Cannabis Rescheduling Hearing Delayed: Americans for Safe Access Hosts Webinar to Discuss Impacts and Next Steps for Patients

Steph Sherer, Executive Director of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) | Photo Courtesy of Steph Sherer

On January 13, 2025, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Chief Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney II delayed the cannabis rescheduling hearing originally set for January 21, 2025, in response to a motion submitted by Village Farms International Inc., Hemp for Victory, and OCO et al.

To help explain what this new development means for the rescheduling process, Americans for Safe Access (ASA) focused on this topic in its weekly webinar Lunch & Learn with Americans for Safe Access, hosted by ASA founder and executive director Steph Sherer. As Sherer explained, ASA was founded in 2002 and is a coalition of healthcare, medical cannabis, and wellness stakeholders that are working to integrate medical cannabis into the US healthcare systems.

Sherer explained the process on rescheduling a substance, noting that in this case, after the hearings, the next step would be for the DEA to make their final determination on the scheduling of cannabis, with a 60-day period for judicial review following it. In the meantime, with the judge granting a stay on the hearings, a district court will weigh in on the DEA’s involvement in the hearings and on the witness selection process. One outcome, she noted, is waiting for the district court to issue its ruling and the hearings are restarted, though another outcome is that the administrator could also make a final ruling on cannabis scheduling. “My reading of the tea leaves,” Sherer explained, “is that the DEA was using these ALJ hearings as a way to create a record for the eventual judicial review… creating a platform for people that they thought were going to sue them, to give them the information they were going to use in a judicial review during this process.”

Sherer also explained how medical cannabis patients and advocates were affected by this new development in the hearings. “It’s important to remind people that no matter what has happened through the rescheduling process as medical cannabis advocates, we really got what we wanted out of this process in that the two top health agencies and the Department of Justice have confirmed that there is accepted medical use of cannabis in the United States,” she stated. “We have never felt like any of the current schedules at our work for medical cannabis, and in the event that DEA does confirm schedule three, or even schedule two, none of that is going to have an impact on patients’ daily lives or on the current medical cannabis programs. These programs are operating completely outside of the Controlled Substance Act. So, in a sense, it doesn't really matter what schedule cannabis is, they're still going to be operating illegally.”

She also noted that the original proposal from the Department of Justice (DOJ) was not a “pure rescheduling proposal,” and that some cannabinoids could remain under schedule one.

She also discussed other legislative activity that has been happening around rescheduling, including amendments that had been passed in July by the CJS last year that would have the stopped the rescheduling process altogether and also would have modified the 2014 medical cannabis amendment that prevented DOJ raids.

At the end of the webinar, Sherer outlined the patient-focused campaigns and petitions ASA will be launching soon, with the overall goal of a new regulatory framework for cannabis. “Our final victory is going to is going to have to happen through Congress passing a bill,” she stated. “I think this is going to be the year of medical cannabis, but it's going to take everyone. We know that our proposal isn't crazy. Congressional Research Service has said that it is possible to create a new regulatory framework for cannabis, and that creating another schedule for cannabis is also in the purview of Congress.”

The recording of the webinar can be found here.