Attorneys for a cannabis company and advocacy group that are set to testify in the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) marijuana rescheduling hearing process beginning this month say new evidence has come to light revealing that the agency actually opposes the proposed rule it is supposed to defend and has engaged in improper communications with other opponents of the reform.
On Tuesday, Village Farms International and Hemp for Victory laid out their claims in a motion requesting that the DEA administrative law judge (ALJ) overseeing the hearing reconsider their earlier request to remove the agency as the proponent of the proposed rule to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Part of the motion addresses a new declaration submitted to the ALJ by a DEA official last week, wherein the agency pharmacologist seemed to question the basis of the reclassification proposal by echoing “anti-rescheduling talking points in attempting to show that marijuana has a high abuse potential and no currently accepted medical use,” the cannabis groups said in their latest motion.
It says DEA based its analysis on a legal test that was previously rejected by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and the agency’s “defiance of OLC’s binding opinion is stunning proof of its open hostility to the Proposed Rule.”
Specifically, when assessing whether marijuana has currently accepted medical value, DEA used a five-factor review that OLC had described as “impermissibly narrow,” running counter to the two-factor review standard applied by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reach conclusion to recommend rescheduling.
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