Politics
Congressman And Other Media Outlets Join Marijuana Moment’s Push For DEA To Livestream Rescheduling Hearing
Marijuana Moment’s push request for public and media livestream access to the historic federal cannabis rescheduling hearings starting next week is being joined by a member of Congress and other journalists.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) on Friday sent a letter to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), saying that the marijuana rescheduling process that is underway is “historic.”
“I write to request that the hearings be made accessible to the public in real time,” Cohen wrote to DEA administrator Terrance Cole. “Live streaming technologies have become ubiquitous and a common way Americans interact with the government. In late 2024, when undertaking a similar effort, your agency allowed the proceedings to be livestreamed because of ‘the public interest in this matter’ and followed from your agency’s ‘commitment to conducting a transparent proceeding.’
“I do not see any reason why that rationale wouldn’t hold today, especially regarding such an important and impactful matter,” the congressman wrote. “I have long been an advocate for transparency in court room processes and believe this is a rare opportunity to inform the public about rulemaking and administrative adjudication.”
Cohen’s letter follows a pair of requests that Marijuana Moment’s lawyer submitted to Cole and to DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius to request livestreaming access to the hearing on the proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III—which only involves opponents of the reform as participants.
Also on Friday, an attorney for Portfolio Media, Inc., which publishes Law360, sent a letter to Cole saying that it “joins in Marijuana Moment’s request” for streaming access.
“Such access is consistent with both the DEA’s previous approach to this hearing and with the compelling public interest in the rescheduling of marijuana under the CSA, a potential policy shift with profound social, legal, and regulatory consequences,” the letter says.
Requiring in-person attendance for observers “restricts real-time information on a consequential policy development to the handful of members of the press and public in attendance, and it deprives the press of its ability to report on that development as it unfolds,” it says. “Livestreaming is a safe, nondisruptive, straightforward means of guaranteeing meaningful public access and advancing the DEA’s stated commitment to transparency.”
Separately, an attorney representing cannabis publication Cultivated Media and also on behalf of New York Times reporter Ashley Southall also sent a letter to the DEA administrator saying they “desire the ability to monitor the proceeding in real time so they may provide contemporaneous reports to their readership about the progress and focus of testimony and evidence during the hearing.”
“Cultivated Media, Ashley Southall, and Marijuana Moment and all other media outlets by virtue of such livestreaming access can contemporaneously report on the issues and progress of the hearing which are matters of significant public concern pertaining to a historic hearing,” it said.
DEA announced on Thursday that it would make a transcript available at the conclusion of the multi-day hearing, but Marijuana Moment attorney Joseph A. Bondy wrote in his letter on Thursday that it wouldn’t help the public follow the proceedings in real time on a daily basis.
“A final transcript is useful, but it is not a substitute for livestream access. Livestreaming allows the public and press to observe the hearing as it unfolds, without vying for admittance, crowding the courtroom or affecting the proceeding,” the letter to Cole says. “Once a transcript is reviewed, corrected, and released several weeks after the testimony has been given, the opportunity for real-time observation, timely reporting, and informed public response has already passed.”
“For a substantial public audience seeking serious coverage of federal cannabis policy, Marijuana Moment is an important channel through which public understanding of this proceeding occurs.”
“To the extent DEA believes livestreaming is now inappropriate despite DEA’s prior directive in this rulemaking, Marijuana Moment respectfully requests a written explanation identifying the specific basis for that conclusion, including why the public-interest and transparency considerations that previously warranted livestreaming are outweighed here,” Bondy wrote.
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Separately, medical cannabis advocates on Thursday sent a letter to Julius, the DEA judge who said he wouldn’t consider submissions from outside parties, also requesting livestream access.
“Many patients with the greatest interest in this proceeding are unable to travel to Arlington, Virginia. Many are disabled, immunocompromised, elderly, financially constrained, or managing serious medical conditions,” the letter from Americans for Safe Access, Veterans Initiative-22, U.S. Pain Foundation, Realm of Caring, Montel Williams and other advocates says.
“Even patients and advocates who can travel may not be physically able to wait in line for an uncertain chance at admission, only to be turned away once the limited seating is filled,” they wrote. “As such, the hearing may technically be open to the public, yet practically inaccessible to most.”
Meanwhile, DEA said in a new filing that its witness list for the hearing includes a doctor who will provide testimony about how “medical marijuana provides a medical benefit to pain patients.”
Separately, rescheduling opponents that are participating in the hearing filed statements this week previewing the anti-marijuana arguments they intend to make during the proceedings.
The hearing will begin on June 29 and is set to conclude no later than July 15.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April issued an order that immediately reclassified state-licensed medical cannabis, as well as marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III.
Under a separate order the acting attorney general signed, the upcoming hearing will consider more comprehensively moving marijuana to Schedule III.
A prior hearing process on the marijuana rescheduling process that was initiated by the Biden administration stalled last year amid litigation over alleged improper communications and witness selection.
The current marijuana rescheduling process is being challenged with several lawsuits that have been consolidated by a federal appeals court. Those pieces of litigation against the cannabis reform have been filed by state attorneys general, marijuana legalization opponents and a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical corporation.
Meanwhile, the already-enacted rescheduling of state-licensed medical cannabis is already having broad impacts.
The Congressional Research Service published a report on the current cannabis rescheduling move explaining that certified patients who possess medical marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries now have certain protections under Schedule III. “The order appears to authorize end users to possess marijuana for medical use without a CSA-compliant prescription,” it says.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has posted a draft update to a gun purchase form to acknowledge the federally legal status of medical marijuana under rescheduling. The revised section in question notably says that only “use or possession of marijuana for recreational purposes” is federally prohibited, leaving out the prior form’s mention of medical cannabis.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said they plan to issue new tax guidance for the marijuana industry following rescheduling. The reform will benefit state-licensed marijuana businesses by allowing them to take federal tax deductions they’re currently barred from under an IRS code known as 280E that doesn’t apply to Schedule III substances.
Even DEA, which has long opposed cannabis legalization and was accused of stalling the rescheduling process initiative by the Biden administration, has launched a registration process for state-legal marijuana businesses to take advantage of federal benefits that come with the reform.
The Department of Transportation, on the other hand, issued guidance saying that use of state-legal medical cannabis is still no excuse for a positive drug test by truck drivers, pilots and other safety-sensitive workers.
A congressional committee recently voted to block federal officials from taking further steps to carry out cannabis rescheduling.
Read letters to the DEA administrator about livestream access:
