The Department of Justice and challengers to the Trump administration's marijuana rescheduling move filed a joint brief on Friday proposing a briefing schedule in litigation seeking to block the reform before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Under the proposal, briefing would "conclude by mid-February, ensuring that oral argument could be heard before the Court's summer recess," and the parties asked the court to "schedule oral argument as soon as reasonably practicable after the conclusion of briefing."
DOJ and Rescheduling Opponents Agree on Briefing Schedule in Marijuana Lawsuit
The Department of Justice and challengers to the Trump administration's marijuana rescheduling move filed a joint brief on Friday proposing a briefing schedule in litigation seeking to block the reform before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Under the proposal, briefing would "conclude by mid-February, ensuring that oral argument could be heard before the Court's summer recess," and the parties asked the court to "schedule oral argument as soon as reasonably practicable after the conclusion of briefing."
The appeals court is weighing three lawsuits against moving marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III. The cases have been consolidated. One suit is led by the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association (NDASA), who claim they are "aggrieved" by the reform. A second comes from a coalition of anti-marijuana activists, substance misuse professionals, doctors and MMJ International Holdings, a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical corporation and its subsidiaries. A third was filed by the attorneys general of Indiana, Nebraska and Louisiana, though Louisiana later withdrew from the suit.
The Friday filing says all eleven cannabis rescheduling opponents in the consolidated cases propose to join together on a single opening brief and a single reply brief. The proposed schedule sets the petitioners' consolidated opening brief for Tuesday, November 24, 2026; amicus briefs in support of petitioners for Tuesday, December 1, 2026; the government's response brief for Wednesday, January 13, 2027; amicus briefs in support of the government for Wednesday, January 20, 2027; the petitioners' consolidated reply brief for Friday, February 5, 2027; a deferred joint appendix for Friday, February 12, 2027; and final briefs for Friday, February 19, 2027. The filing states the parties conferred and jointly propose the schedule to allow petitioners a small amount of extra time to coordinate consolidated briefs and to give the government more time for its response brief, because its briefing period runs during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holidays and government counsel has pre-planned international travel scheduled for November 27 through December 13. It says that even with those accommodations the proposed schedule is "materially shorter than those sometimes entered in complex consolidated agency cases," and asks for a higher-than-standard word count for the jointly filed briefs because of the proposed combination and the multiple issues of standing in the litigation.
The court rejected a request from NDASA and MMJ to stay the rescheduling process while the litigation is considered, in the month before Friday's filing. The court also rejected a request from two medical marijuana companies to intervene in the suit by joining the government's side and opposing the prohibitionists' litigation, while allowing them to file amicus briefs. Lawyers for NDASA and SAM filed a brief arguing the cannabis businesses should not be allowed to join the suit.
The Drug Enforcement Administration and other parties participating in a hearing on broad marijuana rescheduling filed their final briefs on the issue in August, and the judge overseeing the proceedings paused them at the request of opponents who want a recent federal report on "gaps" in the scheduling process included in the record. In its brief, the DEA said "marijuana no longer fits the statutory requirements for Schedule I because it has a currently accepted medical use within the United States and it has an accepted safety for its use under medical supervision," and said it must give "significant deference" to an "extensive ten-month study on the scientific and medical properties" of cannabis conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, which recommended rescheduling. The agency said there are "over 30,000 practitioners treating more than six million patients in 43 U.S. jurisdictions," that "substantial evidence" shows marijuana's abuse and dependency profiles "better align with Schedule III substances than Schedule II" or Schedule I, and that "the vast majority of individuals who use marijuana do so in a manner that does not result in dangers to themselves or to their communities." It asked the judge to "expeditiously recommend" the transfer. In 2024, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said the prior five-part test was "impermissibly narrow" and said the two-part review "is sufficient to establish that a drug has CAMU even if the drug has not been approved by FDA and would not satisfy DEA's five-part test." The DEA has since embraced the new approach and it has been used to evaluate other substances. The DEA judge will consider the final briefs and testimony delivered during the hearing and issue a recommendation; the final decision will be up to the DEA administrator.
Attorney General Todd Blanche issued an order in April that immediately reclassified state-licensed medical cannabis, as well as marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration, from Schedule I of the CSA to Schedule III. Under a separate order the attorney general signed, the hearing is considering more comprehensively moving marijuana to Schedule III.
The suit from SAM and NDASA challenging rescheduling was signed by attorneys at Torridon Law PLLC, where former U.S. Attorney General William Barr is a partner. SAM announced in January that it was hiring Barr's firm to legally combat cannabis rescheduling after Trump signed an executive order directing officials to complete the process expeditiously. The House Appropriations Committee voted to block federal officials from taking further steps to carry out cannabis rescheduling, and bipartisan lawmakers told Marijuana Moment they do not expect the legislative effort to block rescheduling to succeed. Separately, SAM, MMJ and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit seeking to block an administration program to cover certain hemp-derived products through Medicare; a federal judge dismissed that case in May and the decision is being appealed.
- The source does not state whether the appeals court has ruled on the proposed briefing schedule or on the requested increase in the word count for the joint briefs.
- The source does not describe the contents of the recent federal report on "gaps" in the scheduling process, or state whether it has been added to the hearing record.
- The source does not state when the hearing judge will issue a recommendation or when the DEA administrator will decide marijuana's scheduling status.
- The source does not identify the two medical marijuana companies that sought to intervene, the other parties that filed final briefs in the administrative hearing, or the "other plaintiffs" named alongside SAM and MMJ in the hemp-derived products suit.
- The source does not explain the title it assigns to Todd Blanche or state the date in April when the order was issued.
- The source spells the president's name as "Tump" in one reference and as "Trump" in others, and does not address the variation.
Read the original at Marijuana Moment