It's been almost a year since the federal Department of Health and Human Services officially recommended that marijuana be reclassified from a Schedule I federal substance, the same designation as heroin, to Schedule III, which includes drugs like ketamine and certain anabolic steroids. In May, the Drug Enforcement Administration released a reclassification proposal that largely mirrored HHS recommendations, opening up a 62-day public commenting period.
Nearly 43,000 comments were sent to the DEA by the July 22 deadline, most of which supported reclassification or a full descheduling of marijuana as a controlled substance. The City of Denver submitted a letter in support of the plant's reclassification to Schedule III on July 16, calling for federal cooperation in cannabis regulation and easier tax and finance structures for legal marijuana businesses.
Less than a week later, Governor Jared Polis sent a letter to the DEA on behalf of the State of Colorado in support of reclassifying marijuana to Schedule III, as well. Polis, a proponent of marijuana legalization since his time in Congress, sent a letter to DEA administrator Anne Milgram, which he also submitted as a public comment.
"As someone who spent over a decade as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and now proudly serving as the Governor of Colorado for over five years, I can say with confidence that I am well informed on the topic of marijuana," Polis wrote to the DEA on July 22. "Our data shows that regulation works and is most certainly a preferable option over the failed notion of prohibition."
In his letter, Polis cited a decline in both marijuana-related arrests and epileptic seizures since Colorado became the first state to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, as well as state and federal data showing that teens in Colorado consume marijuana at a lower rate than the national average.
"We’ve learned we need more data and research on the perils of driving under the influence of potentially impairing and intoxicating substances for not just cannabis, but all substances including alcohol. But those realizations would not have come to be without the legalization and regulation of cannabis as we have done here in Colorado," the governor continued. "While we acknowledge harms associated with illicit use, the overwhelming conclusions demonstrate that legalization is contributing to decreased youth use, not the opposite."
Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division didn't send a letter, but the state marijuana watchdog confirmed it participated in the crafting of Polis's letter, along with a handful of other state agencies. Dominique Mendiola, the MED executive director, took a neutral position on rescheduling in her capacity with the Cannabis Regulators Association, an association of government agencies involved in cannabis regulation across the country.
Denver District Attorney, Social Equity Activist Want Schedule III
Before Polis and the City of Denver sent comments in support of marijuana's rescheduling, former state representative and current Denver DA Beth McCann sent a letter to the DEA to "strongly urge" that pot be pushed down to Schedule III. However, McCann's reasons for supporting the move had more to do with strengthening law enforcement.According to McCann, Denver "did not see a sharp increase in crimes associated with marijuana dispensaries and the
decriminalization" in the 2010s when medical marijuana dispensaries blossomed and recreational legalization took hold. But an unregulated, underground marijuana sector has been emboldened over the last ten years, she says.
"The unregulated market cultivates, manufactures, distributes, and sells cannabis without a government-issued license, permit, or approval. It effectively operates in the dark, outside of state-imposed guardrails and oversight...This unregulated commerce thus poses a serious risk to public safety in communities around the country through such connections to organized crime and the absence of oversight," McCann wrote to the DEA. "Rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III would allow law enforcement to focus efforts on combatting the harms that arise from unregulated cannabis markets. Moreover, rescheduling would allow legal markets to compete on a level playing field, potentially leading to greater reinvestments in critical programs, including public safety."
The reaction from cannabis proponents and business owners has ranged from mixed to supportive, with some activists calling for more reform and a full descheduling of the plant — putting it on a similar legal level as alcohol — while others view any steps forward as positive movement.
Cannabis business owners are hopeful that rescheduling would open the marijuana industry up to legal banking, financial services and opportunities to file for tax deductions with the IRS — all of which are still federally prohibited because of the plant's Schedule I status.
If the DEA does reclassify, Denver Black community activist John Bailey hopes social equity initiatives will be at the top of the federal government's priorities. Bailey, who founded the Black Cannabis Equity Initiative (BCEI) in Denver, would like to see community benefits and industry opportunities afforded to communities that were most negatively impacted by the drug war.
"Some folks say we need to take one step at a time and that we should not focus on the future because we become anxious in the present. Well in this case, the survival of our Black businesses, the Black Community and our history as well as the continued search for democracy suggest anxiousness and a sense of urgency is exactly what is required at this very moment for the Black Community and Black businesses," Bailey wrote in his July 19 letter on behalf of BCEI. " Based on the chaos, contradictions and confusion that sometimes permeates the cannabis space, it has become painfully obvious that we have to take a different view and perspective on what to do next, but also what to do now. Rescheduling cannabis is what we should do NOW and I support steps in that direction."
The DEA and Department of Justice can finalize marijuana's reclassification now that the comment period is over, but parties that oppose rescheduling can challenge the move through administrative law hearings.
