The US Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra has said he believes the hotly anticipated cannabis scheduling review will be completed ‘this year’.
Last week Mr Becarra gave the first rough timeline of when the crucial cannabis administrative review of federal marijuana scheduling will be completed.
After President Biden announced the review, alongside mass pardons for those charged with minor federal cannabis offences last October, there has been little in the way of updates regarding its progress.
Speaking to Marijuana Moment at press briefing in Sacramento on Thursday, Mr Becerra said: “What I can tell you is that the president instructed us at HHS—FDA in particular—to take a look at how we treat marijuana to see if we can update our review of marijuana as a drug and how we can make sure how we treat it going forward on the federal level.
“Places like California have already changed the laws, the federal government has not, and so we’ve been instructed and we’re underway with that review as we speak.”
Three co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus have now responded positively to the news, including Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Rep. Dave Joyce and Rep. Barbara Lee, the latter of which said: “Federal descheduling is long overdue. We’ve been pushing the Biden administration to take bold steps to end the war on drugs, and I’m hopeful they will.”
