Politics
Congress Won’t Block Trump’s Marijuana Rescheduling Move, Bipartisan Lawmakers Say As Hearing On Reform Begins
As a hearing kicks off this week on the Trump administration’s marijuana rescheduling proposal, efforts in Congress to block officials from carrying out the reform are unlikely to succeed, lawmakers from both parties say.
While the House Appropriations Committee last month approved a funding bill containing a provision that, if enacted, would prevent federal officials from taking further steps to carry out cannabis rescheduling, bipartisan legislators told Marijuana Moment that they don’t expect that language to be enacted into law.
“I don’t see how they’re going to get it through,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) told Marijuana Moment. “I don’t see how that’s going to happen. I think there’s a bunch of other things that we need to worry on and get focused on. I just don’t see how that’s going to happen.”
Asked specifically if he would support a measure to block rescheduling, the congressman said, “No.”
Donalds, who is running for the Republican nomination for Florida’s governor, acknowledged his state’s voter-approved medical cannabis program but said he doesn’t support going further to allow adult-use marijuana.
“In Florida, we’re not going to do recreational,” he said. “We’re not doing that.”
Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) told Marijuana Moment that “we’ve had a war on drugs for 60, 70 years—not based on science but politics.”
“We have people that just—it’s very hard for them to get there,” he told Marijuana Moment. “Why would you unwind a policy where the vast majority of states, the vast majority of the population is accepting cannabis?”
“Everybody’s using cannabis,” he said. “What do you want to do, arrest everybody? Is that the solution? What about civil liberties here?”
“I think it’s very sad,” Correa said. “Where’s the will of the people? Let people decide.”
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) said he has “always been really not a proponent of legalization”—saying that “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I’ve never touched marijuana, I don’t even take an aspirin.”
“But the whole debate on medical marijuana, I’ve become more flexible over the years because I’ve actually spoken to people who tell me that for whatever malady that they are suffering from that they actually receive relief,” he told Marijuana Moment. “I just don’t want people to suffer if they tell me sincerely—and I’ve no doubt that they’re being sincere—whether it’s with the ill effects of chemotherapy or whatever.”
Fleischmann said he is “pleased” that Tennessee hasn’t legalized cannabis, but he admitted that reform has momentum despite his personal opposition.
“It is where it is,” he said. “I am not a fan of and will never be a fan of marijuana, but I think I’m not on the winning side of that issue long term, unless the severe ill effects that are out there persuade people to have it come back the other way.”
The anti-rescheduling provision that is advancing in Congress reads:
“SEC. 591. None of the funds appropriated under this Act or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to reschedule marijuana (as such term is defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)) or to remove marijuana from the schedules established under section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812).”
The Appropriations Committee has advanced similar language in the past years as the federal government has weighed marijuana rescheduling, but those provisions were never passed into law.
The Department of Justice announced in April that marijuana products regulated by a state medical cannabis license immediately moved to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) from Schedule I, as did any marijuana products that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). An administrative hearing scheduled to begin next month will consider broader cannabis rescheduling.
Because the rescheduling of medical cannabis under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s order took effect immediately, it’s not clear if or how the congressional rider would impact businesses and patients who are covered by that reform. If the language is passed by the full House and Senate and makes it into an appropriations package that President Donald Trump signs into law, however, it could prevent related action on broader marijuana rescheduling from taking place.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which is serving as the proponent of the rescheduling proposal in the administrative hearing begging on Monday, revealed in a new filing last week that its witness list includes a doctor who will provide testimony about how “medical marijuana provides a medical benefit to pain patients.”
Separately last week, marijuana reform opponents filed briefs previewing the arguments they plan to make in the rescheduling hearing—with briefs largely focusing on cannabis’s alleged health and safety harms.
Meanwhile, Marijuana Moment sent letters this week asking the DEA judge overseeing the proceedings and the DEA administrator to allow livestreaming of the hearing.
The LCB contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
