In a secluded part of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters known as the 12th floor “bubble,” Chief Anne Milgram made an unusual request of top lawmakers summoned in March for what she called the “marijuana meeting”: no one could take notes.
Over the next half hour, she announced that the Biden administration would soon issue a long-awaited order. reclassify pot as a less dangerous drug, a major obstacle to federal legalization that the DEA has long resisted. And Milgram then revealed another twist, according to two people familiar with the private meeting who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, that the process normally run by the DEA had been taken over by the U.S. Department of Justice and that the action would not be signed by her but by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Milgram did not tell her aides the reason for this unprecedented omission, and neither she nor the DEA have offered an explanation since. But the situation unfolded last week exactly as announced at the meeting two months ago, with the most significant drug policy change in 50 years launched without the support of the first national narcotics agency.
“The DEA has not yet made a decision regarding its views on the appropriate timeline for marijuana,” read a 13-page sentence inserted into Garland’s 92-page order last Thursday describing the proposal of the Biden administration to remove pot from its current I program alongside heroin and cannabis. Schedule III LSD, less strictly regulated, along with drugs such as ketamine and some anabolic steroids.
Internal records accompanying the order indicate that the DEA sent a memo to the Justice Department in late January requesting additional scientific information to determine whether marijuana has an accepted medical use, a key requirement for reclassification. But those concerns were dismissed by Justice Department lawyers, who called the DEA’s criteria “unacceptably narrow.”
Several current and former DEA officials told the AP they believe politics may be at play, saying the Justice Department is moving forward with marijuana reclassification because President Joe Biden wanted to use this question to seduce voters during his re-election campaign and was unwilling to give the DEA time for further studies that would likely have dragged on beyond Election Day.
These officials also noted that although the Controlled Substances Act gives the Attorney General responsibility for regulating the sale of dangerous drugs, federal law still delegates the authority to classify drugs to the DEA Administrator.
“It is abundantly clear to me that the Justice Department has hijacked the rescheduling process, putting politics ahead of public safety,” said Derek Maltz, a retired agent who once headed the U.S. Special Operations Division. DEA. “If there is scientific evidence to support this decision, so be it. But we have to let the scientists evaluate it.”
Former DEA Administrator Tim Shea said the striking absence of Milgram’s endorsement suggests she was supporting “DEA professionals.”
“If she had supported it, she would have signed it and sent it,” said Shea, who served in the Trump administration. “The DEA opposed them and the politicians stepped in and voted them down. It’s demoralizing. Everyone, from agents on the street to DEA executives, knows the dangers this poses. »
The White House did not respond to a request for comment, but press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previously said Biden was committed to keeping his 2020 campaign promise. “He said that no person, no American with marijuana should go to jail. This affects communities across the country, including communities of color.
Justice Department lawyers defended Garland’s decision to proceed without Milgram’s support, saying in a separate memo that the action was motivated by “very different views” between the DEA and the Department of Justice. Health and Social Services. HHS last year recommended reclassifying marijuana as less of a public health risk than cocaine, heroin, and oxycodone, and effective in treating anorexia, pain, and other conditions.
HHS concluded in part that “although marijuana abuse produces clear evidence of a public health risk, this risk is relatively lower” than that posed by other drugs.
The DEA balked at these findings, and Garland’s order cites at least 10 times the drug agency requested additional information before approving HHS’s medical findings. He did not respond to AP questions seeking additional comment.
The Justice Department did not comment on the internal discrepancies, but said in a statement that the proposal was “consistent with HHS’s scientific and medical determinations.”
The dissonance within the federal government underscores continued debate over the risks posed by cannabis, even as 38 states have legalized medical marijuana and 24 have legalized its recreational use. Meanwhile, more voters — 70 percent of adults, according to a Gallup poll last fall — support legalization, the highest level ever recorded by the polling company.
“The argument that marijuana is as dangerous as fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine is laughable,” said Matthew C. Zorn, a Houston-based attorney who writes a newsletter on cannabis regulation. “The DEA is not where most Americans are. They are standing on the wrong side of history.
But even HHS’s National Institute on Drug Abuse has issued statements in apparent contradiction to HHS’s recommendation to reclassify pot, saying marijuana’s potency has increased steadily over the years, which has resulted in a higher number of emergency room visits to treat a wide range of cases. range of physical and mental effects, from breathing problems and mental impairments to hallucinations and paranoia.
“Whether smoking or consuming marijuana has therapeutic benefits that outweigh health risks remains an open question that science has not resolved,” Nora Volkow, a neuroscientist who directs NIDA, said on the institute’s website. A NIDA spokesperson said the postponement would further facilitate research into the drug.
NIDA last conducted a medical evaluation of marijuana in 2015 — a year before the Obama administration’s DEA rejected a similar request to defer the drug’s use.
This time, after Biden ordered a review of the drug’s status in 2022, HHS adopted new criteria to reach its rescheduling conclusion, taking into account states that have already legalized medical marijuana.
The reprogramming movement, first reported by the AP last month, faces a potentially lengthy process. The DEA, which is not bound by HHS medical decisions at this time, will take public comment on the reprogramming plan before examination by an administrative judge and publication of a final regulation. Federal prosecutions of marijuana are already extremely rare, but a Schedule III classification would still make pot a controlled substance subject to rules and regulations.
For her part, Milgram has said little about her stance on marijuana and was not asked about it during her confirmation. When she took over the agency in 2021, she privately told colleagues that she viewed the legalization debate as a distraction from the much more serious fentanyl crisis, according to one of the people who spoke to the AP.
Milgram is known for her progressive, data-driven approach to law enforcement, dating back to her time as New Jersey’s Democratic attorney general. When the state’s governor, a close ally, signed a bill in 2010 making the state the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana, she said only that the legislation was “workable.”
Last week, she was similarly opaque in a three-sentence announcement addressed to DEA employees and obtained by the AP.
“As required,” she wrote, “the DEA will post this notice and any attachments on our website.”
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Goodman reported from Miami, Mustian from New York. AP writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed.
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