The government spent most of its final brief making the legal case for Schedule III. Then, in the closing pages, it took the opposition’s witnesses apart, and quoted some of those same witnesses to prove cannabis is medicine. One scientist walked away almost untouched. She works at the DEA.
The federal government’s closing argument for moving marijuana to Schedule III is in, and its lawyers did not hedge. “Marijuana can no longer remain in Schedule I,” the DEA’s attorneys wrote in a post-hearing brief filed August 17 with Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek C. Julius, asking the judge to “expeditiously recommend” the transfer.
It is the government’s last word before Julius drafts the recommendation that will frame DEA Administrator Terrance “Terry” Cole‘s final decision. And it lands where this proceeding was always going to land: not on whether cannabis has medicinal value, but on which legal test gets to answer that question, and on whose testimony the judge should be allowed to believe.
High Times has covered this hearing since before it opened: the participant roster stacked entirely with opponents, the DOJ’s argument that those opponents’ real injuries are commercial, and the stretch of days in which the opposition’s own witnesses kept helping the government. The closing brief turns that pattern into legal strategy.
Six briefs arrived by the August 17 deadline, as first reported by Marijuana Moment: the government’s, a joint filing from Smart Approaches to Marijuana and the states of Idaho, Indiana and Nebraska, separate briefs from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association, a joint brief from DUID Victim Voices and pain physician Dr. Kenneth Finn, and a pro se statement from pharmacist Dr. Phillip Drum. Julius capped each at 50 pages. The government used all 50. …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
