In a secluded part of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters, known as the 12th floor “bubble,” the chief Anne Milgram made an unusual request to the main deputies summoned in March for what she called the “Marijuana Meeting”: No one could take notes.
Over the next half hour, she broke the news that the Biden administration would soon issue a long-awaited order reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a major obstacle to federal legalization that the DEA has long resisted. And Milgram revealed another twist, according to two people familiar with the private meeting who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, that the process normally handled by the DEA has been taken over by the U.S. Department of Justice and the action would not be signed by it. , but by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Milgram did not give aides a reason for the unprecedented omission, and neither she nor the DEA has explained it since. But everything unfolded last week exactly as predicted at that meeting two months ago, with the most significant change in drug policy in 50 years launched without the support of the country’s main counternarcotics agency.
“The DEA has not yet made a decision regarding its opinion on the appropriate timeline for marijuana,” reads a sentence inserted into 13 pages of Garland’s 92-page order last Thursday, describing the Biden administration’s proposal to transfer the marijuana from its current Schedule I along with heroin and LSD to the less regulated Schedule III with drugs like ketamine and some anabolic steroids.
Internal records accompanying the order indicate that the DEA sent a memo to the Department of Justice in late January requesting additional scientific information to determine whether marijuana has an accepted medicinal use, a key requirement for reclassification. But those concerns were dismissed by Justice Department lawyers, who called the DEA’s criteria “inadmissibly narrow.”
Several current and former DEA officials told the AP they believe politics may be at play, arguing that the Justice Department is moving forward with marijuana rescheduling because the President Joe Biden want to use the problem to woo voters in his re-election campaign and was unwilling to give the DEA time for further studies that likely would have dragged on beyond Election Day.
These officials also noted that although the Controlled Substances Act gives the attorney general responsibility for regulating the sale of dangerous drugs, federal law still delegates the authority to classify drugs to the DEA administrator.
“It is absolutely clear to me that the Department of Justice has hijacked the rescheduling process, putting politics above public safety,” said Derek Maltz, a retired agent who once headed the DEA’s Special Operations Division. “If there is scientific evidence to support this decision, so be it. But you have to let the scientists evaluate that.”
Former DEA Administrator Tim Shea said Milgram’s surprising lack of approval suggests she was supporting “DEA professionals.”
“If she had supported it, she would have signed it and sent it,” said Shea, who served in the Trump administration. “The DEA objected to it and politics came in and overruled them. It’s demoralizing. Everyone from the agents on the streets to DEA leadership knows the dangers this brings.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment, but press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previously said Biden was committed to fulfilling a 2020 campaign promise. “He said no person, no American who possesses marijuana should go to the jail. It is affecting communities across the country, including communities of color.”
Justice Department lawyers defended Garland’s decision to proceed without Milgram’s support, saying in a separate memo that the action was motivated by “profoundly different views” between the DEA and the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS last year recommended reclassifying marijuana, considering it less risky for public health than cocaine, heroin and oxycodone, and effective in treating anorexia, pain and other illnesses.
HHS concluded in part that “although marijuana abuse produces clear evidence of a risk to public health, this risk is relatively less” than “that posed by other drugs.”
The DEA rejected those findings, and Garland’s order cites at least 10 times when the pharmaceutical agency requested additional information before approving HHS medical findings. It did not respond to AP questions seeking further comment.
The Justice Department did not comment on internal differences, but in a statement said the proposal was “consistent with HHS scientific and medical determinations.”
The dissonance within the federal government underscores the ongoing debate over the risks posed by cannabis, despite 38 states having legalized medical marijuana and 24 having legalized its recreational use. At the same time, more voters — 70% of adults, according to a Gallup poll last fall — support legalization, the highest level the polling company has ever recorded.
“The argument that marijuana is as dangerous as fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine is ridiculous,” said Matthew C. Zorn, a Houston lawyer who writes a newsletter on cannabis regulation. “The DEA is not where most Americans are. They are on the wrong side of history.”
But even HHS’s National Institute on Drug Abuse has made statements in apparent conflict with the HHS recommendation to reclassify marijuana, saying that marijuana’s potency has steadily increased over the years, resulting in a greater number of emergency room visits. aid to treat a wide range of physical and mental effects, from respiratory problems and mental disability to hallucinations and paranoia.
“Whether smoking or consuming marijuana has therapeutic benefits that outweigh its health risks is still an open question that science has not resolved,” said Nora Volkow, a neuroscientist who leads NIDA, currently quoted on the institute’s website. She did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment.
NIDA last conducted a medical evaluation of marijuana in 2015 — a year before the Obama administration’s DEA rejected a similar request to reschedule the drug.
This time, after Biden ordered a review of the drug’s status in 2022, HHS adopted new criteria to reach the rescheduling conclusion, taking into account states that have already legalized medical marijuana.
The reprogramming movement, first reported by the AP last month, faces a potentially lengthy process. The DEA, which is not bound by HHS medical determinations at this time, will take public comment about the rescheduling plan before review by an administrative law judge and publication of a final decision. Federal prosecutions involving marijuana are already extremely rare, but a III classification would still make marijuana a controlled substance subject to rules and regulations
For her part, Milgram said little about her stance on marijuana and was not questioned about it during her confirmation. When she took the helm of the agency in 2021, she privately told colleagues that she considered the legalization debate a distraction from the much more serious fentanyl crisis, according to one of the people who spoke to the AP.
Milgram is known for a progressive, data-driven approach to law enforcement dating back to her time as New Jersey’s Democratic attorney general. When the state governor, a close ally, signed a bill in 2010 that made the state the 14th to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, she said only that the legislation was “feasible.”
Last week, she was similarly opaque in a three-sentence announcement to DEA employees obtained by the AP.
“As necessary,” she wrote, “DEA will post this notice and any attachments on our website.”
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Goodman reported from Miami, Mustian from New York.
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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or
