Louisiana will no longer participate as part of a group of states opposing federal marijuana rescheduling, after a Drug Enforcement Administration administrative law judge granted the state’s request to withdraw from the proceeding.
In an order dated June 25, DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek C. Julius said Louisiana filed a motion one day earlier stating that it was voluntarily withdrawing as a designated party in the case. The order says the state had been selected by the DEA administrator, along with Nebraska, Idaho and Indiana, to participate as one interested party in the rescheduling matter.
With Louisiana’s withdrawal granted, the designated party will now consist of Nebraska, Idaho and Indiana.
Julius wrote that Louisiana, by withdrawing, “waives its status as a person entitled to a hearing” and may no longer submit filings or be heard in the matter. The order also states that references to “The States” or the “Opposed States” in the previously issued hearing schedule should no longer be interpreted to include Louisiana.
The order does not state why Louisiana asked to withdraw.
The development comes just days before the DEA’s marijuana rescheduling hearing is scheduled to begin on June 29. The proceeding concerns whether marijuana should be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III under the federal Controlled Substances Act.
Louisiana’s withdrawal narrows the group of states formally participating in opposition to the proposed reclassification. Nebraska, Idaho and Indiana remain part of the designated group in the administrative proceeding.
The hearing is separate from an April federal order that placed certain FDA-approved cannabis products and marijuana regulated under qualifying state medical marijuana programs in Schedule III. That order did not broadly reschedule adult-use marijuana or all marijuana products under federal law.
The June 29 hearing is part of the ongoing process to determine marijuana’s broader classification under the Controlled Substances Act, an issue that has drawn national attention from lawmakers, state officials, medical marijuana advocates and the marijuana industry.
