The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has revealed in a new filing for the cannabis rescheduling hearing set to start on Monday that its witness list includes a doctor who will provide testimony about how “medical marijuana provides a medical benefit to pain patients.”
The government’s other witness is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official who will describe the process the agency used to develop a recommendation to transfer cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III.
Corey Burchman, a medical doctor from New Hampshire, has been a practicing physician for more than 30 years and “will testify as a medical expert in the practice of pain management, with significant clinical experience in the use of medical marijuana,” DEA said in the new filing.
“Dr. Burchman will testify that he provided direct patient care for pain patients as an anesthesiologist and pain management physician following his residency and fellowship training in 1986 until 2019. He will testify that he was practicing at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, NH when the medical center began prioritizing medical marijuana as a treatment modality for pain patients and he worked to transition many patients from treatment with opioids to treatment with marijuana. Dr. Burchman will further testify that in his medical opinion, medical marijuana provides a medical benefit to pain patients.”
The New Hampshire doctor will also testify about “patient safety measures utilized in the industry regarding the cultivation, processing, and dispensing of medicinal marijuana, including caps on the monthly amount of medicinal marijuana allowed per patient along with product QR codes, certificates of analysis, and testing by certified labs,” given his experience with his state’s medical cannabis program.
The other DEA witness is Dominic Chiapperino, who serves as director of the controlled substance staff with FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
He will testify about federal health officials’ eight-factor analysis (8FA) analysis used to “assess marijuana’s currently accepted medical use (CAMU) in treatment in the United States,” the filing says.
That includes an initial assessment from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) that “found that licensed health care practitioners had widespread current experience with use of medical marijuana in jurisdictions where such medical use is recognized by entities that regulate the practice of medicine.”
“Dr. Chiapperino will testify that he and the Controlled Substances Staff relied on OASH’s Part I assessment to complete FDA’s Part II review of marijuana’s CAMU. Dr. Chiapperino will testify to FDA’s assessment of the findings necessary to support placement in Schedule III, namely that marijuana has a potential for abuse less than the drugs or other substances in Schedules I and II, that marijuana has a CAMU for at least one therapeutic condition, and that abuse of marijuana may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence.”
A letter from FDA that DEA attached to the new filing said the health agency is allowing Chiapperino to testify “to the scientific and medical determinations that form the basis of the 8FA…, scientific and medical determinations underlying the evaluation performed in FDA’s assessment of CAMU…, and FDA’s recommendation to place marijuana in Schedule III.”
“Dr. Chiapperino is not authorized to testify to matters outside of the aforementioned three topics, DEA said.
Cannabis reform opponents have taken issue with the analysis federal health officials used to evaluate marijuana’s medical use as part of the rescheduling recommendation, which they say improperly departs from a prior test that had been used, and it is likely their attorneys will press the FDA staffer on the reasons for the change.
DEA is technically the proponent of the proposed marijuana rescheduling rule and will fill the role of defending it during the hearing, for which no reform supporters were invited to testify.
Some cannabis reform advocates have expressed skepticism that the agency will effectively argue for rescheduling given its long history of staunchly defending strict prohibition—but the new filing indicates that the government intends to highlight marijuana’s medical benefits during the hearing. It still remains to be seen, though, how the agency’s lawyers will cross-examine witness from the opposing parties and how its own witnesses will fare under questioning from opponents’ attorneys.
Separately this week, marijuana reform opponents filed briefs previewing the arguments they plan to make in the rescheduling hearing—with briefs largely focusing on cannabis’s alleged health and safety harms.
One of the groups, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said it will call DEA pharmacologist Luli Akinfiresoye as a witness—a move that the agency has resisted in communications with the organization this week.
The DEA official was previously an official witness for an earlier, subsequently cancelled hearing on marijuana rescheduling during the Biden administration. During that time, she submitted into the record a report that attempts to link cannabis consumption to psychosis, depression and impaired cognitive functioning.
Meanwhile, Marijuana Moment this seek sent letters this week asking the DEA judge overseeing the proceedings and the DEA administrator to allow livestreaming of the hearing
DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius last week issued a preliminary order laying out rules and timelines for the marijuana rescheduling proceedings—simultaneously recognizing that “national public interest in this issue predicates towards a policy of transparency” while also determining that “the hearing will not be televised, livestreamed, or broadcasted in any way.”
As a result, people who wish to observe the historic cannabis reform process must attend in person in Arlington, Virginia under the judge’s order.
In a letter sent to Julius on Tuesday, Marijuana Moment counsel Joseph A. Bondy noted that DEA permitted livestreaming of an earlier, subsequently cancelled hearing process on the proposal to reschedule cannabis that took place during the Biden administration.
“That prior determination was correct. The public-interest rationale for contemporaneous access has not diminished,” Bondy wrote. “If DEA believes safety, witness-management, or operational concerns now require a more restrictive access regime, those concerns should be identified and addressed through narrow conditions rather than a categorical ban.”
“In a proceeding of this public significance, and in light of DEA’s prior livestreaming directive, a public hearing is not meaningfully public if access depends on the happenstance of limited physical attendance,” Marijuana Moment’s attorney wrote to the DEA judge. “Delayed access to transcripts is no substitute for contemporaneous observation. The press reports events as they unfold. The public evaluates government action in real time. And in a proceeding of this magnitude, transparency is not a courtesy. It is a safeguard.”
“For a substantial public audience seeking serious coverage of federal cannabis policy, Marijuana Moment is an important channel through which public understanding of this proceeding occurs.”
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DEA last week announced that it had selected participants for the marijuana rescheduling hearing—and only opponents of the reform have been invited to take part, some of whom have filed litigation in an attempt to block the reform. No reform supporters who expressed intent to participate were invited.
The hearing will begin on June 29 and is set to conclude no later than July 15.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April issued an order that immediately reclassified state-licensed medical cannabis, as well as marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III.
Under a separate order the acting attorney general signed, the upcoming hearing will consider more comprehensively moving marijuana to Schedule III.
A prior hearing process on the marijuana rescheduling process that was initiated by the Biden administration stalled last year amid litigation over alleged improper communications and witness selection.
The current marijuana rescheduling process is being challenged with several lawsuits that have been consolidated by a federal appeals court. Those pieces of litigation against the cannabis reform have been filed by state attorneys general, marijuana legalization opponents and a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical corporation.
Meanwhile, the already-enacted rescheduling of state-licensed medical cannabis is already having broad impacts.
The Congressional Research Service published a report on the current cannabis rescheduling move explaining that certified patients who possess medical marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries now have certain protections under Schedule III. “The order appears to authorize end users to possess marijuana for medical use without a CSA-compliant prescription,” it says.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has posted a draft update to a gun purchase form to acknowledge the federally legal status of medical marijuana under rescheduling. The revised section in question notably says that only “use or possession of marijuana for recreational purposes” is federally prohibited, leaving out the prior form’s mention of medical cannabis.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said they plan to issue new tax guidance for the marijuana industry following rescheduling. The reform will benefit state-licensed marijuana businesses by allowing them to take federal tax deductions they’re currently barred from under an IRS code known as 280E that doesn’t apply to Schedule III substances.
Even DEA, which has long opposed cannabis legalization and was accused of stalling the rescheduling process initiative by the Biden administration, has launched a registration process for state-legal marijuana businesses to take advantage of federal benefits that come with the reform.
The Department of Transportation, on the other hand, issued guidance saying that use of state-legal medical cannabis is still no excuse for a positive drug test by truck drivers, pilots and other safety-sensitive workers.
A congressional committee recently voted to block federal officials from taking further steps to carry out cannabis rescheduling.
Read the government’s new filing in the marijuana rescheduling hearing below:
The post DEA Will Highlight Testimony On Marijuana’s Medical Benefits In Rescheduling Hearing, New Filing Shows appeared first on Marijuana Moment.
