Global Ganja Report

The Drug Enforcement Administration has denied the requests of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and numerous other cannabis policy reform groups to participate in forthcoming hearings on the matter of marijuana rescheduling. Rather, the agency has selected to hear testimony solely from parties that have expressed support for keeping botanical cannabis in Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act.

"We are disappointed that DEA has denied NORML's request to participate in this hearing, and are especially troubled by the premise of that denial: that the nation’s leading cannabis consumer advocacy organization is not sufficiently affected by a proceeding that will help shape the federal treatment of millions of state-law-compliant cannabis consumers," said Joseph A. Bondy, chair of NORML's Board of Directors and counsel to NORML.

He added: "A fair administrative process should include the voices of those most directly affected by federal cannabis policy: consumers, patients, and the communities that have lived under prohibition. Excluding NORML from this hearing deprives the record of that perspective and risks producing a process that is materially incomplete at the very moment when federal marijuana policy requires clarity, balance, and restraint."

In its denial, the DEA opined that NORML did not meet the criteria of being an "interested person" in the proceedings. Further, the DEA argued that calls for removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, a position which NORML ultimately supports, are "outside the purpose of this hearing."

The hearing, scheduled to convene June 29, will consider whether marijuana should be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act as recommended in 2023 by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

This is the second time that hearings before DEA have been scheduled as part of the ongoing administrative petition process, which was initiated by the Biden administration in October 2022. Prior hearings, scheduled for last year, failed to take place following the issuance of an interlocutory appeal.

In April, the Justice Department terminated those hearings and called for new proceedings. At that time, the Department and the DEA ordered that state-authorized medical cannabis products be reclassified under federal law from Schedule I to Schedule III. The purpose of the new hearings is to consider "factual evidence and expert opinion" regarding the reclassification of all marijuana products, not just those authorized for medical use. (NORML)

Image: Jurist


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