DEA and cannabis reform advocates filed a fifth joint status report Monday on an interlocutory appeal challenging alleged agency bias and improper communications with anti-rescheduling parties during the marijuana rescheduling review. The filing states: "To date, Movants' interlocutory appeal to the Administrator regarding their Motion to Reconsider remains pending with the Administrator. No briefing schedule has been set."
The stall continues nearly a year after a former administrative law judge accepted the appeal. DEA, which controls the briefing schedule, has yet to act—even as President Donald Trump's executive order, issued more than three months ago, directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to finalize a rule moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act "in the most expeditious manner." Trump has since fired Bondi, installing DOJ official Todd Blanche as acting attorney general on a temporary basis.
During his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation process, Blanche said he would "give the matter careful consideration after conferring with all relevant stakeholders, including DEA personnel." On aligning federal and state marijuana laws, he said "coordination between federal and state authorities is critically important" but that he had "not had the opportunity to study this particular issue." DEA Administrator Terrance Cole had separately told senators during his confirmation hearing that examining the rescheduling proposal would be "one of my first priorities."
A leading marijuana prohibitionist group has retained former Attorney General Bill Barr to sue to reverse the rescheduling rule if and when it is finalized, and plans a parallel administrative petition to keep cannabis in Schedule I. A coalition of Republican state attorneys general also criticized the rescheduling decision, arguing cannabis is "properly" classified as Schedule I with no accepted medical use. Groups of House and Senate Republicans sent letters urging Trump not to reschedule, though Trump dismissed those objections, citing polling and medical benefits for people with serious health issues, including personal friends.
A Congressional Research Service report noted that DOJ could in theory decline to enact rescheduling or restart the review process. Moving cannabis to Schedule III would not legalize it but would formally recognize its medical value, allow marijuana businesses to take federal tax deductions, and remove certain research barriers. Separately, DEA recently finalized 2026 legal production quotas for controlled substances, raising allowable amounts for certain psychedelics used in research.
