The head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says his agency has “communicated” the agency’s “position” on marijuana rescheduling to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and has continued to offer additional information to assist with the final determination. HHS for the first time confirmed that it had recommended moving cannabis from […]| Marijuana Moment
Rescheduling marijuana could set the country back “another 50 years” on the path to federal legalization, a Democratic lawmaker who leads the Congressional Cannabis Caucus says. At a National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) summit in Sacramento on Thursday, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) told Marijuana Moment that she’s “opposed” to moving marijuana from Schedule I to […]| Marijuana Moment
The Biden administration is being pressed to reschedule marijuana by two coalitions representing military veterans and law enforcement—including a group that counts Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Anne Milgram among its members. In a pair of recent letters sent to DEA and President Joe Biden, Law Enforcement Leaders To Reduce Crime & Incarceration (LEL) and […]| Marijuana Moment
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released a highly redacted version of a brief letter to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) regarding the agency’s marijuana rescheduling recommendation. The letter, obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Law360 reporter Sam Reisman, confirmed certain previously reported details such […]| Marijuana Moment
The governors of six U.S. states—Colorado, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Louisiana—sent a letter to President Joe Biden (D) on Tuesday urging the administration to reschedule marijuana to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act by the end of this year. The move, they say, will provide economic and tax benefits for cannabis […]| Marijuana Moment
More than three months after news leaked that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) was recommending that marijuana be moved to Schedule III under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the agency has finally released a tranche of documents related to its recommendation and the detailed review it undertook on cannabis’s accepted medical […]| Marijuana Moment
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is telling lawmakers that it reserves “the final authority” to make any scheduling decision on marijuana following an ongoing review, regardless of what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommends. In a letter sent to Congressional Cannabis Caucus co-chair Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), DEA Acting Chief of […]| Marijuana Moment
A coalition of 31 bipartisan House lawmakers has sent a letter to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), urging the agency to take into account congressional and state marijuana legalization efforts as it carries out a review into cannabis scheduling. They also criticized the limitations of simple rescheduling as they push for complete […]| Marijuana Moment
A coalition of 12 Democratic state attorneys general is urging the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to move forward with federal marijuana rescheduling, calling the policy change a “public safety imperative.” In a letter led by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) that was sent to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram on Friday, the top state law […]| Marijuana Moment
As the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) weighs a marijuana rescheduling recommendation from health officials, congressional researchers are laying out the limitations of the policy change— emphasizing that state cannabis markets would continue to run afoul of federal law, and existing criminal penalties for certain marijuana-related activity would remain in force. In a report published on […]| Marijuana Moment
The U.S. government has released hundreds of pages of documents related to its ongoing review of marijuana’s status under federal law, officially confirming for the first time that health officials have recommended the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) place cannabis in Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The 252 pages of documents from the […]| Marijuana Moment