Congressman Tells DEA To Reschedule Marijuana ‘As Swiftly As Possible’

A Democratic congressman is calling on the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to complete its marijuana review “as swiftly as possible” and abide by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s (HHS) recommendation to reclassify cannabis under Schedule III.

In a letter sent to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram on Thursday, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) said he “appreciated the opportunity” to address the scheduling review process during a House subcommittee hearing she testified at last July but that he wants the agency to move more quickly to complete the job.

Since that hearing, HHS completed its scientific assessment of cannabis and advised DEA to move it from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

“I urge you, in the strongest possible way, to follow through on HHS’s recommendation,” Cohen said. “It is critical that the DEA’s review is expeditious and that your agency quickly initiate the rulemaking process.”

“Marijuana never belonged on Schedule I. Its inclusion resulted in harsh and disproportionate prison sentences, particularly for communities of color,” he wrote. “Nearly half the states have already legalized marijuana for recreational use by ballot measure.”

The lawmaker told Milgram she has a “historic opportunity to make make meaningful progress as Congress works on legislation to deschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act and address some of the inequities caused by this misguided and discriminatory policy.”

🚨BIG NEWS: @DEAHQ has FINALLY begun its review on softening federal #marijuana regulation.#Cannabis shouldn't be a Schedule 1 drug—more like Schedule 420. I've pressed the DEA on this for years (most recently in July, QT'd 👇) & I'm weighing back in today. Full letter here: https://t.co/82Jz5PGuLJpic.twitter.com/IbOGfuxJpi

— Steve Cohen (@RepCohen) January 5, 2024

“The DEA should move as swiftly as possible on this effort, and I hope to see a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on this issue soon,” Cohen, who has long advocated for an end to federal prohibition, wrote.

While the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said it is “likely” that the agency will follow the HHS recommendation and move marijuana to Schedule III, DEA has emphasized that it has “final authority” over the matter and could make any scheduling decision, regardless of the HHS findings.

“DEA has the final authority to schedule, reschedule, or deschedule a drug under the Controlled Substances Act, after considering the relevant statutory and regulatory criteria and HHS’s scientific and medical evaluation,” the agency said in a letter to lawmakers last month. “DEA is now conducting its review.”

DEA’s statement came in response to an earlier letter from 31 bipartisan lawmakers, led by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), that implored DEA to consider the “merits” of legalization as it carried out its review. That initial letter also criticized the limitations of simply placing cannabis in Schedule III, as opposed to fully removing the plant from CSA control.

Also, despite the furor over the ongoing rescheduling review, outside observers still know little about HHS’s justification for its recommendation that cannabis be moved to Schedule III. While the agency sent hundreds of pages of explanation to DEA as part of its rescheduling recommendation, those documents have so far only been released in highly redacted form, with little to no indication of the federal health agency’s findings related to possible medical benefits, addictive potential or any other aspect of the policy decision.

DEA has received a number of messages from different sides of the cannabis policy debate in recent months, including a recent letter from 29 former U.S. attorneys who urged the Biden administration to leave cannabis in Schedule I.

Last month, the governors of six U.S. states—Colorado, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Louisiana—sent a letter to Biden calling on the administration to reschedule marijuana by the end of last year.

Meanwhile, six former DEA heads and five former White House drug czars sent a letter to the attorney general and current DEA administrator voicing opposition to the top federal health agency’s recommendation to reschedule marijuana. They also made a questionable claim about the relationship between drug schedules and criminal penalties in a way that could exaggerate the potential impact of the incremental reform.

Signatories include DEA and Office of National Drug Control Policy heads under multiple administrations led by presidents of both major parties.

In October, Advocates and lawmakers who support cannabis reform marked the one-year anniversary of Biden’s mass marijuana pardon and scheduling directive this month by calling on him to do more—including by expanding the scope of relief that his pardon had and by expressly supporting federal legalization.

Two GOP senators, including the lead Republican sponsor of a marijuana banking bill that cleared a key committee in September, also filed legislation late last year to prevent federal agencies from rescheduling cannabis without tacit approval from Congress.

A coalition of 14 Republican congressional lawmakers, meanwhile, has urged DEA to “reject” the top federal health agency’s recommendation to reschedule marijuana and instead keep it in the most restrictive category under the CSA.

Separately, DEA recently announced that it is taking another shot at banning two psychedelics after abandoning its original scheduling proposal in 2022, teeing up another fight with researchers and advocates who say the compounds hold therapeutic potential.

The agency has separately warned Georgia pharmacies that dispensing THC is unlawful because it remains a Schedule I drug after the state became the first in the U.S. to allow pharmacies to sell medical marijuana, with nearly 120 facilities applying to sell cannabis oil.

Meanwhile, DEA recently affirmed that spores that produce so-called magic mushrooms are not, on their own, federally prohibited prior to germination.

California GOP Lawmaker Expands Psychedelics Bill To Create Workgroup And Plan For Veterans’ Therapeutic Access

Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.

National Marijuana Legalization Would Grow Tax Revenue To $8.5 Billion For All States, Think Tank Estimates In New Taxation ‘Blueprint’

Nationwide marijuana legalization in all states would grow annual cannabis tax revenue to $8.5 billion, according to a new report from a nonprofit think tank that includes a “blueprint” for taxing sales.

The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation is proposing a state and federal marijuana tax model that keeps costs relatively low to mitigate illicit sales while imposing higher rates on more potent products. It says the current patchwork of state cannabis laws that mostly tax by sales price is “chaotic,” and while marijuana remains federally prohibited, it’s worth considering the pros and cons of establishing a new framework that takes into account revenue and public health.

“The design of an excise tax is important. Well-designed taxes generate revenue with far less societal impact than poorly designed taxes,” it says.

In terms of revenue, marijuana sales brought in nearly $3 billion in tax revenue for legal states last year, the report says. But it projects that would nearly triple to $8.5 billion in revenue if cannabis were legalized across the country.

In theory, it might make sense to tax marijuana in line with how alcohol and tobacco are taxed, but the foundation said the problem is that “cannabis markets have not evolved a standardized product like tobacco, where taxes can be levied by stick (cigarette) or pack, nor is the intoxicating ingredient (THC) as easily measured as alcohol content for an appropriately targeted tax.”

𝗔 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆: Over 40% of states now tax recreational #marijuana, and the revenue potential is substantial. States collected nearly $3 billion in marijuana revenues last year, and nationwide legalization could generate $8.5 billion annually for all states. pic.twitter.com/mNGc6gkcRz

— Tax Foundation (@TaxFoundation) December 14, 2023

Instead, the report says marijuana should be taxed by potency “where possible.” And if it’s “impractical” to measure THC content, products should instead be taxed by weight.

Either approach, the organization says, would be better than the one currently used in many states that taxes cannabis as a percentage of sales price.

“The weight-based approach would capture harm derived from the use of smokable products. Eventually, when product testing for THC content in plant materials becomes less costly, products taxed by weight can transition into being taxed by potency,” it says. “In the short term, a weight-based approach captures externalities better than an ad valorem system and is simple enough to allow new products to enter the market without prohibitively high barriers to product testing simply for tax purposes.”

“Taxes by potency grow as THC content increases in the product, making more concentrated products more expensive and yielding more revenue, reflecting higher societal costs associated with more potent products,” the report continues. “A specific, separate category should be created for edibles and concentrates as they are easier to test. Neither weight nor potency are perfect, but both are substantially better proxies than price-based taxes.”

The Tax Foundation also described three key “lessons” from state experiences taxing marijuana that policymakers should keep in mind:

1. The report says cannabis tax rates “should be low enough to allow legal markets to undercut, or at least gain price parity with, the illicit market.” Setting too high of a tax rate has impaired the ability of certain states to effectively mitigate unregulated sales.

2. States have shown that the “revenue potential from legal marijuana markets is significant,” but it may take years to start materializing and. Even then, tax revenue could be “volatile,” especially under certain tax models.

3. The foundation said “consistency across jurisdictions is important,” and that will become even more relevant once interstate commerce is authorized. For example, companies could end up paying twice as much in taxes if the originating state taxes based on raw flower while the receiving state taxes at the retail level at the point of sale. Conversely, “product exported in states with only retail taxes into states with only raw material taxes may go untaxed altogether.”

“Legal markets for cannabis products are still in their infancy, as are the tax policies applied to those markets,” Adam Hoffer, director of excise tax policy at the Tax Foundation, said in a press release on Thursday. “A simple, low-rate, and low-cost tax system has the potential to raise significant amounts of revenue, while simultaneously decreasing social harms from cannabis by bringing illicit market transactions into a legal market framework.”

The majority of state marijuana markets currently impose an excise tax on cannabis products, with rates that range from six percent in Missouri to 37 percent in Washington State. Some states such as Connecticut and New York have incorporated potency-based tax policies into their systems, but it’s much rarer.

A simple, low-rate, and low-cost tax system has the potential to raise significant amounts of revenue, while simultaneously decreasing social harms from #cannabis by bringing illicit market transactions into a legal market framework.https://t.co/bcEaKed9wP@AdamJHoffer

— Tax Foundation (@TaxFoundation) December 14, 2023

While congressional lawmakers have introduced various proposals that would impose an additional federal tax on cannabis, those measures aren’t expected to advance in the short-term. But the U.S. Census Bureau is nonetheless tracking state-level cannabis tax trends, launching an interactive map in October that details the proportion of state revenue made up by marijuana tax dollars, for example.

In September, the agency published a report showing that legal cannabis states had collected more than $5.7 billion in marijuana tax revenue over an 18-month period, a figure it intends to update quarterly going forward. Census also recently updated its survey of private businesses to better capture marijuana-related economic activity.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report last month cautioning that if cannabis is eventually federally legalized, lawmakers should consider the potential unintended consequences of imposing high federal taxes on marijuana products.

Top Virginia Senator Wants Legal Marijuana Sales In Exchange For Approving Sports Stadium Favored By Governor

Bipartisan Lawmakers Claim Credit For Biden Administration’s Marijuana Rescheduling Recommendation

The news that the top U.S. health agency is recommending rescheduling marijuana is earning applause from congressional lawmakers across the aisle, including longstanding bipartisan champions of reform like Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), who are claiming partial credit for the development.

Numerous lawmakers have responded with enthusiasm after it was reported on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) advised the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that it believes cannabis should be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) following a scientific review directed by the president last year.

Those responses continue to pour in, with advocates and industry stakeholders now contemplating the broader implications of rescheduling. And some legislators want a piece of the credit for their years of advocacy.

“For many, many years now, I have been pushing for decisive action on marijuana,” Fetterman said in a statement on Thursday. “Nearly one year ago to the day, I met with President Biden in Pittsburgh and requested that he and his administration do something on marijuana policy.”

Yesterday’s move is a massive win for the Biden administration and a strong step in the right direction on marijuana policy.

I’m glad to see that the administration agrees with what we have known for a while: marijuana should not be a Schedule I drug.

— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) August 31, 2023

“Yesterday’s move is a massive win for the Biden administration and a strong step in the right direction on marijuana policy,” he said. “I’m glad to see that the administration agrees with what we have known for a while: marijuana should not be a Schedule I drug.”

But we should also be clear that we have been in this exact spot before, with science on the side of rescheduling, only to have the DEA and its destructive ‘War on Drugs’ mindset block reform.

That must not happen again.

— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) August 31, 2023

Fetterman added a word of caution, however. He said, “we should also be clear that we have been in this exact spot before, with science on the side of rescheduling, only to have the DEA and its destructive ‘War on Drugs’ mindset block reform. That must not happen again.”

In the Senate, I will keep fighting to go further, to legalize marijuana and restore the lives of the countless people across this country who have lost their futures from the use of a plant and the failed ‘War on Drugs.’

— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) August 31, 2023

Joyce, co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, said in a statement shared with Marijuana Moment that he’s “pleased to see the Administration is acting on my request to re-examine cannabis’ antiquated Schedule I classification,” referencing a 2021 letter he sent President Joe Biden alongside the late former Cannabis Caucus co-chair Rep. Don Young (R-AK).

“This is an important first step on a long road to correct the wrongs in the war on cannabis and prevent the rise of an ineffectively regulated and therefore harmful market,” the congressman said, adding that the administration should “take the next forward and partner with Congress” on legislation he’s sponsoring with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to prepare the government for federal legalization.

He also said that next steps for Congress should involve passing bipartisan marijuana banking and expungements legislation that he’s sponsoring.

“As I’ve noted many times before, we cannot stop at rescheduling and must pursue a full descheduling of cannabis,” Joyce said. “This remains up to Congress. I strongly encourage leaders on both sides of the aisle to respect the will of over 40 states and nearly 70 percent of the American electorate to work together to deschedule cannabis once and for all.”

Another Republican lawmaker, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), also weighed in on the HHS rescheduling development, saying marijuana “should not be on the same schedule as heroin.” That’s notable given that the congressman previously criticized House Democrats for prioritizing cannabis reform ahead of a legalization vote in 2020.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), a longtime vocal supporter of marijuana legalization, also claimed some credit for the administration’s cannabis move.

⬇️ I told the DEA I’d call @SecBecerra about rescheduling #marijuana, and I did. Now HHS has recommended that the DEA reschedule #cannabis from Schedule 1 down to 3.

Thanks to Sec. Becerra for following through. Marijuana should never have been Schedule 1—DEA, let’s get it done. https://t.co/YmY8zAcRHY

— Steve Cohen (@RepCohen) August 31, 2023

“I told the DEA I’d call [HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra] about rescheduling marijuana, and I did,” he said. “Now HHS has recommended that the DEA reschedule cannabis from Schedule 1 down to 3. Thanks to Sec. Becerra for following through. Marijuana should never have been Schedule 1—DEA, let’s get it done.”

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) also commented on the rescheduling recommendation, arguing that spending “even 1 penny of federal tax dollars to criminalize cannabis is stupid.”

Spending even 1 penny of federal tax dollars to criminalize cannabis is stupid. Pleased to see @HHSGov recommend that @DEAHQ remove cannabis from Schedule I. HHS recommends that cannabis be listed under Schedule III.

I urge @DEAHQ to remove cannabis from any Schedule. https://t.co/p9VXNbtvNU

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) August 31, 2023

“Pleased to see [HHS] recommend that [DEA] remove cannabis from Schedule I. HHS recommends that cannabis be listed under Schedule III,” he said. “I urge DEA to remove cannabis from any Schedule.”

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) said on Thursday that she applauds HHS “for appropriately reclassifying marijuana.”

I applaud the @HHSGov for appropriately reclassifying marijuana.

While the work to end the failed War on Drugs is not over, this adjustment is a step forward in the right direction. https://t.co/xzRjP1FOOe

— Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (@RepBonnie) August 31, 2023

“While the work to end the failed War on Drugs is not over, this adjustment is a step forward in the right direction,” the congresswoman said.

Becerra, the health secretary, confirmed the news that his agency had sent its cannabis rescheduling recommendation to DEA in a post at exactly 4:20pm ET on Wednesday—one of the latest examples of the Biden cabinet official sharing marijuana news at the symbolic time.

“I can now share that, following the data and science, [HHS] has responded to [Biden’s] directive to me for the Department to provide a scheduling recommendation for marijuana to the DEA,” Becerra, who told Marijuana Moment in June that his agency planned to complete its work this year, said in the post. “We’ve worked to ensure that a scientific evaluation be completed and shared expeditiously.”

—Marijuana Moment is tracking more than 1,000 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.—

While there’s significant excitement about the development, nothing is final about the scheduling decision. DEA said it “will now initiate its review” taking into account FDA’s findings, but it makes the final call and isn’t required to follow through on a Schedule III reclassification.

A White House spokesperson told Marijuana Moment on Wednesday that the “administrative process is an independent process led by HHS and DOJ and guided by the evidence,” so president’s team will not be commenting on the agency’s recommendation at this time.

Politically, moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III would allow the president to say that he’s helped accomplish a major reform, facilitating an administrative review that may result in rescheduling more than 50 years after cannabis was placed in the most restrictive category as the federal government launched a war on drugs.

This could also bolster momentum for congressional efforts to further reform federal cannabis laws, as Joyce suggested.

Of course, advocates’ highest hopes for the HHS review was that it would lead to a descheduling recommendation, where marijuana would be completely removed from the CSA and treated the same as alcohol in the eyes of the government. Some have also voiced concerns that a Schedule III reclassification could negatively impact state markets, with FDA potentially assuming a more hands-on role with respect to cannabis.

Meanwhile, last week, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) pressed DEA Administrator Anne Milgram to expand on her recent remarks about the origin and timeline of the president’s marijuana scheduling review directive. Specifically, he’s asking for a copy of a letter that Milgram said the president sent to the attorney general and HHS secretary last year directing the review. He also wants an update on whether the administrator asked HHS about the timetable for their work, as she told him she’d do during a recent House Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

As far as the alleged rescheduling letter from Biden is concerned, an attorney filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with HHS in an effort to obtain a copy of the letter. But earlier this month, the department said it had “no records” of such a document.

South Dakota Attorney General Releases Final Summary For 2024 Marijuana Legalization Ballot Initiative, But Advocates Weigh Litigation Over ‘Unfair’ Language