“States need federal guidance on planned implementation to give them time to adjust laws and regulations and to give operators time to adjust their operations to meet federal requirements.”
By Gillian Schauer, Cannabis Regulators Association
The federal government’s successful implementation of a final rule rescheduling medical marijuana will depend heavily on state regulatory systems. Yet the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) headquarters has not meaningfully engaged the state regulators responsible for those systems—or the organization that represents them—despite offers to help address unresolved questions, identify conflicts between federal and state requirements and promote consistent implementation across the country.
That engagement is especially important because the rescheduling rule itself relies extensively on state medical marijuana programs. Issued by the U.S. attorney general in April, the rule immediately moved U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved products containing marijuana, as well as cannabis “in any form covered by a state medical marijuana license,” from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
State programs are cited in the rule as being central to compliance with international drug laws and treaties.
It says that state licensing systems “demonstrate a sustained capacity to achieve the public-interest objectives that underlie the CSA’s registration framework.” The
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