This week, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) administrator issued a Notice of Hearing that is expected to publish in the Federal Register on Thursday, August 29. (Click here to review the Notice of Hearing)
In the document, the DEA announced that a hearing on the rescheduling of marijuana will be held on December 2, 2024, at its headquarters in Arlington, VA. The length of the hearing, which is intended to gather input from parties who would be negatively affected by the proposed rescheduling, is at the discretion of the hearing official and could take one or multiple days.
The DEA administrator will choose who can speak at the hearing. According to the DEA, anyone interested in participating in the hearing, provided they can prove they are a “person adversely affected or aggrieved by” the proposed rescheduling of marijuana, will have 30 days from when the notice is officially published to file a “notice of appearance” request with the DEA. In essence, this means that any NDASA member can file a notice of appearance because everyone’s business and safety work will be impacted by the rescheduling, which would end DOT testing for marijuana (unless there is an Executive Order to allow HHS to continue to test for it and certify labs to test for it).
NDASA filed a Request for Hearing in June. The association, and anyone else who filed a Request for Hearing, does not need to file a notice of appearance because the DEA has stated: “Any person who has previously filed a request for hearing or to participate in a hearing need not file another request; the request for hearing is deemed to be a notice of appearance under 21 CFR 1308.44(b).”
The rescheduling of marijuana was initially proposed in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published in the Federal Register on May 21, 2024. Early news reports suggested this change was imminent and would probably happen before the presidential election. The DEA’s granting of a hearing date in December will likely postpone any DEA decisions on the rulemaking until sometime in 2025.
The delay and the opportunity to participate in the hearing are victories for NDASA and its members! We have won this battle, but the war is still to be fought. Please continue to make your voice heard on this issue by considering whether to file a notice of appearance request with the DEA in the next 30+ days. (Note: Friday, September 27 is 29 days after the expected publication date of the Notice of Hearing.)