DEA MJ Rescheduling Transcript Goes Public

WASHINGTON – The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released the complete, corrected transcript from its 11-day marijuana rescheduling hearing, giving the public its first detailed account of the testimony that will guide DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius as he drafts his official recommendation.

The 2,533-page record covers the full 11 days of proceedings, running from June 29 through July 15 in Arlington, VA. Julius had ordered 294 corrections be made to the initial draft before the corrected document was certified for release.

The hearing played out as a one-versus-seven contest. The DEA stood as the only party affirmatively defending the proposed reclassification from Schedule I to Schedule III, while seven outside parties, including Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association, and the states of Idaho, Indiana, and Nebraska, opposed the change or raised concerns about its potential consequences.

The government’s legal argument was direct. Once the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) formally determined that marijuana has a currently accepted medical use, the statute no longer permits a Schedule I classification. FDA official Dr. Dominic Chiapperino testified that the agency found credible scientific support for marijuana’s therapeutic role in treating pain, chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting, and anorexia associated with a medical condition – three qualifying uses, where only one is legally required to disqualify a substance from Schedule I.

The transcript also exposed a significant fracture inside the agency itself. Dr. Luli Akinfiresoye, a pharmacologist in DEA’s Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section, was called as a witness by opposing parties and testified that her unit reached the opposite conclusion from HHS, and that the proposed rule had been published before the agency’s own eight-factor analysis was complete.

Opponents concentrated on psychiatric risks, impaired driving, youth exposure, and potential disruption to federal workplace drug-testing rules. But the record documents notable concessions from their own witnesses. Yale psychiatrist Dr. Deepak D’Souza acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of marijuana consumers do not experience negative consequences, and Colorado pain physician Dr. Kenneth Finn admitted that Cannabis components can be medically beneficial and that Cannabis does not produce the respiratory failure associated with opioid overdoses. Harvard’s Dr. Bertha Madras made the same concession on overdose risk.

Julius closed the proceedings with a promise to “thoroughly consider and evaluate all the evidence” before issuing his recommendation, which will then be reviewed by DEA Administrator Terry Cole for the final scheduling decision. That process carries no statutory deadline and is expected to extend into late 2026.

The public transcript doesn’t hand a winner to either side, but it does define the legal terrain with unusual clarity. The government’s case rests almost entirely on the HHS medical-use finding and the DOJ’s 2024 validation of the two-part test. If Julius accepts that framework, the statutory path to Schedule III is narrow but relatively clean. If he assigns serious weight to the internal DEA dissent or the methodological challenges raised by opponents, the outcome grows harder to call. The concessions scattered across the opposition’s own testimony are worth noting. They suggest the factual dispute over marijuana’s medical value is less total than the political debate implies.