Politics
Feds And Marijuana Opponents Agree On Briefing Schedule In Lawsuit Challenging Trump’s Reclassification Move
The Department of Justice and groups that oppose the Trump administration’s marijuana rescheduling move have agreed on what they believe the schedule should be in an ongoing lawsuit that seeks to block to reform.
On Friday, federal officials who are defending the cannabis reform and the challengers behind the litigation filed a joint brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia laying out a proposed plan for how the case should proceed.
The filing says that the proposal would allow for the briefing schedule to “conclude by mid-February, ensuring that oral argument could be heard before the Court’s summer recess.”
They are requesting that the court “schedule oral argument as soon as reasonably practicable after the conclusion of briefing.”
The appeals court is weighing three separate lawsuits against the proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III that have since been consolidated.
One suit is led by the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association (NDASA), who claim they are “aggrieved” by the reform. Another comes from a coalition of anti-marijuana activists, substance misuse professionals, doctors and MMJ International Holdings, a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical corporation and its subsidiaries. A third challenge was filed by the attorneys general of Indiana, Nebraska and Louisiana—though the latter state later withdrew from the suit.
The new filing on Friday says that all eleven cannabis rescheduling opponents in the consolidated cases are proposing joining together on a single opening brief and a single reply brief.
The proposed briefing schedule is as follows:
- Petitioners’ Consolidated Opening Brief: Tuesday, November 24, 2026
- Amicus Briefs in Support of Petitioners: Tuesday, December 1, 2026
- Government’s Response Brief: Wednesday, January 13, 2027
- Amicus Briefs in Support of the Government: Wednesday, January 20, 2027
- Petitioners’ Consolidated Reply Brief: Friday, February 5, 2027
- Deferred Joint Appendix: Friday, February 12, 2027
- Final Briefs: Friday, February 19, 2027
“The parties have conferred and jointly propose this schedule (i) to allow Petitioners a small amount of extra time to coordinate their consolidated briefs and (ii) to provide additional time for the Government’s responsive brief both because the Government’s briefing period runs during the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years’ holidays and because counsel for the Government has pre-planned international travel scheduled for November 27 through December 13,” the filing says.
“Even with these accommodations, the proposed schedule is materially shorter than those sometimes entered in complex consolidated agency cases,” it says, going on to explain why the parties are requesting that their jointly filed briefs be allotted a higher word count than is standard due to the proposed combination and because of the multiple issues of standing that are at play in the litigation.
Last month, the court rejected a request from NDASA and MMJ to put a stay on the marijuana rescheduling process while the overall litigation is considered.
The drug testing industry group and the pharmaceutical company had argued in support of the request that “marijuana abuse has dangerous, lifelong consequences—especially for adolescents and pregnant women” and that “by cutting taxes on cannabis companies,” federal rescheduling “will stimulate the industry and increase marijuana abuse.”
The Department of Justice had opposed the request to pause rescheduling, noting in a brief that the entities challenging cannabis rescheduling have “pocketbook interests served by keeping all marijuana in schedule I” and are not suitable challengers to the reform because they are not the “intended beneficiaries” of the CSA.
Meanwhile, the court also rejected a request from two medical marijuana companies that had filed a motion to intervene in the rescheduling lawsuit by joining the side of the government and opposing the litigation from prohibitionists, though it is allowing them to file amicus briefs in the case.
Lawyers for NDASA and SAM had filed a brief arguing that the cannabis businesses should not be allowed to join the suit.
Meanwhile, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other parties participating in a hearing on broad marijuana rescheduling filed their final briefs on the issue in August, though the judge overseeing the proceedings temporarily paused them last month in response to a request from opponents who want a recent federal report on “gaps” in the scheduling process included in the record.
DEA, which is charged with defending the proposed rescheduling move, said in its brief that “marijuana no longer fits the statutory requirements for Schedule I because it has a currently accepted medical use within the United States and it has an accepted safety for its use under medical supervision.”
The agency noted that under the law it must give “significant deference” to an “extensive ten-month study on the scientific and medical properties” of cannabis conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which recommended rescheduling.
“Currently there are over 30,000 practitioners treating more than six million patients in 43 U.S. jurisdictions,” DEA said. “Such practices demonstrate that there is no longer a lack of accepted safety for use of marijuana under medical supervision, and as such, marijuana does not fulfill the requirements of being a Schedule I substance.”
It also said that there is “substantial evidence sufficient to show that marijuana’s abuse and dependency profiles better align with Schedule III substances than Schedule II” or Schedule I. “The vast majority of individuals who use marijuana do so in a manner that does not result in dangers to themselves or to their communities.”
In conclusion, DEA asked the judge overseeing the hearing to “expeditiously recommend” that marijuana be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule III.
Opponents of cannabis reform—including the SAM; the states of Idaho, Indiana and Nebraska; NDASA and others—also filed briefs.
The anti-rescheduling entities argued that a new two-part test federal officials used to analyze cannabis improperly departs from a former five-part test, that marijuana does not have accepted medical value and that the reform would undermine drug testing of safety-sensitive workers, among other things.
In 2024, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) said the prior five-part test was “impermissibly narrow” and said the two-part review “is sufficient to establish that a drug has CAMU even if the drug has not been approved by FDA and would not satisfy DEA’s five-part test.”
DEA has since embraced the new approach to evaluating cannabis for CAMU and it has been used to subsequently evaluate other substances.
The DEA judge will consider the final briefs and testimony delivered during the hearing and issue a recommendation on cannabis’s scheduling status. The final decision will ultimately be up to the DEA administrator, however.
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 attorney general signed, the hearing is considering more comprehensively moving marijuana to Schedule III.
The suit from SAM and NDASA challenging rescheduling was signed by attorneys at Torridon Law PLCC, where former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, led DOJ during Trump’s first term in office, is a partner.
SAM had announced in January that it was hiring Barr’s firm to legally combat cannabis rescheduling after Tump signed an executive order directing officials to complete the process expeditiously.
Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee voted to block federal officials from taking further steps to carry out cannabis rescheduling. Bipartisan lawmakers told Marijuana Moment, however, that they don’t expect the legislative effort to block rescheduling to succeed.
Separately, SAM, MMJ and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit seeking to block a Trump administration program to cover certain hemp-derived products through Medicare. That case was dismissed by a federal judge in May, but that decision is being appealed.
Read the joint filing in the marijuana rescheduling lawsuit below:
