A GOP congressman has asked the head of Drug Enforcement Administration to elaborate on recent remarks she made about the origins and timeline of President Joe Biden’s directive regarding marijuana scheduling review.
Matt Gaetz, R-FL, sent a letter to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, shared exclusively by Marijuana Moment on Thursday. In the letter, he addressed questions posed in person last month at a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing.
He’s specifically asking for a copy of a note that Milgram says the president sent last year to the Attorney General and Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The letter directed the review of the cannabis scheduling status under the Controlled Substances Act.
In the letter, Gaetz also requests an update. At the hearing last month, the administrator told Gaetz she would also ask HHS for the timeline of the review by the department, which must be completed before DEA weighs in.
The congressman said: “While it’s reassuring to know that President Biden formally requested the start of the process of removing marijuana from Schedule I, it was worrying to hear that you stated that Health and Human Services had not given you a time frame for the Department of Health and Human Services sending you a descheduling recommendations based on their review.”
He said that it was important that the administration be transparent to Congress about the status of the descheduling process for marijuana. He also asked Milgram to provide answers to the following questions by September 15.
- Please provide a copy the letter that you referred to that President Biden wrote to the Secretary of HHS, and Attorney General, asking for the descheduling of marijuana.
- You asked HHS to give you a timeline on when it would be able to provide you with its recommendation regarding the de-scheduling marijuana. What was HHS response if you did? If you were given a time frame, please provide it.
Gaetz wrote the House Judiciary Committee needs DEA’s responses to the questions in order “to continue overseeing this matter.”
The alleged letter by Biden was the subject of a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), filed earlier this month, with HHS. HHS said that it “had no records” of a letter of that nature.
Marijuana Moment asked for clarification about the letter separately from the Justice Department, but the spokesperson referred to the White House. The White House referred to the President’s public statements about the directive, but didn’t provide any comment on the letter that the DEA administrator referred to.
The cannabis industry and the public are still very interested in the origins and processing behind the directive on scheduling review. The DOJ and HHS both appeared to have prepared coordinated statements on the day Biden announced the review and pardoned people for federal marijuana possession crimes. This would indicate that the agencies were given some sort of notice prior to the president’s public announcement.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told Marijuana Moment in June , that agencies aim to finish their work by the year’s end.
HHS, and specifically the Food and Drug Administration under HHS, will conduct a scientific evaluation of marijuana. The department will send its findings and recommendation for scheduling to DEA. DEA will then go through its own eight-step process before making a decision. The HHS recommendation is not binding because DEA controls the CSA, and can theoretically reject the position of the health agency.
In a separate testimony to Congress, the White House Drug Czar recently said that the President’s marijuana pardons last year and the scheduling directive are a part of establishing unified cannabis policy in varying state legalization models.
In March, Earl Blumenauer, co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, along with 15 other members of Congress from both parties, demanded transparency in the cannabis schedule review.
Below, you can read the letter from the Congressman to DEA’s head regarding marijuana scheduling review:
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The post GOP congressman pushes DEA head for update on Biden’s Marijuana Scheduling Review first appeared on Marijuana Moment.
