BY RUTH HILL R.N.
When the Justice Department proposed moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III in March of 2024 following a scientific review, advocates and stakeholders had hoped the rule would be finalized this year. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) scheduled the hearing for December 2, 2024, after the presidential election, but before the January inauguration, a new administration will be present.
The 60-day public comment period kicked off in May, shortly after President Biden and the Justice Department (DOJ) confirmed the marijuana rescheduling plan. As of July 22nd, 2024, more than 40,000 submissions had been filed on the issue. They included governors, members of Congress, medical professionals, and advocacy groups on either side of the legalization debate.
Some called the recommendation to move cannabis to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) insufficient to address issues such as the state-federal conflict between marijuana laws and criminal justice matters related to prohibition. Others criticized the Biden administration plan as a political move unsupported by scientific evidence. Additional commentators said Schedule III is an appropriate classification for cannabis.
Seven months after the Justice Department’s proposal, a chief administrative law judge ruled Thursday, October 31st, to delay the DEA’s hearing for expert testimony on the federal rescheduling of cannabis until likely January or February 2025.
Paul Armentano, deputy director for NORML, said that “it’s always been a possibility that this process could drag out longer than many either anticipated or would like.” The cumbersome administrative process can take years to resolve. Unlike in the past, our political opponents are presented with the burden of arguing against the findings of both Health and Human Services (HHS) and the FDA, which have determined that cannabis does not meet the scientific criteria of either a Schedule I or Schedule II controlled substance.
HHS has already determined the risks to public health posed by marijuana are low compared to other drugs of abuse, such as heroin (Schedule I), cocaine (Schedule II), benzodiazepines (Schedule IV), and alcohol (unscheduled). These facts are not in dispute. CC remains optimistic that common sense and evidence will ultimately trump ideology and that advocates will one day be able to look back upon this process as marking the beginning of the end of federal cannabis prohibition.
In a July article, Cannabis Corner (CC) asked you to comment on your story on the DEA website and send it by Tuesday, the 22nd of July. The Federal Government has been talking about rescheduling cannabis for over 20 years since President Obama had a Democratic Senate and Congress. To say that the government is slow as molasses is an understatement; it is more like watching paint dry. Instead of screaming at the top of my lungs, getting angry, and disrupting my wellness energy, CC will focus on comedy to illustrate how efficient the federal government appears to many of us. It is so easy to scream, but alas, CC will be disciplined.
Cannabis Corner refers readers to the fifth episode, A Stitch in Time, of Sue Thomas’s F.B.EYE series, which illustrates the exact rigmarole the regulations of a federal repair department put employees through. This episode shows FBI agents discovering a new empty office. How the agents facilitate pulling favors from different departments to occupy the new office will cause uncontrollable laughter.
In another episode, the sixteenth, titled “He Said, She Said,” FBI agents freeze in the FBI bullpen. The shenanigans the agents must traverse to change their broken thermostats are hilarious. After numerous completed requirements, the thermostat is now stuck on heat. The agents’ skullduggery not only fixes their thermostat but ensures the Repair Department Agent’s office suffers in kind.
In conclusion, CC recommends we continue to email your congressmen and prospective candidates for the 2024 election to declassify marijuana. Hopefully, the 2025 Congress will get its act together and end the prohibition on the federal level in favor of state control.
Send comments to hilruth@gmail.com.
