The two-month public comment period for the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s proposed rules to reschedule cannabis closed this week and the agency will now review the submissions – taking into account the American public’s views on cannabis for the first time ever.
Nearly 43,000 citizens, organizations and researchers submitted comments – the most the DEA has ever received over a proposed rule change.
The volume of responses showed how motivated Americans are to speak on this issue, said Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at the Drug Policy Alliance.
“This is an unprecedented opportunity that folks have had to participate in public comment on the topic of federal marijuana scheduling or the legal status of marijuana at the federal level,” she said.
Commenters used the opportunity not only to share views on the policy in question, but to share their beliefs and experiences about cannabis and legalization in general. Some shared fears that rescheduling cannabis could be harmful to children, or that it is a “gateway drug”. Many commenters described positive experiences with cannabis, including as a way to treat seizures, anxiety and autism symptoms.
Preliminary analyses show most commenters felt rescheduling was not enough and wanted more significant steps toward federal legalization. The DEA’s proposed rules would reclassify cannabis from a schedule I to a schedule III substance, meaning that cannabis’s status will change from an illegal narcotic on the federal level to a medication that is eligible for FDA approval, but still federally illegal in most circumstances.
Still, Packer said rescheduling “doesn’t address the conflict between federal laws and state laws. And, significantly for the communities that we serve, rescheduling marijuana does nothing to acknowledge or address the racist origins of marijuana criminalization, or its resulting racial disparities.”
Most of the comments reflect Packer’s view. She noted that the Drug Policy Alliance used keyword searches to rapidly analyze the 43,000 comments and determine how many favored more significant steps toward legalization. They searched for keywords and phrases like “decriminalize”, “treated like alcohol” and “full legalization”. The result was that 69% of commenters wanted cannabis to be decriminalized or completely descheduled, meaning it would share its legal status with alcohol and cigarettes.
Headset, a cannabis data platform, also conducted a rapid analysis of the comments using the latest version of Open AI’s large language model, according to its CEO, Cy Scott. The AI would summarize each comment and then determine its position. The analysis yielded similar results: 57% of commenters supported descheduling cannabis, while 35% supported rescheduling and 8% wanted it to remain an illegal schedule I substance.
These numbers roughly align with Pew research showing that 57% of Americans think cannabis should be legal for medical and recreational purposes, while 32% think it should be legal for medical use only.
Scott said the AI analysis provided other insights. For example, comments from those opposed to medical cannabis tended to come in large spikes of form letters, while comments from those who supported different types of cannabis legalization seemed to flow in more organically.
Packer said that commenters might be responding, in part, to Biden’s past statements on cannabis legalization. During his 2020 campaign, he promised to “decriminalize marijuana”.
“Despite the fact that President Biden has repeatedly said that no one should be in jail for marijuana [possession], this rescheduling decision does nothing to end marijuana arrests or prevent folks from actually going to jail for marijuana,” she said.
What happens next is unclear, partly because the DEA is in uncharted territory with this process.
“In a perfect world, they’d say, since they have 60% of respondents who want marijuana to be legal, it’s legal for most people under state law already, let’s just deschedule it. But I recognize the reality that that’s not very likely,” said Aaron Smith, cofounder and CEO of the National Cannabis Industry Association.
Smith still saw rescheduling as a sign of progress, and was hopeful that it would go through by the end of the year.
Packer was less optimistic, saying: “There are lots of different ways to think that this process can be slowly delayed and not happen before the election and also could potentially not happen before the end of President Biden’s term.”
The DEA could decide to hold a public hearing on rescheduling, which would slow down the process, or there could be legal challenges to rescheduling. And even if rescheduling does go through, Packer said the federal criminalization of cannabis would continue to have a negative impact.
“This means that for the next decade or plus – because who knows how long we’ll be dealing with this policy – medical patients, adult consumers, state medical marijuana programs, the adult-use programs, the businesses that participate in these programs, the employees that are employed by those businesses, all of these folks are still in illegal activity, subject to collateral consequences and really burdened by federal criminalization,” Packer added.
Smith wondered how the DEA would process how few commenters actually supported rescheduling – if the agency actually does go through with rescheduling.
“In a way it’s not great because when you look at the total, 35% wanted it to be schedule III,” she pointed out. “So if you look at this and determine it’s going to be schedule III, only a third of people who took the time to comment are really going to be happy.”
• This article was amended on 29 July 2024. The percentage of commenters to the DEA consultation who were in favour of cannabis legalization or decriminalization was 69%, not 59% as an earlier version said
