DEA Cannabis Rescheduling Hearing Postponement Insights: An Interview with Adam Goers

Last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hearings on the scheduling of cannabis saw a new development. Originally set for January 21, 2025, the hearing was cancelled by DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney II in response to a motion submitted by Village Farms International Inc., Hemp for Victory, and OCO et al. The motivants had filed a motion to disqualify DEA from oversight of the rescheduling process in November, alleging bias on the part of DEA against rescheduling. That motion was denied, but on January 6, 2025, the motivants subsequently filed a motion for reconsideration with new evidence. In his decision regarding the motion for reconsideration, Mulrooney denied the motion for reconsideration and allowed for an interlocutory appeal.

Additionally, in response to hearing's delay, medical cannabis advocacy organization Americans for Safe Access held a webinar discussing the impacts on medical cannabis patients.

For more insight into this development, Cannabis Science and Technology reached out to Adam Goers, SVP of Corporate Affairs for The Cannabist Company and the co-chair of the Coalition for Cannabis Scheduling Reform (CCSR) for his input.

Questions addressed in this interview:

1. The judge has denied the parties' motion to disqualify and reconsider but has granted the ability to "file an interlocutory appeal" What does that mean? How does this impact the remainder of the rescheduling process?
2. The judge justifies his decision by saying the interlocutory appeal would prevent major delays in the future. Can you explain what his logic is here?

Read a partial transcription below.

Adam Goers: It’s that actually this brings about the most expedient path. DEA, let's be clear, has shown that they're purposely trying to undermine a schedule three outcome. And how are they been doing that? Not by coming right out and saying that they're opposed to it. They also, to the judge’s repeated question, have not even said that they are the proponent and are for schedule three. So what you're seeing here is DEA trying to slow this process down, and trying to throw sticks into the gears, and not just sticks in the gears that delay it now, but ultimately in the future, could cause problems. If a scheduled three rule was actually propagated, their effort to undermine it could make it more vulnerable in court. And so we do agree, for a variety of reasons, some of which the judge listed, and others, particularly for the future in litigation, is that having this process done right now, while will lead to a short delay, in the long run, it will lead to a final rule sooner.

So call this a tortoise and the hare situation here. The hare in this case, some people, including on the pro side, that wanted to go headstrong into this and hope for the best would have been very disappointed, because they would have perhaps either more quickly gotten to a denial of schedule three, or we would have had kind of a Chutes and Ladders situation where they would have continued to move forward, only for it to get brought back again. So the logic is that this short delay is the path to a more expedient and quicker schedule three outcome.