New court documents are said to provide new evidence of the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s bias against cannabis rescheduling, a process which it is overseeing.
The highly anticipated cannabis rescheduling process, cited as the most significant drug policy reform in recent US history, is already indefinitely on hold amid allegations of the DEA’s bias.
This week, a separate legal battle between the DEA and Doctors for Drug Policy Reform (D4DPR), a nonprofit group of medical professionals representing over 400 physicians, saw new evidence published that points to a confirmation of this bias.
Its case is focused on the opaque selection process of witnesses called to testify at the rescheduling hearing, originally slated to take place in January 2025.
MJBizDaily reported that documents submitted as evidence in the ongoing court case show that the DEA considered a total of 163 applicants, but only selected 25 based on ‘still unknown criteria’.
Speaking on the Dales Report’s Trade to Black podcast, Shane Pennington, who represents the parties who called for the interlocutory appeal which has seen the process halted indefinitely, suggested that ‘if we could see those 163, probably 90% of them were from entities that were pro-rescheduling’.
The DEA issued 12 so-called ‘cure letters’ to participants in the rescheduling process, requesting additional information to demonstrate their eligibility as a “person adversely affected or aggrieved by the proposed rule,” as required under federal law. Copies of these letters, included in court filings, reveal a significant bias in their distribution.
Of the 12 recipients, nine were sent to entities that were strongly opposed to rescheduling, indicating a clear skew toward prohibitionist perspectives. Only one letter was sent to a known supporter of rescheduling, the University of California, San Diego’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR)—a government entity. However, after CMCR provided the requested information and confirmed its support for the rule, the DEA ultimately rejected its participation without explanation.
Pennington said of the cure letters: “I knew that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg when it came to the ex parte communications, meaning the secret machinations behind the scenes that we kind saw brought up in the ALJ process. I knew there were more, but I didn’t expect to find 12 cure letters to these different entities, the vast majority of which are prohibitionist parties.”
Looking ahead, the findings from this hearing could significantly impact the cannabis rescheduling process. Pennington believes the revelations will only strengthen the case for reform, as they highlight deep flaws in the regulatory approach. “It can only help because it confirms everything that we’ve been saying,” he said.
It is also worth noting that these findings related to the previous DEA administration under Anne Milgram, who has now been replaced under the Trump administration by Terrance C. Cole.
Now, the question turns to how the Trump administration will handle the situation. The new administration will need to decide whether to continue a process that has eroded public trust or take a more transparent approach. “Do they want to drag things out endlessly… and have a corrupt process that actually reduces public trust in the administrative process?” Pennington asked.
