Key takeaways from the 2,500 page DEA transcript

ON THE RECORD
DEA’s rescheduling hearing closes after eleven days of testimony

Driving the news: The full transcript of DEA's rescheduling hearing is out. With the help of Claude, we pulled out the ten things you need to know from the more than 2,500 pages of the transcript.

What happened: The DEA, which protected Schedule I for fifty years, was in the position of sending its own attorneys to argue the other side.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's April 22 final rule already moved FDA-approved cannabis drug products and state-licensed cannabis to Schedule III. This hearing was only about recreational use, specifically whether cannabis satisfied the new, two-part CAMU test. 

Seven interested parties opposed, including Smart Approaches to Marijuana and the states of Nebraska, Idaho and Indiana, who share counsel at Torridon Law.

What they're saying: "It is about regulation, not legalization," said DEA attorney James Schwartz in the government's opening.

The government also told the judge that whether cannabis has a currently accepted medical use is already settled, by a 2024 Office of Legal Counsel opinion it says binds both DEA and the judge.

Why it matters: This is the first time the anti-rescheduling coalition has been tested under oath, and the transcript is the record everyone argues from next. The government led with FDA's Dominic Chiapperino, who ran the ten-month analysis behind the Schedule III recommendation.

He testified cannabis produced the lowest number of overdose deaths of the substances reviewed. The same review ranked it second highest on emergency department visits, above alcohol, and the government's direct examination did not go there.

Several of the opposition's clinical witnesses gave ground on cross.

Kenneth Finn, the Colorado pain physician most cited in prohibitionist circles, was crossed in about eight questions and confirmed he has recommended cannabis to his own patients.

Pueblo emergency physician Karen Randall built part of her slide deck on images pulled off the internet, including a toddler with a bong sourced from Reddit. The DEA attorneys asked how she knew it was a real baby. She said she didn't.

Yale's Deepak D'Souza was the states' strongest witness and elucidated the psychosis argument clearly across two days.

On the final morning, DEA read him back an interview he gave earlier this year and asked if it was accurate. He said yes, including the part where he said most people who use cannabis use it in moderation and do not experience negative consequences.

Ed Wood, who founded DUID Victim Voices, delivered testimony DEA moved to strike and then declined to cross at all. His own Colorado data argues against per se THC limits, the position operators have held for a decade.

On the other side: The government did not walk away clean.

Torridon's Chase Harrington opened by noting that DEA's own pain-medicine witness, anesthesiologist Corey Burchman, said "I'm not a psychiatrist" four separate times while having recommended cannabis for PTSD and anxiety, conditions HHS found insufficient support for.

What's next: The judge will recommend a decision, though there’s no set date yet. On balance, the record appears to be the DEA lawyers defending rescheduling, and being quite surgical about defending against future attacks. 

Still, if the judge does recommend rescheduling, expect there to be a fight. 

-JB

On Tuesday's Cultivated Live: Richard Hahn of the Niskanen Center returned to the cannabis policy work he started a decade ago — and the results are sobering. A clear-eyed, nonpartisan look at legalization's messy middle age. 

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