It’s been three weeks since the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) filed its plan in the Federal Register to reschedule marijuana. In that time, over 15,000 people have submitted comments.
Since the DEA’s proposal was filed on May 21, launching a 60-day public comment period that ends on July 22, there have been over 15,000 comments submitted.
A little over half of these comments are urging the DEA to go even further than rescheduling marijuana by descheduling it altogether. This would remove marijuana as a controlled substance, effectively decriminalizing it nationwide. Legislation deschedule marijuana currently has 89 sponsors in the US House of Representatives and 18 sponsors in the Senate.
Less than 10% of the total comments submitted are urging the DEA to retract their proposal and retain marijuana as a Schedule I drug. Although this number has risen slightly since our last analysis of comments, it’s clear that the overwhelming majority support at least some sort of change from the status quo.
The DEA’s proposal, if implemented, would reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III substance. This shift would enable the legal prescription of medications containing marijuana and its compounds nationwide, pending FDA approval. Additionally, it would grant federal protections to state-legal medical marijuana patients and businesses, which are currently unavailable.
Recently a DEA official told us that a finalized ruling is on track to be issued “by the end of September, but as soon as the end of August.”
All comments to the DEA are publicly accessible and can be viewed by clicking here. You can submit your own comments to the DEA by clicking here.
