A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) judge canceled an upcoming hearing on the Biden administration’s marijuana rescheduling proposal pending appeals, effectively kicking the process to the Trump administration.
Advocates of more lenient marijuana laws alleged DEA officials had colluded with rescheduling opponents and are hopeful the process will move ahead under President-elect Trump.
The first hearing to go over the Biden administration’s proposal to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act was set to begin Jan. 21.
But these plans have now been canceled by DEA Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney.
The parties in support of rescheduling — Village Farms International, Hemp for Victory and the Connecticut Office of the Cannabis Ombudsman — have asked that DEA Administrator Anne Milgram be removed as a supporter of rescheduling in the hearing process.
The groups alleged that at least one high-level DEA official had communicated with opponents of marijuana rescheduling, helping them improve their chances of being chosen as a participant in the hearings.
Mulrooney denied the parties’ request, writing, “I can no more remove or re-designate the Administrator than I can hold parties in contempt and fine them. The strangeness of this unsupported approach is amplified by the fact that the appointment of a new DEA Administrator by a different political party is imminent.”
The judge also wrote that if the allegations are true, even in the best light, they would represent “a puzzling and grotesque lack of understanding and poor judgment from high-level officials at a major federal agency with a wealth of prior experience with the [Administrative Procedure Act].”
Per DEA regulations, parties can file an appeal if their request is denied. Mulrooney found in his ruling that allowing the parties to appeal could “potentially avoid exceptional delay, expense or prejudice to the [designated participants] and the Government by injecting appellate certainty into the equation at this stage of proceedings.”
The proceedings are now paused pending this appeal. The DEA declined to comment on the paused proceedings when reached by The Hill.
For those in the cannabis industry, the delay was cause for some concern, as rescheduling to Schedule III stands to help their businesses make deductions or add credit to their annual federal taxes, something businesses that deal with Schedule I or Schedule II substances can’t do.
Read more at The Hill