As Chief Administrative Legislation Decide Derek Julius weighs his advice on transferring hashish to Schedule III, the DEA’s personal closing temporary assaults practically each witness who opposed it — bar one scientist inside its personal ranks.
With the complete 2,533-page listening to transcript now publicly out there, alongside either side’ last written arguments, we now have the clearest image but of the instances made by every occasion, and extra importantly, which held legit weight more likely to affect the ultimate advice.
After the 11-day testimony closed on July 14, 2026, written closing arguments had been submitted on August 17 and 18, with the full corrected transcripts printed days later. These additions present considerably extra element than we’ve but been capable of entry. Under is our breakdown of the important thing new info from the publications.
Hashish can ‘not stay in Schedule I’
The DEA’s post-hearing temporary supplied maybe the strongest statements in help of the shifting hashish from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Managed Substances Act of your complete listening to.
Filed on August 17, the temporary states that hashish ‘can not stay in Schedule I’, citing the ten-month scientific assessment carried out by the Division of Well being and Human Companies and the Meals and Drug Administration, which discovered hashish has a at the moment accepted medical use for ache, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and anorexia linked to medical circumstances, as its key supply.
It goes on to reference greater than 30,000 practitioners at the moment authorised to suggest hashish to over 6m sufferers throughout 43 US jurisdictions as proof of that use. Whereas it doesn’t deny the abuse and dependence dangers related to hashish, it argues that the drug’s dependence profile aligns extra carefully with Schedule III than Schedule I or II.
Past offering its personal scientific proof, the DEA’s last temporary takes intention on the credibility or relevance of practically each witness on the opposing benches.
Yale psychiatrist Deepak D’Souza’s testimony on ache administration is dismissed as exterior his ‘admitted experience’ in psychiatry.
Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal is faulted for missing any significant connection to the states that known as him, Nebraska, Idaho and Indiana. This criticism performed out within the transcripts. Underneath cross-examination by authorities counsel David Maley, Honsal agreed that his jurisdiction, California’s Emerald Triangle, falls underneath no sheriff’s authority in Nebraska, Indiana or Idaho.
DUID Sufferer Voices founder Ed Wooden is accused of violating witness sequestration guidelines and providing ‘irrelevant and speculative’ testimony, whereas workplace-testing witnesses Patrice Kelly and Mary Jo McGuire are stated to relaxation on ‘hypothetical, future hurdles.’
Even Bertha Madras, a Harvard Medical Faculty psychiatry professor known as by Sensible Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) to argue in opposition to rescheduling, is cited approvingly for testimony the DEA says helps accepted use for neuropathic ache and cancer-related urge for food loss.
Notably, Luli Akinfiresoye, a pharmacologist within the DEA’s personal Drug and Chemical Analysis Part, subpoenaed by SAM, escaped the DEA’s criticism.
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What the opposition continues to be arguing
The opposition’s closing briefs, filed the identical week, are narrower and extra defensive, largely reprising positions from testimony fairly than breaking new floor.
- SAM, joined by Nebraska, Idaho and Indiana, argues the federal government’s two-part medical-use check is a ‘newfound commonplace’ with no foundation within the Managed Substances Act, and that not less than 9 prior federal critiques discovered hashish unsuitable for rescheduling.
- The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation disputes the Legal professional Basic’s authority to have initiated the rule in any respect, fairly than the DEA Administrator, and argues the method understated diversion, violent crime and impaired-driving danger.
- The Nationwide Drug and Alcohol Screening Affiliation warns Schedule III standing would strip federal workplace-testing authority for safety-sensitive roles, from air visitors controllers to federal security-clearance holders.
- DUID Sufferer Voices and ache doctor Kenneth Finn argue the two-part check was adopted with out notice-and-comment rulemaking and understates psychosis, cardiovascular and impaired-driving harms.
- Pharmacist Phillip Drum, showing individually, argues a botanical product with 300-plus energetic compounds can’t meet pharmaceutical requirements for dosing and high quality management.
Underneath cross-examination, a number of of those positions weakened significantly. Finn, probably the most regularly cited ache doctor within the opposition’s filings, confirmed in a handful of questions that he has advisable hashish to his personal sufferers prior to now, and agreed that, not like opioid customers, hashish customers don’t cease respiratory from the drug alone.
Emergency doctor Karen Randall’s slide deck, supposed for instance paediatric hurt, featured {a photograph} of a kid utilizing a bong that she admitted got here from a Reddit discussion board: requested how she knew the kid within the {photograph} was actual, she stated, ‘I assume together with your line of questioning, I don’t.’
Wooden’s declare that rescheduling might produce 6,000 extra annual visitors deaths, equally cracked underneath scrutiny: ‘We are able to’t say that these 6,000 deaths had been all attributable to marijuana,’ he acknowledged. ‘There’s no intent to say that.’
Eleven days in short
- Day 1 (June 29): DEA legal professional James Schwartz opens: ‘It’s about regulation, not legalisation.’ FDA’s Dominic Chiapperino begins direct testimony on HHS’s ten-month assessment.
- Day 2 (June 30): Chiapperino, underneath cross, concedes hashish ‘wouldn’t have handed’ the standard five-factor check. Authorities witness Corey Burchman, an anaesthesiologist, begins testimony contrasting opioid and hashish withdrawal.
- Day 3 (July 1): Burchman’s cross exposes the bounds of his authority: he repeatedly qualifies, ‘I’m not a psychiatrist,’ whereas having advisable hashish for PTSD and nervousness.
- Day 4 (July 2): Office-testing witnesses Patrice Kelly and Mary Jo McGuire testify for the Nationwide Drug and Alcohol Screening Affiliation.
- Day 5 (July 3): Madras testifies for SAM however concedes hashish ‘won’t kill you with an overdose’ by means of respiratory melancholy.
- Day 6 (July 7): Akinfiresoye testifies unchallenged. Wooden testifies on traffic-fatality projections; the federal government strikes to strike his testimony, Julius denies the movement however limits it to weight, and DEA declines to cross-examine.
- Day 7 (July 8): Finn is cross-examined in a handful of questions and concedes he has advisable hashish to sufferers. Laura Stack, of Johnny’s Ambassadors, testifies about her son’s loss of life.
- Day 8 (July 9): Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent Erica Stephens testifies on diversion and enforcement; Julius interrupts to make clear TBI counsel’s use of the phrase ‘deregulation’ as shorthand for rescheduling.
- Day 9 (July 10): Pharmacist Phillip Drum begins testimony, arguing hashish can’t meet pharmacy dosing requirements, citing workplace-safety incidents at named hashish operators.
- Day 10 (July 11): Drum’s cross continues. Randall testifies; her Reddit-sourced slide is discredited on cross. Yale’s Deepak D’Souza begins testimony for the opposing states, disclosing underneath oath that he receives no compensation from any hashish or pharmaceutical curiosity.
- Day 11 (July 14): D’Souza’s cross concludes with the federal government studying again his personal prior public assertion that ‘the overwhelming majority of people that use hashish use it moderately,’ which he confirms as correct. Honsal testifies and, underneath cross, agrees his California jurisdiction has no bearing on the states that known as him. Julius closes the evidentiary file.
