DEA Judge Pauses Marijuana Rescheduling Over Watchdog Findings

The Drug Enforcement Administration's chief administrative law judge halted the federal marijuana rescheduling case on September 29, postponing his recommended decision on whether cannabis should move from Schedule I to Schedule III while he weighs a government watchdog's finding that the federal government's entire drug scheduling apparatus runs on procedures that were never written down.

Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek C. Julius issued the stay one day after three parties opposed to rescheduling asked him to fold a new Government Accountability Office report into the administrative record. The report, released days earlier, concluded that the DEA and the Food and Drug Administration lack the written policies and procedures they are supposed to follow when deciding which drugs are banned, restricted, or made available by prescription.

A last-minute motion reshapes the record

The motion came from DUID Victim Voices, physician Kenneth Finn, and the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association — three participants who have opposed moving marijuana out of Schedule I. They asked Julius to admit the GAO report as a supplemental exhibit, or at minimum to take official notice of it, and to allow up to 10 pages of additional briefing on what the report means for the case.

They also asked him to delay his recommended decision until that briefing is complete. Julius granted only the immediate pause, writing that if the record is expanded to include the report, additional briefing before a recommended decision would be appropriate.

The DEA has until October 13 to respond and may use up to 20 pages. Other participants in the hearing are permitted, but not required, to file by the same date.

What the watchdog actually found

The GAO examined how the two agencies divide responsibility for scheduling substances under the Controlled Substances Act, and concluded that the split exists mostly as practice rather than policy. "DEA does not have policies that identify roles, responsibilities, and procedures related to scheduling," the report states, a gap that spans administrative scheduling, new drug application scheduling, temporary scheduling, and scheduling tied to international treaties.

At the FDA, the missing paperwork is narrower but more consequential for how drugs get ranked against one another. The agency has no written criteria or process for determining a substance's "potential for abuse" — including how that potential compares with other drugs — even though the eight-factor evaluation performed by staff at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research is the foundation of the recommendation the Department of Health and Human Services sends to the DEA. Nor is there a written methodology for how the comparison should be made.

A separate memorandum of understanding that governs the FDA's consultation with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which shapes those recommendations, is more than 40 years old and no longer reflects the entities involved or the current process. It also lacks a term clause requiring periodic review.

The report is not a finding of bad decisions. Of the 208 substances the DEA scheduled between 2020 and 2025, an HHS evaluation was required for 95. The DEA considered HHS input on all 95, published final rules for 84 of them, and its decision matched the HHS recommendation in every completed case; the remaining 11 were still under extended temporary scheduling orders. Another 113 substances were scheduled by act of Congress, a pathway that requires no agency evaluation at all.

The GAO issued three recommendations — written policies at the DEA, written evaluation procedures at the FDA, and an updated FDA–NIDA agreement. All three agencies concurred. All three recommendations remain open, meaning the GAO has not yet confirmed any corrective action.

Where the case stood before the pause

The rescheduling hearing ran from June 29 through July 15, and post-hearing briefing had already been completed. Until the stay, the only remaining step before the case reached the administrator was Julius's recommended decision on whether marijuana satisfies the criteria for Schedule III.

The DEA argued during the proceeding that marijuana no longer meets the requirements for Schedule I because it has an accepted medical use in the United States and because its abuse and dependence profile more closely resembles substances already placed in Schedule III. The agency's posture follows the April 22 order signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that moved FDA-approved medical marijuana products and state-regulated medical cannabis to Schedule III effective April 28 — an action covered in detail in our earlier report on that reclassification.

That order was not legalization. Schedule I is reserved for substances with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse; Schedule III covers drugs with moderate to low physical and psychological dependence potential and recognized medical uses. Marijuana remains federally regulated either way, and the practical stakes of the shift sit mostly in two places: research, where Schedule I registration, security, and supply rules have slowed clinical work for decades, and taxes, where Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code has barred cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary expenses.

Why the delay matters beyond cannabis

Whichever way Julius rules on the motion, the pause inserts a formal record challenge into a proceeding that the Trump administration had been pushing toward a conclusion. A stay that becomes a reopened record can stretch the timeline by months, and the GAO's underlying critique reaches every controlled substance, not just cannabis.

For addiction treatment, rescheduling would change a legal category rather than resolve a clinical question. Cannabis would remain a controlled substance with dependence potential, and cannabis use disorder — the diagnosis that follows repeated use despite harm — still has no FDA-approved medication, leaving treatment to behavioral approaches and withdrawal management. Recent national survey data suggest the condition is more common than many clinicians assume; a September study of adults 65 and older found that roughly one in nine older adults who used cannabis in the past year met the criteria for the disorder.

People seeking help with cannabis or other substance use can find outpatient treatment programs and information on marijuana dependence through the treatment directory.