prescriptions.

I read Strait’s comments with a mixture of amusement and outrage, because this year I went through the laborious process of getting diagnosed and prescribed medication for adult ADHD.

I don’t remember when a doctor first diagnosed me with ADHD. It was probably in first or second grade. I have a vague memory of a doctor, not my regular pediatrician, asking me a bunch of questions. The doctor then explained in careful sentences that I had “attention deficit disorder.” (This was before the “H” was added.) I don’t remember what I thought back then about having a disorder. I don’t recall it being a blow to my self-esteem. I was precocious and unflappable. I liked being me, and this was just another thing about me. I had brown hair. I wore glasses. I had attention deficit disorder.

I wasn’t an idiot, though; I knew why I’d been sent to a special doctor. My teachers complained that I didn’t stay on task, and it was creating problems in the classroom.

I didn’t think there was anything unreasonable about being bored in school or fidgeting when the teachers refused to let me doodle, but I also knew time got away from me in strange ways. I often got lost in thought, staring into space while the rest of the world moved like a VHS tape on fast-forward. I forgot things constantly. Things I should remember to do, things I wanted and intended to do, obligations to friends and family. They all flitted out of my mind, making me seem thoughtless, lazy, and rude. Chores and homework piled up. Deadlines were missed. My desk drawers became stuffed with organizational notebooks and planners given to me by the well-meaning women in my life.

I struggled in college as the amount of long-term projects and research papers increased. I could watch myself fail classes, but I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. When I was offered a newspaper fellowship that required dropping out of school, it was less an opportunity than an escape hatch.

Except for a few brief stints, I’ve gone through almost all of my life unmedicated. The last time was when I was living in Washington, D.C., in my mid-20s. I got an Adderall prescription filled by a doctor in a small, barely furnished office after a 5-minute interview. But that lasted only a few months. I kept forgetting to get the prescription refilled. I knew myself well enough by then to find this darkly amusing.

By my late 30s, I was no longer amused. I didn’t like myself anymore. I was tired of letting down people I cared about, sick of messing up at work because I was too scatterbrained, and filled with dread at the thought of spending the rest of my life like this.

Unfortunately, I live in a fairly remote area. I couldn’t find a psychiatrist anywhere near me who was in my insurance network, specialized in adult ADHD, or had gotten their license after the Reagan administration. But one referred me to a psychiatrist who offers telehealth appointments.

During the early stages of the COVID pandemic, the DEA temporarily lifted restrictions on doctors’ ability to write prescriptions for controlled drugs via telehealth. The agency announced last October that it was extending those policies through December.

While the DEA and Bloomberg warn that online appointments have allowed companies to push Adderall prescriptions to people who didn’t really need them, it was a godsend for me. My psychiatrist was thorough and professional. After an hour-long virtual intake session, she diagnosed me with moderate to severe ADHD. It turns out that taking a year to be able to remember what day the garbage can goes to the curb is pretty definitive. She also diagnosed me with mild anxiety, likely related to being a married adult who can’t remember what day the garbage truck comes.

That was the bad news. Next came more bad news: The psychiatrist was prescribing me generic Vyvanse, but there was a national shortage of the stimulants used in ADHD medicine.

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Researchers Ask Federal Court To Block DEA From Banning Two Psychedelics Under ‘Unconstitutional’ Administrative Process

Researchers are asking a federal court to block the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from proceeding in its attempt to ban two psychedelics, arguing that the agency’s administrative approach to the proposed scheduling is unconstitutional.

Panacea Plant Sciences (PPS) filed a complaint and request for injunctive relief against DEA in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington last week.

The legal challenge focuses on the agency’s recent scheduling of an administrative hearing to receive expert input on its controversial plans 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 filing doesn’t speak to the merits of the scheduling proposal—an issue that psychedelics researchers have previously addressed in public comment. Rather, PPS is contesting the administrative hearing process that’s preceding final rulemaking, arguing that DEA’s reliance on administrative law judges (ALJs) to settle such arbitration is unconstitutional based on U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

PPS said that because the Supreme Court has held that ALJs are considered “inferior officers,” current statutory removal protections unconstitutionally insulate them from executive control under Article II of the Constitution. That means DEA should not be permitted to subject researchers to an administrative hearing concerning the psychedelic scheduling proposal, the filing says.

“The hearing and scheduling poses a significant threat to the company,” it says. “PPS conducts research and development on medical technologies which include the use of DOI or DOC for development and as products themselves. Currently, DOI and DOC are not controlled.”

“Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and its implementing regulations, PPS will be required to turn over to law enforcement or destroy our stock of DOI and DOC which means the rule-making acts as an effective taking of property,” the document says.

“As a result, when PPS received the hearing notice from DEA, it was faced with a stark choice: either default and lose automatically or defend itself against the DEA’s attempts to schedule DOI and DOC and its use of an ALJ-overseen adjudication,” it continues. “PPS is thus compelled to participate in the DEA’s adjudicatory proceedings.”

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DEA Agrees To Hold Hearing On Proposed Ban Of Two Psychedelics Amid Pushback From Researchers

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.

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GOP Senators Tell DEA To Reject Marijuana Rescheduling, Arguing It Would Violate International Treaties

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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After 17 Years, Feds Stop Trying To Imprison a Licensed Medical Marijuana Provider

Seventeen years ago, the federal government raided Charlie Lynch’s medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, California, and charged him with five drug felonies. Lynch, whose business complied with state and local regulations, has been fighting to stay out of prison ever since, and last month he finally won that battle.

The Department of Justice (DOJ), which had been insisting since the first iPhone was released that Lynch should be incarcerated for at least five years, suddenly agreed to a deal that will spare him that punishment and erase his criminal record. The case, which proceeded on autopilot even as marijuana prohibition collapsed in one state after another, is a vivid reminder that the unjust, massively unpopular policy persists at the federal level thanks to presidential and congressional inertia.

Lynch, a software developer who lived in San Luis Obispo County, started mulling a new line of work after he obtained a doctor’s recommendation for marijuana to treat his cluster headaches and found there were no nearby dispensaries that could supply his medicine. He conferred with a lawyer, local officials, and even the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) before opening Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers in downtown Morro Bay in April 2006.

California had legalized medical marijuana a decade earlier, and Lynch’s business was licensed, aboveboard, and legitimate as far as the city and state were concerned. The mayor, the city attorney, and city council members attended the grand opening ceremony, where the mayor posed for a photo shaking Lynch’s hand.

None of that mattered to the DEA, which raided the dispensary in March 2007, at which point it had been openly serving patients for a year. During Lynch’s 2008 trial in Los Angeles, he was not allowed to discuss the nature of his business, which was irrelevant under federal law.

“We all felt Mr. Lynch intended well,” the jury forewoman told the Los Angeles Times. “But under the parameters we were given for the federal law, we didn’t have a choice.”

At sentencing, U.S. District Judge George Wu considered details the jury was not allowed to hear, including the purpose of Lynch’s business, his extensive efforts to comply with state regulations, and the “scrupulous record-keeping” that enabled him to do that even as it facilitated his federal prosecution. Noting that Lynch had no prior criminal convictions and deeming him neither a typical drug dealer nor a serious threat to public safety, Wu sentenced him to a year and a day in federal prison.

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DEA Failed To Explain Rejection Of Psilocybin Waiver To Treat Cancer Patients, Federal Appeals Court Challenge Says

Lawyers for a doctor in Washington State seeking to legally use psilocybin for end-of-life care argue in a new federal appeals court filing that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) failed to explain a key decision when it denied him access to the psychedelic. They’re asking judges to reverse that move, calling it arbitrary and capricious, and order the government to review the matter anew.

The opening brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week is the latest development in what’s become a years-long effort by Dr. Sunil Aggarwal and the Advanced Integrative Medical Science (AIMS) Institute to treat terminally ill cancer patients with psilocybin.

The new action takes aim against DEA’s decision in 2022 to deny Aggarwal’s requests to access psilocybin under state and federal right-to-try (RTT) laws, which give patients with terminal conditions the opportunity to try investigational medications that have not been approved for general use.

Washington State adopted a right-to-try law in 2017, and then-President Donald Trump signed the federal Right to Try Act the following year. Dozens of other states have enacted their own right-to-try policies.

Over the years, Aggarwal has presented DEA with multiple proposals in order either to legally cultivate or otherwise obtain psilocybin to treat his patients, arguing that the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) must accommodate a path to legally accessing the substance under RTT laws.

“DEA has rejected each request,” the new brief says, “but has never addressed the arguments that Dr. Aggarwal has raised in support of them.”

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DEA Slammed Over Post Commemorating Nixon’s Drug War Legacy On First Day Of Black History Month

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is facing criticism over its decision to commemorate President Richard Nixon’s drug war legacy in a social media post that coincided with the beginning of Black History Month.

DEA’s Throwback Thursday (or TBT) post on X featured a picture of Nixon receiving a “certificate of special honor” from the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers’ Association in December 1970 “in recognition of the outstanding loyalty and contribution to support narcotic law enforcement.”

Advocates blasted the homage as tone-deaf, memorializing a president whose own domestic policy advisor would later disclose that his boss promoted punitive drug laws in large part to target his political “enemies,” namely “the anti-war left and Black people.”

DEA didn’t necessarily endorse or provide commentary beyond sharing the moment in history—but the TBT post quickly incited criticism given the timing in connection to Black History Month.

It was also about six months after the photo of Nixon was taken that he’d infamously declare a war on drugs, fueling a mass incarceration movement that would have racially disparate impacts lasting generations into the modern day.

As the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) pointed out, 1970 also marked the year that Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), codifying broad drug criminalization in a way that has long empowered DEA and is actively being reviewed by the agency as it weighs a marijuana rescheduling recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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Democrats urge Biden administration to deschedule marijuana

Senate Democrats are putting new pressure on the Biden administration to ease federal restrictions on marijuana in a new letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday as it considers rescheduling cannabis after it was federally classified more than five decades ago.

The Department of Health and Human Services formally recommended in August that the DEA move the drug from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, or CSA, prompting a monthslong review, which continues.

The letter, from 12 senators led by Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., and signed by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., goes further.

“The case for removing marijuana from Schedule I is overwhelming. The DEA should do so by removing cannabis from the CSA altogether, rather than simply placing it in a lower schedule,” the senators wrote in the letter, first obtained by NBC News.

Rescheduling the drug or removing it entirely would have significant implications for the marijuana industry and for cannabis users, some of whom consume it for medical purposes.

Since 1971, cannabis has been under Schedule I, the highest classification of the CSA, along with drugs like heroin and LSD, which the government formally considers to have high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use.

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