In an isolated part of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters known as the 12th-floor “bubble,” chief Anne Milgram made an unusual request of top deputies summoned in March for the “Marijuana Meeting.” She broke the news that the Biden administration would soon be issuing a long-awaited order reclassifying pot as a less-dangerous drug, a major hurdle toward federal legalization that DEA has long resisted. Milgram went on to reveal another twist, that the process normally steered by DEA had been taken over by the main U.S. Justice Department and the action would not be signed by her but by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Associated Press reports. Milgram didn’t give aides a reason for the unprecedented omission and neither she nor the DEA has explained since. It unfolded this past week exactly as laid out in that meeting two months ago, with the most significant drug policy change in 50 years launched without the support of the nation’s premier narcotics agency.
“DEA has not yet made a determination as to its views of the appropriate schedule for marijuana,” reads a sentence tucked 13 pages into Garland’s 92-page order last Thursday outlining the Biden administration proposal to shift pot from its current Schedule I alongside heroin and LSD to the less tightly regulated Schedule III with such drugs as ketamine and some anabolic steroids. Internal records indicate the DEA sent a memo to DOJ leaders in late January seeking additional scientific input to determine whether marijuana has an accepted medical use, a key requirement for reclassification. Those concerns were overruled by Justice Department attorneys, who deemed the DEA’s criteria “impermissibly narrow.” Several current and former DEA officials told the AP they believe politics may be at play, contending the Justice Department is moving forward with the marijuana reclassification because President Biden wants to use the issue to woo voters in his re-election campaign and wasn’t willing to give DEA time for more studies that likely would have dragged beyond Election Day.
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