Marijuana Moment has brought its request for public and media livestream access to the historic federal cannabis rescheduling hearings starting next week directly to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after the judge overseeing the proceedings—which only involve opponents of the reform—said he wouldn’t consider filings from outside parties.
A letter from Marijuana Moment counsel Joseph A. Bondy notes that “DEA has already determined that livestream access is appropriate here”—pointing out that the agency permitted streaming of an earlier, subsequently cancelled hearing process on the proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III that took place during the Biden administration.
“The same public-interest rationale applies now,” he wrote to DEA administrator Terrance Cole on Thursday.
Earlier this week, Marijuana Moment’s attorney had sent a letter to DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius, saying that “a public hearing is not meaningfully public if access depends on the happenstance of limited physical attendance.”
The judge last week issued a preliminary order laying out rules and timelines for the marijuana rescheduling proceedings—simultaneously recognizing that “national public interest in this issue predicates towards a policy of transparency” while also determining that “the hearing will not be televised, livestreamed, or broadcasted in any way.”
As a result, people who wish to observe the historic cannabis reform process must attend in person in Arlington, Virginia under the judge’s order.
Julius later issued a separate order stating that any submissions to the tribunal from non-parties “lack standing and will not be considered”—and so Marijuana Moment is now taking the ask to Cole, the agency administrator.
“DEA previously determined that livestreaming was the appropriate means of providing meaningful contemporaneous access in this same rulemaking, and DEA has not explained why the same public-interest and transparency considerations now warrant a materially more restrictive access regime,” Bondy wrote in the new letter.
The agency announced on Thursday that it would make a transcript available at the conclusion of the multi-day hearing, but Marijuana Moment’s attorney wrote that it wouldn’t help the public follow the proceedings in real time on a daily basis.
“A final transcript is useful, but it is not a substitute for livestream access. Livestreaming allows the public and press to observe the hearing as it unfolds, without vying for admittance, crowding the courtroom or affecting the proceeding,” the letter to Cole says. “Once a transcript is reviewed, corrected, and released several weeks after the testimony has been given, the opportunity for real-time observation, timely reporting, and informed public response has already passed.”
“For a substantial public audience seeking serious coverage of federal cannabis policy, Marijuana Moment is an important channel through which public understanding of this proceeding occurs.”
“To the extent DEA believes livestreaming is now inappropriate despite DEA’s prior directive in this rulemaking, Marijuana Moment respectfully requests a written explanation identifying the specific basis for that conclusion, including why the public-interest and transparency considerations that previously warranted livestreaming are outweighed here,” Bondy wrote.
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Separately, medical cannabis advocates on Thursday sent a letter to Julius, the DEA judge who said he wouldn’t consider submissions from outside parties, also requesting livestream access.
“Many patients with the greatest interest in this proceeding are unable to travel to Arlington, Virginia. Many are disabled, immunocompromised, elderly, financially constrained, or managing serious medical conditions,” the letter from Americans for Safe Access, Veterans Initiative-22, U.S. Pain Foundation, Realm of Caring, Montel Williams and other advocates says.
“Even patients and advocates who can travel may not be physically able to wait in line for an uncertain chance at admission, only to be turned away once the limited seating is filled,” they wrote. “As such, the hearing may technically be open to the public, yet practically inaccessible to most.”
Meanwhile, rescheduling opponents that are participating in the hearing filed statements this week previewing the anti-marijuana arguments they intend to make during the proceedings.
The hearing will begin on June 29 and is set to conclude no later than July 15.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April issued an order that immediately reclassified state-licensed medical cannabis, as well as marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III.
Under a separate order the acting attorney general signed, the upcoming hearing will consider more comprehensively moving marijuana to Schedule III.
A prior hearing process on the marijuana rescheduling process that was initiated by the Biden administration stalled last year amid litigation over alleged improper communications and witness selection.
The current marijuana rescheduling process is being challenged with several lawsuits that have been consolidated by a federal appeals court. Those pieces of litigation against the cannabis reform have been filed by state attorneys general, marijuana legalization opponents and a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical corporation.
Meanwhile, the already-enacted rescheduling of state-licensed medical cannabis is already having broad impacts.
The Congressional Research Service published a report on the current cannabis rescheduling move explaining that certified patients who possess medical marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries now have certain protections under Schedule III. “The order appears to authorize end users to possess marijuana for medical use without a CSA-compliant prescription,” it says.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has posted a draft update to a gun purchase form to acknowledge the federally legal status of medical marijuana under rescheduling. The revised section in question notably says that only “use or possession of marijuana for recreational purposes” is federally prohibited, leaving out the prior form’s mention of medical cannabis.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said they plan to issue new tax guidance for the marijuana industry following rescheduling. The reform will benefit state-licensed marijuana businesses by allowing them to take federal tax deductions they’re currently barred from under an IRS code known as 280E that doesn’t apply to Schedule III substances.
Even DEA, which has long opposed cannabis legalization and was accused of stalling the rescheduling process initiative by the Biden administration, has launched a registration process for state-legal marijuana businesses to take advantage of federal benefits that come with the reform.
The Department of Transportation, on the other hand, issued guidance saying that use of state-legal medical cannabis is still no excuse for a positive drug test by truck drivers, pilots and other safety-sensitive workers.
A congressional committee recently voted to block federal officials from taking further steps to carry out cannabis rescheduling.
Read the letter to the DEA administrator from Marijuana Moment’s attorney below:
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