Politics
DEA Judge Sets Testimony Schedule For Marijuana Rescheduling Hearing Starting Next Week
A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) judge has issued an order laying out the schedule for a hearing on the Trump administration’s move to reschedule cannabis that is set to start next week.
Under a previous decision by the DEA administrator, only opponents of the reform are being invited to participate.
“Pursuant to the Preliminary Order issued by this tribunal on June 18, 2026, the Designated Parties have timely submitted their availability for the hearing window,” DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Derek Julius wrote on Wednesday. “This tribunal has given due consideration to each Designated Party’s availability and has concluded that the following schedule will be best suited.”
The overall schedule for presentations by the parties is as follows:
- The Government: June 29, 2026
- National Drug & Alcohol Screening Association (NDASA): July 2, 2026
- Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM): July 6, 2026
- DUID Victim Voices: July 7, 2026
- Kenneth Finn, M.D.: July 8, 2026
- Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI): July 10, 2026
- Phillip A. Drum, PharmD: July 13, 2026
- States of Nebraska, Idaho, Indiana, and Louisiana (The States): July 14, 2026
The document goes on to provide a detailed day-by-day, hour-by-hour schedule for when the parties will present their cases and when the designated participants can cross-examine the government’s witness and vice versa.
“While this schedule is meant to serve as a detailed guide for the hearing, parties may conclude examinations early or forgo cross or redirect examinations,” Julis’s order says in a footnote.
“To the extent that a party concludes with its examination prior to the end of their scheduled time or forgoes examination, the hearing will proceed ahead of schedule to the next item for that day—provided that a Designated Party will not be required to begin its case-in-chief on a different date than the one assigned above,” it says. “The ALJ will make other scheduling advancement determinations on a day-to-day basis as needed.”
Meanwhile, DEA is resisting a prohibitionist group’s request for an agency official to testify about the harms of marijuana during the hearing.
The DEA pharmacologist was previously an official witness for an earlier, subsequently cancelled hearing on marijuana rescheduling during the Biden administration. During that time, she submitted into the record a report that attempts to link cannabis consumption to psychosis, depression and impaired cognitive functioning.
The prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana is attempting to call her for testimony during the current proceedings, but the agency is resisting that.
DEA is technically the proponent of the proposed marijuana rescheduling rule and will fill the role of defending it during the hearing, though some cannabis reform supporters are skeptical it will effectively do so given the agency’s long history of defending strict prohibition.
DEA’s seeming reluctance to ease the way for testimony from the official who that might focus on the potential harms of cannabis could give reform supporters some comfort, however—though it remains to be seen how agency personnel it does put forth to partake in the hearing speak to marijuana’s effects and the need for federal scheduling reform.
To that end, Marijuana Moment this seek sent a latter asking the DEA judge overseeing the proceedings to reconsider his decision to prohibit livestreaming of the hearing.
The ALJ last week issued a preliminary order laying out rules and timelines for the marijuana rescheduling proceedings—simultaneously recognizing that “national public interest in this issue predicates towards a policy of transparency” while also determining that “the hearing will not be televised, livestreamed, or broadcasted in any way.”
As a result, people who wish to observe the historic cannabis reform process must attend in person in Arlington, Virginia under the judge’s order.
In a letter sent to Julius on Tuesday, Marijuana Moment counsel Joseph A. Bondy noted that DEA permitted livestreaming of an earlier, subsequently cancelled hearing process on the proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III that took place during the Biden administration.
“That prior determination was correct. The public-interest rationale for contemporaneous access has not diminished,” Bondy wrote. “If DEA believes safety, witness-management, or operational concerns now require a more restrictive access regime, those concerns should be identified and addressed through narrow conditions rather than a categorical ban.”
“Limited physical seating in Arlington is not a meaningful substitute for livestreaming. Marijuana Moment, like many members of the press and public who follow federal cannabis policy nationally, cannot rely on a handful of available seats as a practical means of observing and reporting on the hearing. That is precisely why DEA’s prior livestreaming directive mattered: it allowed those physically outside the courtroom to observe the proceeding without disrupting the hearing, burdening security, or conferring party status on anyone.”
“In a proceeding of this public significance, and in light of DEA’s prior livestreaming directive, a public hearing is not meaningfully public if access depends on the happenstance of limited physical attendance,” Marijuana Moment’s attorney wrote to the DEA judge. “Delayed access to transcripts is no substitute for contemporaneous observation. The press reports events as they unfold. The public evaluates government action in real time. And in a proceeding of this magnitude, transparency is not a courtesy. It is a safeguard.”
“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.”
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DEA last week announced that it had selected participants for the marijuana rescheduling hearing—and only opponents of the reform have been invited to take part, some of whom have filed litigation in an attempt to block the reform. No reform supporters who expressed intent to participate were invited.
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.
In order to be considered for participation in the hearing, parties needed to file requests articulating their interest in the proceeding, the objections or issues they wish to be heard on and their position on those issues.
“The purpose of the hearing is to ‘receiv[e] factual evidence and expert opinion regarding’ whether marijuana should be transferred to schedule III of the list of controlled substances,” Blanche’s initial notice, filed in April, said.
The attorney general also selected an administrative law judge (ALJ) to oversee the proceedings.
“The ALJ’s authorities include the power to hold conferences to simplify or determine the issues in the hearing or to consider other matters that may aid in the expeditious disposition of the hearing; require parties to state their position in writing; sign and issue subpoenas to compel the production of documents and materials to the extent necessary to conduct the hearing; examine witnesses and direct witnesses to testify; receive, rule on, exclude, or limit evidence; rule on procedural items; and take any action permitted by the presiding officer under DEA’s hearing procedures and the” Administrative Procedures Act, Blanche wrote.
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 the judge’s order on the schedule for the marijuana hearing below:
Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
