The Justice Department is telling a federal court that it should pause a lawsuit challenging the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) marijuana rescheduling process after the agency’s own judge cancelled upcoming administrative hearings that were set to start next week.
In a filing submitted on Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the federal government said it agreed with the plaintiff, Panacea Plant Sciences, that the case should be stayed following a DEA administrative law judge’s (ALJ) decision to cancel the underlying agency-level hearings.
This comes months after Panacea Plant Sciences founder and CEO David Heldreth filed the underlying lawsuit that laid out several allegations against DEA, which he said warranted judicial intervention in the agency’s hearings on DOJ’s proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
That followed DEA Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) John Mulrooney’s prior denial of Panacea’s request to postpone the upcoming rescheduling hearing over the agency’s alleged “improper blocking” of witnesses.
Heldreth filed a motion last week urging the federal court to stay the case in light of a possible freeze on regulatory proceedings after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next week. The Justice
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