As Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius weighs his recommendation on moving cannabis to Schedule III, the DEA’s own closing brief attacks nearly every witness who opposed it — bar one scientist inside its own ranks.
With the full 2,533-page hearing transcript now publicly available, alongside both sides’ final written arguments, we now have the clearest picture yet of the cases made by each party, and more importantly, which held legitimate weight likely to influence the final recommendation.
After the 11-day testimony closed on July 14, 2026, written closing arguments were submitted on August 17 and 18, with the full corrected transcripts published days later. These additions provide significantly more detail than we’ve yet been able to access. Below is our breakdown of the key new information from the publications.
Cannabis can ‘no longer remain in Schedule I’
The DEA’s post-hearing brief provided perhaps the strongest statements in support of the shifting cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act of the entire hearing.
Filed on August 17, the brief states that cannabis ‘can no longer remain in Schedule I’, citing the ten-month scientific review conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration, which found cannabis has a currently accepted medical use for pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and anorexia linked to medical conditions, as its key source.
It goes on to reference more than 30,000 practitioners currently authorised to recommend cannabis to over 6m patients across 43 US jurisdictions as evidence of that use. While it does not deny the abuse and dependence risks associated with cannabis, it argues that the drug’s dependence profile aligns more closely with Schedule III than Schedule I or II.
Beyond providing its own scientific evidence, the DEA’s final brief takes aim at the credibility or relevance of nearly every witness on the opposing benches.
Yale psychiatrist Deepak D’Souza’s testimony on pain management is dismissed as outside his ‘admitted expertise’ in psychiatry.
Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal is faulted for lacking any meaningful connection to the states that called him, Nebraska, Idaho and Indiana. This criticism played out in the transcripts. Under cross-examination by government counsel David Maley, Honsal agreed that his jurisdiction, California’s Emerald Triangle, falls under no sheriff’s authority in Nebraska, Indiana or Idaho.
DUID Victim Voices founder Ed Wood is accused of violating witness sequestration rules and offering ‘irrelevant and speculative’ testimony, while workplace-testing witnesses Patrice Kelly and Mary Jo McGuire are said to rest on ‘hypothetical, future hurdles.’
Even Bertha Madras, a Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor called by Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) to argue against rescheduling, is cited approvingly for testimony the DEA says supports accepted use for neuropathic pain and cancer-related appetite loss.
Notably, Luli Akinfiresoye, a pharmacologist in the DEA’s own Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section, subpoenaed by SAM, escaped the DEA’s criticism.
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What the opposition is still arguing
The opposition’s closing briefs, filed the same week, are narrower and more defensive, largely reprising positions from testimony rather than breaking new ground.
- SAM, joined by Nebraska, Idaho and Indiana, argues the government’s two-part medical-use test is a ‘newfound standard’ with no basis in the Controlled Substances Act, and that at least nine prior federal reviews found cannabis unsuitable for rescheduling.
- The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation disputes the Attorney General’s authority to have initiated the rule at all, rather than the DEA Administrator, and argues the process understated diversion, violent crime and impaired-driving risk.
- The National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association warns Schedule III status would strip federal workplace-testing authority for safety-sensitive roles, from air traffic controllers to federal security-clearance holders.
- DUID Victim Voices and pain physician Kenneth Finn argue the two-part test was adopted without notice-and-comment rulemaking and understates psychosis, cardiovascular and impaired-driving harms.
- Pharmacist Phillip Drum, appearing individually, argues a botanical product with 300-plus active compounds cannot meet pharmaceutical standards for dosing and quality control.
Under cross-examination, several of these positions weakened considerably. Finn, the most frequently cited pain physician in the opposition’s filings, confirmed in a handful of questions that he has recommended cannabis to his own patients in the past, and agreed that, unlike opioid users, cannabis users do not stop breathing from the drug alone.
Emergency physician Karen Randall’s slide deck, intended to illustrate paediatric harm, featured a photograph of a child using a bong that she admitted came from a Reddit forum: asked how she knew the child in the photograph was real, she said, ‘I guess with your line of questioning, I don’t.’
Wood’s claim that rescheduling could produce 6,000 additional annual traffic deaths, similarly cracked under scrutiny: ‘We can’t say that those 6,000 deaths were all due to marijuana,’ he acknowledged. ‘There’s no intent to say that.’
Eleven days in brief
- Day 1 (June 29): DEA attorney James Schwartz opens: ‘It is about regulation, not legalisation.’ FDA’s Dominic Chiapperino begins direct testimony on HHS’s ten-month review.
- Day 2 (June 30): Chiapperino, under cross, concedes cannabis ‘would not have passed’ the traditional five-factor test. Government witness Corey Burchman, an anaesthesiologist, begins testimony contrasting opioid and cannabis withdrawal.
- Day 3 (July 1): Burchman’s cross exposes the limits of his authority: he repeatedly qualifies, ‘I’m not a psychiatrist,’ while having recommended cannabis for PTSD and anxiety.
- Day 4 (July 2): Workplace-testing witnesses Patrice Kelly and Mary Jo McGuire testify for the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association.
- Day 5 (July 3): Madras testifies for SAM but concedes cannabis ‘will not kill you with an overdose’ through respiratory depression.
- Day 6 (July 7): Akinfiresoye testifies unchallenged. Wood testifies on traffic-fatality projections; the government moves to strike his testimony, Julius denies the motion but limits it to weight, and DEA declines to cross-examine.
- Day 7 (July 8): Finn is cross-examined in a handful of questions and concedes he has recommended cannabis to patients. Laura Stack, of Johnny’s Ambassadors, testifies about her son’s death.
- Day 8 (July 9): Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent Erica Stephens testifies on diversion and enforcement; Julius interrupts to clarify TBI counsel’s use of the word ‘deregulation’ as shorthand for rescheduling.
- Day 9 (July 10): Pharmacist Phillip Drum begins testimony, arguing cannabis cannot meet pharmacy dosing standards, citing workplace-safety incidents at named cannabis operators.
- Day 10 (July 11): Drum’s cross continues. Randall testifies; her Reddit-sourced slide is discredited on cross. Yale’s Deepak D’Souza begins testimony for the opposing states, disclosing under oath that he receives no compensation from any cannabis or pharmaceutical interest.
- Day 11 (July 14): D’Souza’s cross concludes with the government reading back his own prior public statement that ‘the overwhelming majority of people who use cannabis use it in moderation,’ which he confirms as accurate. Honsal testifies and, under cross, agrees his California jurisdiction has no bearing on the states that called him. Julius closes the evidentiary record.
