The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration plans to make a decision on pending petitions to reclassify marijuana under federal law within the next three months.
The timeline was revealed in a new letter to several U.S. senators signed by DEA Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, along with the heads of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“DEA understands the widespread interest in the prompt resolution to these petitions and hopes to release its determination in the first half of 2016,” the federal officials said in the letter, obtained by The Huffington Post.
As Marijuana.com first reported last year, DEA has already received a recommendation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about whether to move marijuana out of its current status as a Schedule I substance, though it is unknown what that recommendation entails.
Until now, it was uncertain whether the agency would act on the petitions prior to President Obama leaving office or wait until a new president is in charge to announce the decision.
“President Obama currently has very mixed legacy on medical cannabis,” Mike Liszewski of Americans for Safe Access said in an interview, citing the fact that federal officials shuttered more state-legal medical marijuana businesses during the first term of this administration than were closed during two terms of the George W. Bush presidency.
On the other hand, Obama later signed into law two budget bills that prevent the Department of Justice from spending money to interfere with state medical cannabis laws.
“Moving cannabis out of Schedule I would certainly do a lot to more squarely put him on the right side of history on this issue,” Liszewski said.
Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is the most restrictive category, one that is supposed to be reserved for drugs with no medical value. While heroin and LSD are also in Schedule I, cocaine is classified in Schedule II, a less burdensome designation.
Some cannabis law reform advocates have framed rescheduling as a silver bullet solution to the war on marijuana, while others have said it would do little if anything to change the current federal approach to the drug and could take the wind out of the sails of broader legalization efforts.
While rescheduling alone would not affect marijuana’s criminal status or the penalties doled out by federal courts, it would have several real-world policy impacts and would send a strong symbolic signal that could demonstrate momentum and propel further reforms on the state, federal and international levels.
Moving marijuana out of Schedule I (or, removing it from the CSA altogether, like alcohol and tobacco) would have a number of effects.
Reclassification to Schedule III or lower, for example, would protect federal employees who use marijuana from a Reagan-era executive order that defines illegal drugs as Schedule I or II substances.
Additionally, only drugs under Schedules I and II are affected by the tax provision known as “280E,” which disallows state-legal businesses from deducting normal operational expenses from their federal taxes.
Because current laws and regulations prevent the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy from fairly evaluating Schedule I drugs, reclassification would allow the government to examine and communicate about marijuana in a way that prioritizes science instead of an outdated drug war mindset.
Rescheduling would also make scientific research easier. Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, testified before the Senate last June that marijuana’s Schedule I status means there are “additional steps” that scientists wishing to study it must take and that reclassification would expand opportunities for research.
Moving cannabis out of Schedule I would also put an end to threats that newspapers who mail publications containing marijuana advertisements are facing from the U.S. Postal Service, since the federal law that agency cites to justify its actions only applies to Schedule I drugs.
Finally, removing marijuana from Schedule I, a classification supposed to be reserved for substances with no medical value and a high potential for abuse, would send a strong message to state lawmakers and international leaders that the federal government is beginning to address decades of mistakes on marijuana policy, and that they should too.
As a point of reference, legal synthetic THC pills (dronabinol, marketed as Marinol) are currently categorized in Schedule III.
DEA’s Rosenberg previously called medical marijuana “a joke,” which generated outrage among families who have seen the benefits of cannabis. More than 150,000 people signed a Change.org petition calling for his ouster from the agency.
In the new letter, Rosenberg and the other federal officials reveal that in addition to nearing a decision on the scheduling status of whole-plant marijuana, DEA is also undertaking a separate review of whether cannabidiol (CBD), a component of marijuana that has shown promise in reducing the symptoms of severe seizure disorders, should be reclassified under federal law.
21 Comments
A prediction: They will reschedule CBD to III and move whole plant Marijuana to II.
Truth is, whole plant should be descheduled, drugs created from the plant scheduled accordingly, ie THC schedule 3 and cbd likely schedule 4
True. But this is the DEA. Any major shift from the status quo will threaten their paychecks, so highly unlikely. They might make a token gesture, like my prediction, just to keep the angry masses from storming their palace…for a while.
The DEA needs to be defunded and replaced with the keystone cops.These idiots were untill recently pulling up weeds for over $64 a plant.
CBD is already unscheduled if derived from a hemp plant
The DEA considers hemp to be parts of the marijuana plant and they have CBD on Schedule 1.
You have your facts wrong. CBD from the hemp plant is entirely unscheduled.
The only hurdle is that it’s federally illegal to grow, but not to import, hemp.
CBD derived from hemp is, indeed, legal and I was actually party to a military administrative board that hinged on this fact.
The DEA doesn’t agree with you. I’ve tried to post links but somehow those posts don’t get posted. You can google “Is CBD legal according to the DEA?” to find them.
Right, I also wanted to post a link/screenshot with my last comment but couldn’t.
I’m sure you’re a well intentioned and decent dude, and I’m not trying to start a pissing match, but I promise your understanding of CBD legality is lacking.
Thanks for a civil response, but it’s not my understanding, it’s what the DEA is telling us is and isn’t legal. I’ve tried to include partial links without the prefixes, but the post still isn’t allowed.
So, if you google the question in my previous post, you will find a link to a pdf from “fed up with fatigue . com” with a dea cbd statement.
Another link is to dea . gov pubs / . It’s a press release, pr100901.
There are many others.
Check it out. I’ll be happy to look at your references if you can also type it in such a way that allows it to post.
It isn’t the same.
Not one mention of Industrial Hemp, the only no brainer for Sched III, along with CBD which is Hemp’s calling card which is the opposite with Med Marijuana, for now since people are no doubt looking to Hybrid that trait, higher levels of THC, into Med Marijuana as we speak, which is probably a good idea since so much is way too potent, and could use a little antidote. Med Marijuana has a lot of issues on the Federal, State & the local level that Hemp does not. We need to Free the plant for Farmers and the environment Now & move cautiously for the useful medicine that marijuana is that contradicts the whole basis & definition of Schedule I Narcotics.
I deeply respect your hard work and activism on this issue, Tom Angell. This is encouraging news, but I can’t help but remain highly suspicious. We only feed into the bureaucrats’ and politicians’ hysterical views on this subject by using the Mexican Spanish slang word “marihuana” (the actual spelling in federal and state laws, including the 1970 Controlled Substances Act). Even the expression “whole-plant marijuana” is an oxymoron and very misleading to the public—it always has been, because that word refers ONLY to dried, seedless, female flowers of cannabis plants and NOT their amazing stalk fibers, inner pulp, or seeds. We must demand nothing less than complete removal of “marihuana” from the Controlled Substances Act. The feds have been LYING to us about these plants from Day 1. The historical record (especially the common medicinal use of cannabis plant extracts in America between about 1850 and the 1940s) shows that the federal ban has been imposed by clearly fraudulent means—which equals a strong indictment of ALL subsequent enforcement with our hard-earned tax dollars. The plants we are talking about here are called, in botanical/scientific terms, “Cannabis sativa,” “Cannabis indica,” “Cannabis ruderalis,” or whatever other species may exist. Cannabis plants were perfectly legal to grow everywhere for the first 150 years of our country’s existence. They are dioecious plant species that produce male flowers for pollination and female flowers to bear seeds. Continued use of the word “marihuana” is precisely how federal, state and local prohibitionists are empowered to maintain their anti-cannabis tyranny against the cherished female flowers. We should stop using it altogether, except in personal conversations.
Whatever they do, it will be minimal at best, politicians have a deep passion for prohibition and limiting people’s access to a non-toxic herb.
But Obama loved to blaze it as a kid, probably lit one up with Castro the other week. This could be different.
Politicians have a deep passion for prohibition and limiting people’s freedom. That was the sentiment of R M Nixon.Damn Millhouse to hell.
Wow, that`s great news as cannabis have many medical benefits.
Its nice to know among all the fear and horror pushed in the news there are guys like you making sure our voice gets heard. Any change forward is welcome. I’m 57 and always hoped I’d see Maryland legalize during my time here. Should be farther along than we are, but at least it gets people talking about the possibility
“DEA understands the widespread interest in the prompt resolution to these petitions”
Issue resolved. Petitions unanimously denied.
What? You were expecting something else?
The petitions challenging the Schedule I status of “marihuana” will be unilaterally denied by one man, DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, exactly as they’ve been denied by other DEA administrators since 1970. The real crime here is that the fate of an entire nation’s policy toward innocent cannabis plants is entrusted to such heartless career bureaucrats.
What could it mean? Nothing! Don’t get your hopes up the most and I do mean the most is schedual 2. Probably more like “we got ya!”April fools! From the DEA.