Democratic Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove has become the latest high-profile voice to call on the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reschedule cannabis.
In a letter to the DEA, which is currently conducting a review of a landmark recommendation by the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) that cannabis should be rescheduled, she suggested ‘cannabis should be removed from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) schedule entirely’.
Specifically, she said she wanted to ensure that US international treaties are not considered as a potential reason against the move.
Opponents are attempting to derail the Biden administration’s review of marijuana’s Schedule I status by claiming that rescheduling marijuana would violate U.S. treaty obligations.
I sent a letter to @DEAHQ urging them to reject these meritless arguments. https://t.co/k5uCJuTtuZ
— Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (@RepKamlagerDove) February 27, 2024
“I write to urge you to reject any argument in support of maintaining marijuana in Schedule I or Schedule II based on US treaty obligations. Applicable treaties neither require the US to keep marijuana in Schedule I or II nor do they preclude the DEA from accepting HHS’s recommendation,” the Congresswoman wrote.
She added that the US was not obligated by any treaty to assign cannabis a specific schedule in the CSA, and that they allowed it flexibility to classify substances based on scientific and medical evidence.
Furthermore, she said this was consistent with the DEA’s own previous actions, having moved the cannabis-based treatment Epidyolex into Schedule V in 2018.
Ms Kamlager-Dove also joined the growing list of officials to call on the DEA to be more transparent in its decision making process. It has so far resisted these calls at every turn, confirming only that it is indeed reviewing the recommendations.
She called on it to make it clear whether treaty obligations preclude it from adopting the recommendations, reveal ‘who has attempted to influence the DEA’s views’ and provide logs of all the meetings staff had taken.
