A new federal watchdog report is calling on agencies to improve their policies that govern the drug scheduling process—including how they evaluate substances and develop recommendations.
The new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published on Wednesday comes as the federal government continues to consider whether to comprehensively reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III as was recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In general, GAO found that the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) scheduling decisions usually aligned with HHS and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommendations during the period of six years that it examined—but that both agencies lack important procedures for carrying out their responsibilities and to ensure consistency in the process.
“We found that DEA and FDA have some policies that address aspects of the scheduling process; however, these policies have gaps,” the report said. “For example, DEA does not have any policies or procedures regarding how its staff are to conduct evaluations or schedule substances. In addition, FDA does not have policies or procedures specifying how its staff are to conduct evaluations or develop scheduling recommendations for substances.”
“DEA does not have policies that assign roles and responsibilities related
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