Politics
It’s ‘High Time’ For DEA To Answer Questions About Marijuana Rescheduling, State Officials Say
Top marijuana regulators from a growing number of states are complaining that federal officials are not providing enough—or any—guidance about the Trump administration’s move to federally reschedule cannabis.
Moving marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III is the biggest change to federal cannabis policy in decades, and state officials say they could use help understanding its implications for business registration, taxes and packaging requirements for cannabis products.
Last week, for example, Georgia regulators approved a number of changes to state medical cannabis rules, including one concerning safety and warning label requirements for products. The federal marijuana rescheduling order included a provision specifying that medical marijuana is subject to a federal rule requiring labels to include a “clear, concise warning that it is a crime to transfer the drug to any person other than the patient.”
Andrew Turnage, executive director of the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission (GMCC), said at the meeting last week that he and his staff have attempted to coordinate with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to ensure that the new state rules are in accordance with the federal requirement, to no avail.
“We want to do our best to align the state’s required language to align with that federal language. This will actually help licensees to not have to duplicate language or produce additional labeling on their products,” he said. “We did reach out to the DEA regarding this requirement. The DEA indicated that they were not able to comment on the proposed rule language, so we were not able to get that correct guidance.”
While Turnage said he is “not trying to throw shade” at regional DEA officials in Atlanta and Savannah who have “always been professional and positive” in their communications, leadership at the federal agency needs to do a better job of providing guidance to states on cannabis issues.
“Really it’s past time and high time for DEA to communicate with state regulators like us here in Georgia to better understand the programs and these requirements,” the state official said. “We certainly need guidance from the federal government. It is not possible to make our regulations better and suited to this DEA registration process without that communication.”
“So we hope that DEA leadership will evolve in their view towards state regulatory programs,” Turnage said. “What they’re doing with DEA registration is directly contingent on our state programs through that rescheduling order.”
At a separate meeting in Vermont last week, officials from that state similarly expressed frustration with DEA’s lack of communication on the implications of federal marijuana rescheduling.
James Pepper, chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board (CCB), said that an association representing state marijuana regulators from across the country compiled a list of key questions for DEA but has received “radio silence” in response.
“We’ve been in contact with our regional office, and they’ve been great partners, but they don’t have any more answers,” Pepper said. “It seems like a lot is being decided at headquarters and not being transmitted out consistently to the various regional offices, or they just haven’t thought about all these things yet.”
Julie Hulburd, a CCB commissioner, said that “for us as a state agency to understand how to regulate in this particular environment or all of the future environments that could happen, we’re going to need information from the federal government.”
“We need guidance from the tax department. We need guidance from the DEA on how all these things are rolling out,” she said. “We don’t have any of that yet. Everyone’s still sort of in the figure it out mode.”
The comments from the Georgia and Vermont officials come shortly after California’s top cannabis regulator similarly said that DEA hasn’t shown “any sort of interest” in providing marijuana rescheduling guidance being requested by states.
“We have received no formal updates from DEA headquarters on implementation guidance of the order,” California Department of Cannabis Control Director Clint Kellum said at a meeting of the Cannabis Advisory Committee last month.
“We have been trying to communicate with DEA headquarters to get a better understanding of what their expectations rule set will be for operators under the guidance,” he said. “Unfortunately, to date, we have not been offered any information on that front.”
Gillian Schauer, executive director of the Cannabis Regulators Association, which represents officials overseeing the legal marijuana market in states across the U.S., recently wrote in an op-ed for Marijuana Moment that DEA has “not meaningfully engaged” states about the cannabis rescheduling process, even though its implementation will “depend heavily on state regulatory systems.”
“States need federal guidance on planned implementation to give them time to adjust laws and regulations and to give operators time to adjust their operations to meet federal requirements,” she wrote.
In April, Attorney General Todd Blanche issued an order immediately moving marijuana products regulated by a state medical cannabis license from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III, along with marijuana products that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
A DEA hearing that recently concluded testimony is considering broader marijuana rescheduling.
Meanwhile, DEA launched forms for cannabis businesses to register for federal protections in line with rescheduling.
Kellum, of DCC in California, said that “other states are starting to see DEA inspections” of marijuana businesses that registered, but that the federal agency has been “focused more in areas with clear state medical cannabis programs than mixed states like ourselves.”
“There appears to be some regional variation in the approach to those inspections and some of their questions,” he said, in line with reporting from Marijuana Moment showing that DEA officials are posing differing sets of follow-up questions to cannabis business from state to state.
Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
