| Comment Explains Rescheduling Is Out of Step With Past Reviews; Marijuana Still Fails to Meet “Currently Accepted Medical Use” Standards; Move Would Inflict Wide-Ranging Health and Mental Health Consequences |
(WASHINGTON, DC) – Calling it “the most significant rescheduling decision in the history of the Controlled Substances Act,” Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) filed its formal objection to the Biden Administration’s proposed rescheduling of marijuana as part of the public comment period that closed on Monday, July 22, 2024.
SAM’s formal objection to the proposed rule explains that efforts to reschedule marijuana have been rejected multiple times in the past. “To change course now and reschedule marijuana, DEA (or the Attorney General) would have to provide a detailed justification explaining why the consistent analysis of the government over the past five decades holding that the statutory criteria require controlling marijuana under Schedule I is no longer accurate or applicable.”
The comment also addresses the flawed recommendation issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), stating: “In addition, DEA would have to provide evidence of a sea change in the approach of physicians with respect to marijuana to establish that marijuana now has a ‘currently accepted medical use’ (CAMU) in the United States. A finding as to a CAMU is critical, because marijuana cannot be moved out of Schedule I unless DEA finds that it has a CAMU. . . . HHS has completely failed to provide a reasoned explanation for multiple changes in its analysis that were necessary to yield the novel recommendation for rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III.”
SAM Honorary Chair and former Congressman Patrick Kennedy said, “Marijuana is more potent and more addictive than it has ever been. That’s not an opinion—it is a statement of fact. Despite significant concerns being voiced by former U.S. Attorneys, the medical community, and law enforcement, the Administration is looking to reverse decades of precedent that will only serve as a boon for the pot industry and its investors. Pot-profiteers have lobbied heavily to sell demonstrably harmful products, and rescheduling marijuana would put their industry on steroids.”
SAM President Dr. Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy advisor to Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton, said, “The Administration’s rescheduling recommendation has been undeniably political, rooted in election year politics, not health and science. As we have expressed throughout this process, the analysis of marijuana and the policy recommendation put forward by HHS was deeply flawed. Medical and scientific studies, as well as government data, have conclusively linked THC drugs with addiction, psychosis, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, suicidality, stroke, and IQ loss, among other impacts. The HHS report fails to address these issues in any meaningful way.”
“It should not be lost on anyone that removing a drug from Schedule I without an accepted medical use is unprecedented—raw, crude marijuana has never passed safety and efficacy protocols. There is no marijuana ‘product’ that can even be prescribed now because of this—so this move flies in the face of science and medicine. A drug isn’t medicine because it’s popular,” Sabet added.
SAM is represented by Torridon Law PLLC, the law firm founded by former Attorney General William P. Barr. Barr said: “The hard facts are that nothing has changed since rescheduling was rejected by the Obama Administration in 2016. There still is no currently accepted medical use for marijuana. Rescheduling would turbo-charge the production and distribution of increasingly potent marijuana by giving the cannabis industry favorable tax treatment. And it would needlessly jeopardize the lives and health of millions of Americans based on nothing more than the current Administration’s desire for a short-term political gain.”
Torridon partner Patrick Philbin added: “To reverse course on an issue of this magnitude, DEA would need to provide an extraordinary justification. But the record shows there is no scientific evidence to establish a currently accepted medical use for marijuana under the test used by DEA and HHS for decades—so HHS simply changed the test to achieve a pre-ordained outcome.”
SAM’s public comment further notes: “Needless to say, the policy preferences of the current incumbent of the White House and his desire to loosen restrictions on a controlled substance because he believes that will be popular are not relevant criteria that DEA is permitted to consider under the Act. The DEA’s ‘core mission’ is ‘enforcing the nation’s drug laws and enhancing public health, safety, and national security.’ That includes applying the statutory criteria set by Congress and ensuring that the American people are protected from substances that have a high potential for abuse, have a deleterious effect on health, and lack a CAMU. For DEA to abandon the analysis it has consistently followed in the past and accept a recommendation from HHS that wholly fails to explain a change in approach would be a craven abdication of the Administrator’s responsibility to the American people under the Act…”
A full copy of SAM’s public comment can be found HERE.
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