U.S. Attorney General — 2025

Over the past 10 years two diver­gent paths have emerged for med­ical use of cannabis.  One path, con­sum­able hemp prod­ucts (Iowa Code Chap­ter 204), took a hit last night in the U.S. Sen­ate.  H.R. 5371, Sec­tion 781 (119th Cong. 2025–2026).  The oth­er path, med­ical cannabis (Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E), has been sanc­tioned by Con­gress for the past ten years in the annu­al appro­pri­a­tions for the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice, your depart­ment.  H.R. 5342, Sec­tion 531 (119th Cong. 2025–2026), and S. 2354, Sec­tion 531 (119th Cong. 2025–2026).

It is time to cre­ate a sin­gle path going for­ward.  Take these state med­ical cannabis pro­grams, sanc­tioned by Con­gress for the past decade in the annu­al appro­pri­a­tions for your depart­ment, out of the hands of crim­i­nal orgniza­tions.  Forc­ing patients to choose between vio­lat­ing fed­er­al drug law or going with­out treat­ment is absurd and expos­es the pub­lic to dan­ger with­out good rea­son.  Safe Streets Alliance v. Hick­en­loop­er, 859 F.3d 865, 884 (10th Cir. 2017) (“Mar­i­jua­na is a con­trolled sub­stance under the CSA.  21 U.S.C. § 802(16).  So the man­u­fac­ture, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and sale of that sub­stance is, by def­i­n­i­tion, rack­e­teer­ing activ­i­ty under RICO.  18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(A), (D)”).

Your depart­ment is cur­rent­ly in the process of trans­fer­ring cannabis from Sched­ule 1 of the Con­trolled Sub­stances Act (CSA) to Sched­ule 3.  Rule Mak­ing Dock­et ID: DEA-2024–0059.  As I am sure you are aware by now, Sched­ule 3 will not legit­imize any state cannabis pro­gram, med­ical or oth­er­wise.  There is a process your depart­ment could use to bring these state pro­grams into com­pli­ance with the CSA, 21 U.S.C. § 822(d).

(d) Waiv­er
The Attor­ney Gen­er­al may, by reg­u­la­tion, waive the require­ment for reg­is­tra­tion of cer­tain man­u­fac­tur­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, or dis­pensers if he finds it con­sis­tent with the pub­lic health and safe­ty.

Sec­tion 822(d) would resolve the per­ceived con­flict between state law and the CSA, 21 U.S.C. § 903.

§ 903.  Appli­ca­tion of State law
No pro­vi­sion of this sub­chap­ter shall be con­strued as indi­cat­ing an intent on the part of the Con­gress to occu­py the field in which that pro­vi­sion oper­ates, includ­ing crim­i­nal penal­ties, to the exclu­sion of any State law on the same sub­ject mat­ter which would oth­er­wise be with­in the author­i­ty of the State, unless there is a pos­i­tive con­flict between that pro­vi­sion of this sub­chap­ter and that State law so that the two can­not con­sis­tent­ly stand togeth­er.

This may seem a bit awk­ward to you since the per­ceived con­flict between state law and the CSA has been ini­ti­at­ed by state law.  But the pro­posed trans­fer of cannabis from Sched­ule 1 to Sched­ule 3 is a direct response from your depart­ment result­ing from these state laws and Sched­ule 3 will not com­plete­ly resolve the per­ceived con­flict.  Trans­fer­ring cannabis from Sched­ule 1 to Sched­ule 3 sig­nals that med­ical use of cannabis can be con­sis­tent with pub­lic health and safe­ty, which is a require­ment of 21 U.S.C. § 822(d).

In 2020, 2020 Iowa Acts Chap­ter 1116, Sec­tion 31, instruct­ed the Iowa Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health to apply for a fed­er­al waiv­er, but Chap­ter 1116 did not cite Sec­tion 822(d) as the fed­er­al author­i­ty for grant­i­ng the waiv­er.  In 2021, the Iowa Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health sent a let­ter (the text of Sec­tion 31) to the DEA, but your depart­ment hasn’t respond­ed to it.

The Iowa Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board has been rec­om­mend­ing a legal task force to fol­low up with your depart­ment, but the leg­is­la­ture has not yet enact­ed it.  See the annu­al reports for 2022, 2023, and 2024, Rec­om­men­da­tion #8:
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/DF/1313462.pdf
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/DF/1441905.pdf
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/DF/1518508.pdf

8.  Seek a Fed­er­al Exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram
The Board rec­om­mends that a task force of legal experts be autho­rized, sim­i­lar to the cur­rent board of med­ical experts, to assist the depart­ment in nav­i­gat­ing the legal issues involved with request­ing an exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram from nec­es­sary Fed­er­al agen­cies.  This is relat­ed to a rec­om­men­da­tion in the Board’s 2019 Annu­al Report and the pas­sage of HF2589 in June 2020.

Please invite the states to sub­mit an appli­ca­tion for a wavier under Sec­tion 822(d) and your depart­ment can eval­u­ate these appli­ca­tions on a state-by-state basis to make sure they are con­sis­tent with cur­rent fed­er­al pol­i­cy (the annu­al appro­pri­a­tions bills for your agency and the pend­ing sched­ul­ing pro­pos­al).

Thank you!

Attachments:

• Novem­ber 10, 2020, Let­ter from the DEA to Carl Olsen
• April 23, 2021, Let­ter from the Iowa Depart­ment of Health to the DEA
• April 27, 2021, Let­ter from the DEA to Carl Olsen