Researchers are asking a federal court to block the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from proceeding in its attempt to ban two psychedelics, arguing that the agency\u2019s administrative approach to the proposed scheduling is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
Panacea Plant Sciences (PPS) filed a complaint and request for injunctive relief against DEA in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington last week.<\/p>\n
The legal challenge focuses on the agency\u2019s recent scheduling of an administrative hearing to receive expert input on its controversial plans to classify 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI) and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine (DOC) as Schedule I drugs<\/a> under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).<\/p>\n The filing doesn\u2019t speak to the merits of the scheduling proposal\u2014an issue that psychedelics researchers have previously addressed in public comment. Rather, PPS is contesting the administrative hearing process that\u2019s preceding final rulemaking, arguing that DEA\u2019s reliance on administrative law judges (ALJs) to settle such arbitration is unconstitutional based on U.S. Supreme Court precedent.<\/p>\n PPS said that because the Supreme Court has held that ALJs are considered \u201cinferior officers,\u201d current statutory removal protections unconstitutionally insulate them from executive control under Article II of the Constitution. That means DEA should not be permitted to subject researchers to an administrative hearing concerning the psychedelic scheduling proposal, the filing says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hearing and scheduling poses a significant threat to the company,\u201d it says. \u201cPPS conducts research and development on medical technologies which include the use of DOI or DOC for development and as products themselves. Currently, DOI and DOC are not controlled.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUnder the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and its implementing regulations, PPS will be required to turn over to law enforcement or destroy our stock of DOI and DOC which means the rule-making acts as an effective taking of property,\u201d the document says.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a result, when PPS received the hearing notice from DEA, it was faced with a stark choice: either default and lose automatically or defend itself against the DEA\u2019s attempts to schedule DOI and DOC and its use of an ALJ-overseen adjudication,\u201d it continues. \u201cPPS is thus compelled to participate in the DEA\u2019s adjudicatory proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n DEA doesn\u2019t have authority to adjudicate the scheduling question based on this administrative process because ALJs continue to enjoy statutory removal protections, the complaint says. That is, there are current requirements that the judges can only be removed for \u201cgood cause\u201d as \u201cdetermined\u201d by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).<\/p>\n \u201cThis degree of insulation is unconstitutional,\u201d PPS said. \u201cIndeed, because DEA ALJs do not satisfy either narrow recognized exception to the President\u2019s unrestricted removal power, any degree of insulation is unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe DEA\u2019s scheduling hearings has stakes that extend beyond PPS,\u201d it says. \u201cDOI and DOC are widely used in research and development for pharmaceutical drugs related to the mind and other bodily systems. They are also key compounds for the research into schizophrenia and other related illnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRemoving access to these compounds through legal channels and\/or making their access more difficult would severely limit science and reduce the reproducibility of experiments and ability to compare to past research. This would lead to reduced development of new treatments and less understanding of medical conditions, which could lead to increased deaths and suffering in the United States and beyond over time.\u201d<\/p>\n PPS further argued that separate Supreme Court precedent means it does not have to wait for the outcome of DEA\u2019s administrative hearing to challenge the constitutionality of the process, as subjecting the complainants to that process in and of itself would constitute \u201can independent, immediate, \u2018here-and-now\u2019 injury\u2014one that cannot be remedied through normal channels of appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n Therefore, PPS is asking the federal district court to 1) affirm the unconstitutionality of DEA\u2019s ALJ policies, 2) impose a temporary restraining order blocking the agency from moving forward with the DOC and DOI scheduling process, 3) provide temporary and permanent injunctive relief staying DEA\u2019s administrative adjudicative and regulatory proceedings in the case and 4) requiring the agency to withdraw its scheduling proposal until the constitutional issues are resolved.<\/p>\n This is the latest development in a years-long dispute over DEA\u2019s efforts to schedule the psychedelics, which it first attempted to do in 2022, only to withdraw the proposal amid pushback from the scientific community<\/a>. The agency separately withdrew from a proposal to ban five different tryptamine psychedelics in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last December, DEA announced that it would be trying to enact the DOC and DOI ban again. The agency\u2019s notice about the scheduling proposal still lacks evidence that directly connects the compounds to serious adverse health events or demonstrated a high abuse potential.<\/p>\n \u201cTo date, there are no reports of distressing responses or death associated with DOI in medical literature,\u201d it says. \u201cThe physiological dependence liability of DOI and DOC in animals and humans is not reported in scientific and medical literature.\u201d<\/p>\n DEA said that anecdotal reports posted by people online signaled that the substances have hallucinogenic effects, making it \u201creasonable to assume that DOI and DOC have substantial capability to be a hazard to the health of the user and to the safety of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n It did point to one report of a death of a person who had used DOC in combination with two other unspecified drugs\u2014as well as two reports of hospitalizations that it said were attributable to the use of DOC with other drugs\u2014but scientists say that hardly constitutes reason enough to place them in the most strictly controlled schedule.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, DEA is also under significant public and political pressure to complete its review into marijuana scheduling after the agency received a recommendation to move cannabis to Schedule III of the CSA from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).<\/p>\n The head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under HHS told congressional lawmakers last week that there\u2019s \u201cno reason\u201d for DEA to \u201cdelay\u201d making a marijuana scheduling decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n FDA Commissioner Robert Califf\u2019s comments came as the Biden administration continues to tout its role in issuing cannabis pardons and directing the marijuana scheduling review, including in a presidential proclamation declaring April \u201cSecond Chance Month.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n President Joe Biden also discussed the marijuana actions in a\u00a0historic context last month, during his State of the Union address<\/a>.<\/p>\n Vice President Kamala Harris also urged DEA to\u00a0finish its review and reschedule marijuana \u201cas quickly as possible\u201d<\/a>\u00a0while meeting pardon recipients for a roundtable event at the White House last month. Behind closed doors,\u00a0she also said \u201cwe need to legalize marijuana.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n A DEA official recently said\u00a0it sometimes takes up to six months for\u00a0DEA to complete its analysis of health officials\u2019 scheduling recommendations<\/a>\u2014which is just about how long it has now been since the agency began its current cannabis assessment.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, last month, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra defended his agency\u2019s rescheduling recommendation during a Senate committee hearing and also told cannabis lobbyist Don Murphy that he should\u00a0pay DEA a visit and \u201cknock on their door\u201d for answers about the timing<\/a>\u00a0of their decision.<\/p>\n Certain DEA officials are\u00a0reportedly resisting the Biden administration\u2019s rescheduling push<\/a>, disputing the HHS findings on marijuana\u2019s safety profile and medical potential, according to unnamed sources who spoke with The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n Read the federal court filing<\/a> in the DEA psychedelics scheduling matter below:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Florida Marijuana Legalization Ballot Measure Does Not Have Enough Support To Pass, New Poll Says<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Wikimedia<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Researchers Ask Federal Court To Block DEA From Banning Two Psychedelics Under \u2018Unconstitutional\u2019 Administrative Process<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Researchers are asking a federal court to block the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from proceeding in its attempt to ban two psychedelics, arguing that the agency\u2019s administrative approach to the proposed scheduling is unconstitutional. Panacea Plant Sciences (PPS) filed a complaint and request for injunctive relief against DEA in theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74307,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74306\/revisions\/74307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Researchers Ask Federal Court To Block DEA From Banning Two Psychedelics Under \u2018Unconstitutional\u2019 Administrative Process<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"