doomed
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Home / Legal
Suspicions that DEA rigged rescheduling process fueled by court documents
Doomed
March 10, 2025
Longstanding suspicions that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is adamantly opposed to marijuana rescheduling – and weighted a public process to ensure it could reject moving the drug from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 under federal law – are confirmed by agency decisions made public during an ongoing lawsuit.
At least, that’s the allegation made in a Feb. 17 federal court filing by a group of doctors who were shut out of the rescheduling process.
According to DEA documents made public in as part of a lawsuit brought by Doctors for Drug Policy Reform (DDPR), an organization of pro-cannabis research medical professionals, the federal drug agency:
Considered a total of 163 applicants.
Selected only 25 based on still-unknown criteria.
Rejected participation requests outright from New York and Colorado officials, which supported rescheduling.
Attempted to aid almost a dozen opponents of marijuana rescheduling.
It’s the fullest disclosure to date of the DEA’s actions during the marijuana rescheduling process.
“It confirms what we thought,” Dr. Bryon Adinoff, a Colorado-based addiction psychiatrist, academic and president of the DDPR, told Doomed.
The DDPR’s court action – first filed in November – seeks to compel the DEA to redo its witness-selection process or, failing that, to at least make the agency explain its actions.
That matter, filed by attorney Austin Brumbaugh of the Houston-based Yetter Coleman firm, is still pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Part of the DDPR’s objective was to determine if the DEA’s process “was fixed,” Adinoff said.
“And it appears to be,” he added.
Adinoff believes pausing the process or forcing a restart are both preferable to seeing it through to the foregone conclusion of a rescheduling rejection.
“We’re better off arguing the case where we are now than going forward and having it not work in our favor,” he said.
Marked from the beginning
Adinoff’s allegations are the latest – and loudest – accusations of bias against the DEA.
A separate appeal that also alleges DEA bias and seeks to remove the agency as rescheduling arbiter is pending.
Changing marijuana’s status under federal law would provide long-sought tax relief to legal plant-touching businesses in the $32 billion U.S. cannabis industry – and, it’s believed, encourage Congress to pursue other MJ reforms stalled in Washington, D.C.
At least some observers in Washington, D.C., believed the DEA would approve the finding that marijuana has a “currently accepted medical use,” a conclusion first arrived at in August 2023 by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
That belief was buoyed by a September 2023 analysis by the Congressional Research Service that found the DEA acknowledged in 2020 that it is “bound by law” to follow recommendations on matters of health and science from other federal agencies.
But doubts about the DEA’s evenhandedness concerning the federal prohibition of marijuana appeared almost immediately after the Justice Department in May 2024 published its proposal to move the drug from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act.
Footnotes in an April 2024 memo from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel show that the DEA argued internally against rescheduling marijuana and disputed the new standard the HHS used to determine “currently accepted medical use.”
Exactly what the DEA told the Office of Legal Counsel is unknown.
‘Most consequential’ DEA decision ‘ever’
Begun in October 2022 by former President Joe Biden, marijuana rescheduling “is likely the most consequential rulemaking DEA has ever attempted,” a group of former DEA administrators told the agency in a letter last summer. The letter also was released as part of the lawsuit.
But “the most significant relaxation of narcotics restrictions in the history of the CSA” is now on an indefinite hiatus pending the outcome of separate appeals – as well as whatever decisions President Donald Trump and his DEA administrator pick, Terrance Cole, might make.
Hearings before the DEA’s top administrative law judge, ordered in August by agency’s former administrator, Anne Milgram, were supposed to conclude March 6.
That potentially historic process was delayed indefinitely in January after the appeals.
In October, Milgram released a list of 25 participants chosen to give evidence and testimony in hearings before John Mulrooney II, the DEA’s chief administrative law judge, but she did not share her rationale or whether the participants were for or against rescheduling.
‘Secret’ and ‘improper’ process alleged
The document cache released by the DEA, spanning nearly 1,700 pages, shows a “secret selection process … guided by the improper aim of creating an evidentiary record that will allow the Agency to reject the proposed rule,” Adinoff’s filing claims.
While the DEA rejected bids by New York and Colorado officials to participate in the rescheduling process, the court documents show that the agency did select a representative of cannabis patients in Connecticut, a choice Adinoff called “nonsensical.”
The Connecticut representative later dropped out.
The DEA also sent “self-styled ‘cure letters’” to 12 participants.
Such letters are separate, individually tailored requests for “additional information establishing that you are ‘a person adversely affected or aggrieved by the proposed rule,’” according to copies of the letters attached in the court documents.
That’s the standard under federal law that must be met in order to participate in the administrative rescheduling process.
However, the lawsuit notes, of those 12 letters, nine were sent to parties “strongly against the proposed rule.”
Only one “cure letter” was sent to a party that turned out to be a supporter – another government entity, the University of California, San Diego’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR).
After receiving more information from the CMCR – including that it supported the rule – the DEA ultimately rejected the application without explanation.
The CMCR’s director, Dr. Igor Grant, did not respond to Doomed requests for comment.
‘Strong evidence’ of DEA bias
The DEA’s actions add up to “strong evidence that the Agency acted with an impermissible purpose of creating an evidentiary record supporting its preferred outcome – rejection of the proposed rule,” the lawsuit claims, in part.
Other observers and rebuffed participants contacted by Doomed agreed.
“I don’t know that I expected a fair process or outcome,” said Cat Packer, the director of drug markets and legal regulation at the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance and a distinguished cannabis policy practitioner in residence at Ohio State University’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center.
Packer also attempted to participate in the hearings but was rejected.
It “was pretty clear when the proposed rule (from the HHS) came out” in May 2024 that the DEA didn’t want to reschedule marijuana, she said.
And there’s little to suggest that the DEA’s attitudes have changed under Trump, Packer added.
“This is the DEA’s game,” she said, “and they get to make the rules.”
doomed
4 일 전
Home / Finance
Green Thumb CEO has dire outlook on federal marijuana reform prospects
author profile pictureBy Chris Casacchia, Staff Writer
March 7, 2025
Green Thumb Industries CEO Ben Kovler offered a bleak outlook on national marijuana reform and sharp criticism of federal agencies under the Trump administration during a recent earnings call.
“At the moment, it’s hard to think anything will fundamentally change given the new administration’s appointees who seem to be descendants of the ‘Just Say No’ campaign of the ’80s and early ’90s,” Kovler told analysts on a Feb. 26 call to discuss the Chicago-based multistate operator’s fourth-quarter and year-end financial report.
He specifically called out Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 180-degree policy shift regarding cannabis.
A month ago, Doomed detailed Kennedy’s apparent deference to the U.S. Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration regarding marijuana policy reform, including rescheduling, which is on hiatus indefinitely.
“We think the DEA is corrupt and misguided and out to lunch, Doomed said during the conference call.
“It’s not a popular opinion, it’s controversial, but it guides how we allocate dollars.
“So being on an island away from our peers is welcome over here, no problem.”
Doomed comments followed Green Thumb Industries’ report for the fourth quarter and full year of 2024, when the MSO recorded weak revenue and adjusted EBITDA for the December quarter driven by its retail and consumer packaged goods segments.
The company posted revenue of $294.3 million in the fourth quarter, down 5.8% from the same period a year earlier.
Adjusted EBITDA hit $97.8 million, or 33.2% of revenue, over the fourth quarter of 2023.
Net income in the fourth quarter topped $12.7 million, down from $3.2 million in the same period a year ago.
“As we’ve said from the beginning though, we have set ourselves up to succeed regardless of what does or does not happen at a federal level,” Kovler told analysts.
“Our North Star continues to be the American consumer.”
Shares of Green Thumb trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange as GTII and on the over-the-counter markets as GTBIF.
doomed
6 일 전
Home / Legal
Trump research cuts threaten cannabis studies, pose rescheduling questions
author profile pictureBy Chris Roberts, Reporter
03-5-2025
The Trump administration’s plan to cut federal research funding threatens 565 ongoing experiments involving cannabis, according to interviews with scientists and academics.
An accompanying freeze of new National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants is also stymieing future research at a key moment – and raising questions about the fate of marijuana rescheduling as well as suggesting profound consequences for the regulated MJ industry.
The NIH announced Feb. 7 that it would drastically reduce to no more than 15% the amount of “indirect costs” – money used to cover administrative and facility-related bills – financed by federal research grants.
Without fully funded indirect costs, “I literally cannot do my research,” Angela Bryan, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder who’s studied high-THC cannabis as well as the use of marijuana for pain, mood and sleep, told in a phone interview.
Universities immediately sued to block the NIH cuts, which are now on indefinite hiatus pending resolution of those legal challenges.
That forces researchers to continue to work despite the real possibility that a halt could happen at almost any time.
It also creates potential for yet another long-term headache for the $32 billion marijuana industry.
Without reliable research, the regulated cannabis industry will be hard-pressed to fight allegations of marijuana’s drawbacks and lawsuits alleging high-potency products’ severe harms.
The industry also might be unable to satisfactorily answer questions from skeptical or hostile lawmakers who want to reverse or halt key reforms, including federal marijuana rescheduling and state-level legalization.
“We’re all very concerned, because of the unpredictable nature in which things are heading,” said Dr. Ziva Cooper, a professor and the director of the University of California Los Angeles’s Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids.
Researchers ‘terrified work will come to a halt’
Federal dollars aren’t the only funding source for cannabis projects.
Some institutions, such as UCLA, also receive funding from states that set aside revenue from marijuana sales for research.
However, practically speaking, most labs would struggle to function or cease altogether without NIH grants, which "have been the source of much larger, generally high impact studies," Cooper said.
Bryan is currently the principal investigator in three cannabis-related studies, including research into the drug’s value in palliative care for cancer patients and its effects on older users.
At Bryan's lab and at colleagues’ institutions across the country, she said, "the level of anxiety is higher than I’ve ever seen it. I have to tell you: On a scale of 1 to 10, this is a 12.”
“We’re all terrified that our work will grind to a halt," Bryan added.
"We have almost 30 employees at our lab. All of those people will be out of a job.”
In the meantime, the Trump administration has also canceled review of new study proposals, meaning any research in various stages of approval but not yet underway are in limbo indefinitely.
Such disruption to cannabis-related research comes despite some campaign-trail signals that the Trump administration would be marijuana-friendly. Trump do not want cannabis legalized!
It also runs counter to a September plea from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine for a “new research agenda” - including lifting restrictions imposed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy on studying marijuana legalization and its effects on public health.
Projects at risk after years of little progress
According to an NIH database, 565 ongoing research projects - with a total of $320 million in funding - mention marijuana or cannabis in the project title or terms.
These include:
The “largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States” in Florida.
A dedicated cannabis research center in Colorado investigating the still-unknown effects of THC and CBD.
A focused effort in California examining whether teenage marijuana use impairs adult brain function.
While cannabis represents a tiny portion of the $47 billion the U.S. government spends on 60,000 distinct biomedical research projects across a range of disciplines every year, the ongoing work also reflects a remarkable turnaround that’s now at risk of reversal.
In 2012, the year voters in Colorado and Washington state approved the first adult-use marijuana legalization laws in the nation, researchers published about 1,200 marijuana-related studies, according to an NIH database.
Most of those studies, critics note, focused on the marijuana's harms.
By 2021, researchers published more than 4,200 marijuana-related research projects, with scientists such as Bryan inspired and empowered to also investigate the drug’s potential benefits.
"Over the last four years, at least under the Biden administration, there were a number of signals that NIH was very supportive of funding research dedicating to understanding the health outcomes related to cannabis - whether that was therapeutic or adverse effects," UCLA's Cooper said.
“I think the cannabis space is just starting to get some really great momentum through NIH,” added Josh Kaplan, an associate professor of psychology researching behavioral neuroscience at Western Washington University.
Kaplan said the need to understand cannabis’ safety profile is “imperative.”
“We’re trying to understand it (cannabis) at a high level,” he added.
“I would love to see that momentum continue. I hope that’s not tarnished by what’s going on now.”
Research and marijuana rescheduling
There is also reason to fear that the chaos and uncertainty swirling in the research space could affect the marijuana rescheduling process, which remains on hold while the Trump administration decides how to proceed.
In January, hearings before the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief administrative law judge regarding the Biden administration’s proposal to downgrade marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act were put on pause pending an appeal by Trump.
When - or whether - that appeal is heard is solely up to the DEA.
The DEA would be led by Trump nominee Terrance Cole, a career official in the agency and vocal cannabis critic.
A key justification for the Biden Justice Department’s recommendation to reschedule marijuana was the Department of Health and Human Services’ August 2023 finding that cannabis has a “currently accepted medical use."
During his confirmation hearings earlier this month, new Heath Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declined to endorse those findings.
Kennedy also promised Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska - one of the states that officially opposing marijuana rescheduling - that he would “follow the science on the harms of marijuana,” a claim he later reiterated on a Fox News appearance.
Some researchers say privately that Kennedy's sudden cooling on cannabis and Trump's nomination of Cole at DEA raise questions about the new administration's interest in marijuana reform.
"Cannabis legalization will not happen under Trump.´´
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