Members of the United States Senate on Friday confirmed Terrance Cole to serve as Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Cole spent 20 years in the DEA and held a hardline approach against the use of marijuana — including claiming that its use “stunts brain growth” and is linked to an increased risk of autism.
Cole previously had tenures at the DEA as the Chief of Staff and Executive Officer at the DEA/ Department of Justice Special Operations Division, the DEA representative to the National Security Council, and Chief of Staff and Executive Officer for the DEA Chief of Global Operations. Immediately prior to his nomination, he served as Virginia’s secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security.
During a confirmation hearing in April, Cole said that he was “not familiar” with where matters stood in the administrative process to reschedule cannabis, which was initiated by the Biden administration in 2022, but that “it’ll be one of [his] first priorities when [he] arrives at DEA to see where we are in the administrative process.”
Administrative hearings regarding HHS’s recommendation to reclassify cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act were set to begin in January before DEA Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney, but they were postponed pending the resolution of an interlocutory appeal. Since then, the agency has taken no further action on the matter.
“Hopefully the confirmation of a permanent director – who claimed reviewing the rescheduling petition would be a priority – will expedite resumption of a process that has dragged on far too long,” NORML’s Political Director Morgan Fox said. “This is especially timely because some members of the US House of Representatives are attempting to remove the Administration’s ability to reschedule or deschedule cannabis, and are seeking to reserve this authority solely for Congress.”
The Biden Administration initiated the regulatory process to review federal cannabis scheduling in October 2022 — marking the fifth time that such an administrative petition to remove cannabis from Schedule I had been filed, but the first time that such an effort had ever been led by the White House.
In its public comments provided to the DEA last year, NORML concurred with views expressed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that cannabis “has a currently accepted medical use” and that its relatively low abuse potential is inconsistent with the criteria required for substances in either Schedule I or Schedule II.
