State administrative agencies must follow state law

On Wednes­day, Novem­ber 19, 2014, the Iowa Board of Phar­ma­cy vot­ed to delay the rul­ing on my peti­tion to have mar­i­jua­na reclas­si­fied in Iowa.

The board vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to rec­om­mend reclas­si­fi­ca­tion in 2010, so this is not some­thing new the board has not pre­vi­ous­ly con­sid­ered.  Unless the board votes to recon­sid­er that 2010 rec­om­men­da­tion, the 2010 rec­om­men­da­tion still stands (but it’s get­ting old and dusty and needs a refresh).  Act­ing in good faith, the board vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly on August 27, 2014, to have a study com­mit­tee revis­it this issue.  On Novem­ber 17, 2014, the study com­mit­tee, chaired by Monona phar­ma­cist Edward Maier, held a pub­lic hear­ing.  On Novem­ber 19, 2014, Maier pre­sent­ed the study com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tion that the board renew it’s 2010 rec­om­men­da­tion to reclas­si­fy mar­i­jua­na as a med­i­cine here in Iowa.

What caused the delay was an objec­tion from Dubuque phar­ma­cist James A. Miller.  Miller said he had­n’t had time to review the sub­com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tion.  Miller said that while the 2010 unan­i­mous rec­om­men­da­tion of the board to rec­om­mend reclas­si­fi­ca­tion in Iowa still stands, he does­n’t agree with it.  Strange­ly enough, Miller did not cite any evi­dence that mar­i­jua­na is cor­rect­ly clas­si­fied.  Rather, Miller’s objec­tion is that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has mar­i­jua­na clas­si­fied incon­sis­tent­ly with the board­’s 2010 rec­om­men­da­tion and that Iowa should fol­low the out­dat­ed fed­er­al sched­ul­ing until the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment fix­es it.  The Iowa Board of Phar­ma­cy is autho­rized by law to rec­om­mend changes to state sched­ul­ing of mar­i­jua­na, but has no cor­re­spond­ing autho­riza­tion to rec­om­mend changes in fed­er­al sched­ul­ing.  Adding to the con­fu­sion, Miller said the Iowa Board of Phar­ma­cy has no author­i­ty to rec­om­mend changes in state sched­ul­ing.

Although the board fre­quent­ly uses it’s author­i­ty to rec­om­mend reclas­si­fi­ca­tion when the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment adds a new sub­stance to the fed­er­al sched­ules, pri­or to 2010 I’m not aware of any instance where the board has pre­vi­ous­ly used its author­i­ty to dis­agree with fed­er­al sched­ul­ing.  It’s my opin­ion that Miller is going to have to dis­agree with the 2010 rec­om­men­da­tion on its mer­its, because he has­n’t giv­en any valid rea­sons for keep­ing mar­i­jua­na in it’s cur­rent clas­si­fi­ca­tion here in Iowa.  If the fac­tors the Iowa leg­is­la­ture requires the board to con­sid­er do not jus­ti­fy keep­ing mar­i­jua­na in it’s cur­rent clas­si­fi­ca­tion as good for noth­ing, then Miller needs to fol­low that law or con­sid­er work­ing for a fed­er­al admin­is­tra­tive agency.