WASHINGTON (AP) — A decision on whether to classify marijuana as a less perilous drug in the U.S. won’t come until after the presidential election in November, a timing that increases the chances that it could become a powerful political issue in the hotly contested race.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration last week scheduled a hearing for December 2 to accept comments on the proposed historic change in federal drug policy.
The hearing date means a final decision could well come in the next administration. While it’s possible it could come before President Joe Biden’s term ends, holding the hearing before Inauguration Day “would speed things up quite a bit,” said cannabis attorney Brian Vicente.
This could put the presidential candidates’ stance on marijuana in a fresh lithe. Vice President Kamala Harris supports decriminalizing the drug and said it would be “absurd” to add it to the DEA’s Schedule I list alongside heroin and LSD. The Democratic candidate’s position has changed over the years; during her 2010 campaign for attorney general, she once oversaw the enforcement of cannabis laws and opposed legalized adult recreational apply in California.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, signaled his support for a legalization measure in Florida on Saturday, after previously saying he increasingly believes people should not go to prison for the drug, which is now legal in several states, “whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said he supported medical marijuana and that marijuana trafficking should be left to the states. But during his first term, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions repealed an Obama-era policy that prevented federal authorities from cracking down on marijuana trafficking in states where the drug is legal.
Trump’s campaign team did not immediately respond to a question about its position on the drug’s reclassification.
The Justice Department proposed a reclassification in May. The change would recognize the medical apply of marijuana and admit a lower potential for abuse than some of the country’s most perilous drugs. The proposal, which would not legalize marijuana for recreational apply, came after Biden called for a review. Biden called the change “monumental.”
The DEA has said it has not yet commented on whether the change might be implemented, but said in a memo that it would continue to review the matter as the federal legislative process progresses.
The fresh classification would be the most significant change in U.S. drug policy in 50 years and could be a powerful political issue, especially among younger voters. But it faces opposition from groups like Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
Its president, Kevin Sabet, argues there is not enough data to place cannabis in the less perilous Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids. The DEA’s decision to hold the hearing was “a major victory in our fight to have this decision guided by medical science, not politics,” he said in a statement, adding that the attorneys general of 18 states support his opposition.
The hearing caused some consternation among cannabis industry players, but the DEA’s decision to hold such a hearing was not a major surprise.
“While the outcome could ultimately be better, I think we’re so used to delays that it’s just a little disappointing,” said Stephen Abraham, chief financial officer at The Blinc Group, a supplier of cartridges and other hardware for marijuana vaporizers. “Any time you slow down the legal market or take resources away from it, it benefits the illegal market.”
The proposal, signed by Attorney General Merrick Garland rather than DEA director Anne Milgram, followed a recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Federal drug policy has lagged behind that of many states in recent years: 38 states have already legalized marijuana for medical purposes and 24 for recreational apply.
Lawmakers from both major parties have championed the change as marijuana becomes increasingly decriminalized and accepted. A Gallup poll last year found that 70 percent of adults favor legalization, the highest the polling firm has ever recorded and more than double the roughly three in 10 who favored it in 2000.
The marijuana industry has also grown rapidly, and state-licensed marijuana businesses are interested in restructuring, in part because it would allow them to deduct federal business expenses that are not available to businesses that “deal” with Schedule I or II drugs. For some of Vicente’s clients, the change would effectively reduce the tax rate from 75% to 25%.
Some legalization advocates also hope that restructuring could persuade Congress to pass legislation aimed at opening the doors of banks to cannabis businesses. Currently, many state-regulated banks are hesitant to lend to such businesses, or sometimes even offer them checks or other basic services, because of the drug’s legal status.
Reclassification could also make research into marijuana easier, since it is hard to conduct approved clinical trials on Schedule I substances. Some patient advocates who prescribe medical marijuana worry that the discussion is already highly politicized and that the focus on the potential impact of reclassification on the industry has diverted attention from the people who could benefit from it.
“We were hoping that we could finally take the next step and create the national medical cannabis program that we need,” said Steph Sherer, founder and president of Americans for Safe Access. The organization advocates for placing cannabis in its own drug category and establishing a medical cannabis office within the DHS.
However, the immediate impact of reclassification on the U.S. criminal justice system would likely be less, given that federal prosecutions for basic possession have been relatively sporadic in recent years.
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Peltz reported from New York.
