6 Governors Push Biden to Reschedule Cannabis Before Year’s End

A group of Democratic governors from six states sent President Joe Biden a letter Dec. 5 urging him to see that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reschedules cannabis before the end of 2023.

The governors applauded Biden’s order from October 2022 that directed U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland to initiate the administrative process to review how cannabis is scheduled under federal law.

Cannabis Business Times confirmed in August 2023 that Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health for the HHS, sent DEA Administrator Anne Milgram a letter recommending cannabis be reclassified under Controlled Substances Act. While Bloomberg reported the recommendation was for a Schedule III listing, this actual recommendation was redacted from the letter received by CBT.

Now, three months after that recommendation, a group of governors from across the country are urging Biden to see it through that the DEA acts sooner rather than later on the HHS rescheduling recommendation.

The Dec. 5 letter was signed by Govs. Jared Polis, Colo., JB Pritzker, Ill., John Bel Edwards, La., Wes Moore, Md., Phil Murphy, N.J., and Kathy Hochul, N.Y.

“We hope that DEA will follow suit and reschedule cannabis to Schedule III this year, given that 88 percent of Americans are in favor of legalization for medical or recreational use,” the governors wrote. “Rescheduling cannabis aligns with a safe, regulated product that Americans can trust.”

Specifically, the HHS was tasked with overseeing a medical and scientific analysis of cannabis. The department coordinated this review with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which considered eight factors before making the control status recommendation to the DEA.

“This decision by a leading federal health agency comes on the heels of 38 states creating their own state markets and complementary regulatory systems,” the governors wrote. “In some cases, these state regimes have thrived for more than a decade, and this recommendation by FDA is a real testament to their success. It’s a signal that FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services have faith in state regulators and the regulations that they have promulgated to keep citizens safe.”

Also, tax revenues in states with regulated cannabis programs are used to help fund education, law enforcement and other gubernatorial priorities that have been “historically underfunded,” they wrote, and rescheduling cannabis will only further the fiscal benefits of legalization.

A Schedule III listing will also provide myriad economic and tax benefits, including alleviating restrictions on Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code to allow cannabis-related businesses to take ordinary tax deductions just like every other American business, according to the governors.

“Cannabis no longer being required to follow Section 280E will serve to make this industry profitable while safeguarding hundreds of thousands of jobs and protecting the health and safety of American consumers,” they wrote. “As governors, we might disagree about whether recreational cannabis legalization or even cannabis use is a net positive, but we agree that the cannabis industry is here to stay, the states have created strong regulations, and supporting the state-regulated marketplace is essential for the safety of the American people.”

The governors also said rescheduling cannabis will protect public health, notably Americans who seek “more dangerous” drugs such as opioids, which are responsible for roughly 80,000 overdose deaths per year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, there were no deaths attributed to cannabis overdoses last year, according to the DEA.

“Regulated cannabis is a safer alternative [to opioids], but not all cannabis is regulated,” the governors wrote. “Rescheduling cannabis will ensure more regulation and oversight of cannabis use and decrease the use of unregulated cannabis and hemp products.

“Too often these unregulated hemp products replicate well-known children’s candy brands. Fentanyl has been detected in unregulated marijuana products, and tests on these products have resulted in high levels of heavy metals, unwanted contaminants, and extraordinarily high THC content.”

The bottom line that the governors opined in the letter is that consumer demand for cannabis will persist in the U.S. regardless of the public policy choices that state and federal leaders make. Whether it’s from a regulated market or an unlicensed market, consumers will procure cannabis “as they always have,” the governors wrote.

The “obvious and sensible” answer is to make cannabis as safe as possible for adult consumers while also protecting children via a regulated marketplace, they concluded.

“As governors, we have a duty to protect our communities. As adults, we have a duty to protect children. As Americans, we have a duty to protect our country,” they wrote. “This is the greatest nation on earth. It’s time to act like it by promoting safe products, taking enforcement actions against dangerous products and individuals or organizations that violate state law, and focusing on the real problems that we face as a community.”