Politics
Trump Is Being Sued For Rescheduling Marijuana By Doctors And A Pharmaceutical Company Who Are ‘Aggrieved’ By The Move
The Trump administration’s move to federally reschedule marijuana is being challenged with yet another lawsuit, and this one includes the president himself in the list of defendants.
The latest litigation was filed by a coalition of anti-marijuana activists, substance misuse professionals, doctors and a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical corporation.
“The Final Order was issued without prior notice-and-comment rulemaking…, without a formal hearing on the record…, without consultation of the recommendation of the Department of Health and Human Services (‘HHS’) on rescheduling, without consideration of the administrative process regarding rescheduling that was already in progress, and without compliance with” procedural requirements, the suit claims.
Under an order issued by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April, marijuana products regulated by a state medical cannabis license immediately moved from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III, as did any marijuana products that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). An administrative hearing scheduled for this month will consider broader cannabis rescheduling, including for recreational products.
Each party in the new suit—filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Thursday—says they are “aggrieved” by the federal cannabis reform “because each has suffered or will imminently suffer a concrete and particularized injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the Final Order and redressable by a favorable decision of this Court.”
The plaintiffs are New Directions Addiction Recovery Services, Cannabis Industry Victims Educating Litigators, MMJ International Holdings and two individual medical doctors.
The litigation—which lists President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Blanche and DEA Administrator Terrance Cole as defendants—says it seeks to elucidate issues such as:
- Whether the Final Order is unlawful because it creates a hybrid schedule not authorized by Congress or Section 811(d), by placing marijuana in Schedule III while simultaneously imposing Schedule I- and II-style regulatory requirements (quotas, import-export permits, enhanced registration) that are not characteristic of Schedule III, effectively creating a regulatory framework that Congress never enacted.
- Whether the Final Order is arbitrary and capricious under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) because the agency failed to adequately consider marijuana’s well-documented health risks—including the well-documented harms of cannabis use, such as the onset and exacerbation of serious mental health disorders (including psychosis, bipolar, PTSD, depression, and anxiety) impaired adolescent neurological development, prenatal exposure risks, respiratory damage, drugged driving fatalities, cannabis use disorder, and cardiovascular harm—which DEA’s own scientific review in the Administrative Hearing extensively documented but which the Final Order failed to meaningfully address or reconcile with prior agency findings.
- Whether the Final Order is arbitrary and capricious because the agency failed to provide [Food and Drug Administration]-quality indication, dosing, risk-benefit, delivery, and monitoring systems and guidance and other information to physicians that is required to properly prescribe marijuana to patients.
- Whether the Final Order violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause by creating a novel, condition-based scheduling framework that treats chemically identical marijuana products differently based solely on whether they are covered by a state medical marijuana license or FDA approval, without rational basis in the CSA’s statutory structure.
They plaintiffs want the court to issue a stay on the effectiveness of DOJ’s cannabis rescheduling order pending further review; declare it to be “unlawful, arbitrary and capricious, ultra vires, in excess of statutory authority, issued without observance of procedure required by law, and in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States”; vacate and set it aside entirely and award reasonable attorneys’ fees to the petitioners.
Americans Against Legalizing Marijuana (AALM) noted the new suit in a press release, saying it challenges “one of the most haphazard and legally indefensible drug-policy actions in modern American history.”
“This administration is trying to declare marijuana medicine by political decree instead of scientific proof,” AALM President Carla Lowe said. “If this order stands, it will fundamentally corrupt the integrity of the FDA approval process and the Controlled Substances Act itself.”
Last month, three Republican state attorneys general filed a separate lawsuit challenging federal cannabis rescheduling move before same appeals court.
The court consolidated the Indiana, Nebraska and Louisiana attorneys generals’ complaint with a separate suit that was filed earlier last month by prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association (NDASA).
That complaint 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.
A federal judge last month dismissed separate litigation SAM brought to challenge a new Trump administration initiative to cover up to $500 worth of hemp-derived products each year for eligible Medicare patients
Meanwhile, a House committee recently voted to block federal officials from taking further steps to carry out cannabis rescheduling.
Read the full new marijuana rescheduling lawsuit below:
Photo elements courtesy of rawpixel and Philip Steffan.
