In the past two weeks, it’s looked less and less likely that marijuana will be rescheduled. On July 14th, the House Appropriations Committee released the text of a bill that proposes blocking the DOJ from using funds to reschedule or deschedule the plant. On Tuesday, Terrance Cole, a perceived anti-pot advocate, became the new DEA head. Now, the fact of marijuana being rescheduled lies entirely in his hands as the notion’s current overseer—John Mulrooney—announced his upcoming retirement.
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The day after the Senate confirmed Cole as the DEA’s new Administrator, Mulrooney announced that he will retire on August 1, leaving the agency without an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to preside over pending cannabis hearings, including the one to reschedule the plant. Now, with his retirement, the future lies in Cole’s hands—that is, until the DEA fills the ALJ position.
While this news is discouraging given Cole’s beliefs, Mulrooney is far from a weed ally.
In January, Mulrooney temporarily paused all rescheduling hearings, and in April, the DEA said the rescheduling process remained stalled under the Trump Administration.
For over seven years, the DEA has blocked MMJ BioPharm Cultivation from obtaining the proper registration to grow weed for FDA-approved clinical trials, despite being federally compliant. Mulrooney presided over the case, and it ended in the DOJ issuing the agency a Notice of Change in Position. According to the Justice Department, the DEA’s positions were unconstitutional.
He wasn’t all bad, though. Mulrooney was the one that called out the DEA’s corruption during previous iterations of the rescheduling trial, leading to the agency being sued. It was accused of conspiring with anti-rescheduling witnesses and running a secretive process to select who’d participate in the hearing.
All things considered, Mulrooney has a complicated rap sheet within his time at the DEA, but his retirement may be a net-negative. With Cole as the sole overseer of rescheduling, the future of rescheduling is even hazier.
While the new DEA head has said that he’ll prioritize the rescheduling proposal, he’s refused to say what he hopes will come of it—also, his social media contains many posts that imply that he may not be on weed’s side. He’s also cosigned sources that link weed use to schizophrenia and autism.
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Right now, rescheduling isn’t looking like it’ll happen any time soon. That doesn’t mean to give up—in fact, it means the exact opposite. It’ll be an uphill battle, but this is the time for advocates and anyone else riding on the plant being reclassified to double down and fight.