Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and two of his Republican colleagues have sent a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration, urging the law enforcement agency to decline a bid to reschedule marijuana under federal drug laws. Cannabis is currently listed under Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), a designation reserved for drugs with no accepted medical value and a high potential for abuse.

The letter, which was signed by Romney and Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho and Nebraska’s Senator Pete Ricketts, was addressed to Drug Enforcement Administrator Anne Milgram. All three lawmakers are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the letter, the senators expressed concerns over a Biden administration proposal to reclassify cannabis under the CSA. 

In August 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended that the DEA reclassify marijuana by moving it from Schedule I of the CSA to Schedule III, a classification intended for “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence” such as Tylenol with codeine or ketamine. The trio of Republican senators urged the DEA administer to carefully consider the HHS proposal.

“Any effort to reschedule marijuana must be based on proven facts and scientific evidence — not the favored policy of a particular administration — and account for our treaty obligations,” the senators wrote in their letter.

The senators noted in their letter that cannabis is controlled by international treaty, “which is not surprising given its known dangers and health risks — and the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has fiercely criticized efforts to legalize marijuana in other countries as a violation of the treaty.”

International policy on marijuana is governed by the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, an international treaty adopted in 1961 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1967. Under the treaty, the United States is required to implement certain controls over drugs covered by the international agreement, including marijuana. The CSA implements those treaty obligations in U.S. domestic law and requires the U.S. Attorney General to place marijuana in the schedule that he or she deems most appropriate to carry out the country’s obligations under the Single Convention.

“In prior rescheduling proceedings, the DEA has determined that section 811(d) requires it to classify marijuana as a schedule I or II drug in order to comply with our treaty obligations under the Single Convention,” the letter continued, referring to the relevant section of the international treaty.

“It is important that the DEA continues to follow the law and abide by our treaty commitments,” the senators wrote. 

The senators also requested more information including whether rescheduling marijuana would affect whether other countries comply with drug treaty provisions “including for deadly narcotics like fentanyl,” asking the agency to respond to a list of questions by April 12.

The letter also cites a recent study that showed that daily marijuana use was associated with a 25% increase in the risk of a heart attack and a 42% increase in the risk of stroke. They also noted that other research has linked cannabis use “with serious psychotic consequences, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”

On Wednesday morning, Romney took to social media to share the letter he and his Republican colleagues sent to Biden administration officials at the DEA.

“To be blunt: rescheduling marijuana may cause the U.S. to violate obligations under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs,” Romney wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Efforts to reschedule marijuana must be based on evidence, not politics, and @DEAhq must ensure we abide by our treaty commitments.”

Despite the senators’ fears, Jason Adelstone, a senior associate attorney with national cannabis law firm Vicente LLP, said that international treaties do not preclude the federal government from reclassifying cannabis under Schedule III of the CSA.

“The erroneous and unsubstantiated fears about marijuana are based on fictional ‘war on drugs’ themes and not the current state of medical and scientific knowledge about marijuana,” he wrote in an email to High Times. “The letter contained several incorrect statements, including the mistaken assumption that moving marijuana to Schedule III would somehow violate the Single Convention.”

“However, the Single Convention specifically endorses ensuring medical and scientific access to controlled substances,” Adelstone continued. “Moving marijuana to Schedule III would better promote medical and scientific access to marijuana.”

The DEA is currently reviewing the HHS proposal to reschedule marijuana, but the agency has not announced a timeline for the decision.

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National cannabis advocates are using election momentum to push for a legal adult-use market in Washington DC, which was approved by voters back in 2014.

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The highest ranking Democrat in Florida is taking on the leader of her party—and the country—over weed and guns.

Nikki Fried, the state’s agriculture commissioner and a Democratic candidate for governor, “plans to sue the Biden administration Wednesday to try to block a federal rule that prohibits medical marijuana users from buying guns or maintaining concealed-carry permits,” according to NBC News, which obtained a copy of Fried’s lawsuit.

“I’m suing the Biden Administration because people’s rights are being limited. Medical marijuana is legal. Guns are legal,” Fried said in a tweet on Wednesday morning. “This is about people’s rights and their freedoms to responsibly have both.”

(The 4/20 announcement of Fried’s lawsuit against the Biden administration was not a coincidence, by the way.)

NBC reported that the “lawsuit targets a federal form that asks whether the gun buyer is an unlawful user of drugs and specifies that marijuana is illegal under federal law.”

Prospective customers who check “yes” are denied and those who lie “[run] the risk of a five-year prison sentence for making a false statement,” according to NBC News.

The lawsuit from Fried, who is currently the only Florida Democrat holding a statewide office, will have a major bearing on her own jurisdiction, where medical cannabis has been legal since voters there passed an initiative in 2016 and where gun ownership is ubiquitous.

But it could also set a precedent for the dozens of other states where medical cannabis is legal.

Fried is a longtime champion of cannabis reform. “I’ve always been pro-cannabis but didn’t really understand the movement [early on],” she told High Times in an interview last year, saying that her passion was sparked as a student at the University of Florida.

She won her race for agriculture commissioner in 2018 on a platform dedicated to changing Florida’s cannabis laws.

“At the time, we weren’t talking legalization, we were trying to still get medical, but they knew that I was in favor of legalization when the time was right for Florida,” Fried told High Times.

Fried has ramped up her legalization push in her gubernatorial campaign, which she launched last year.

She is running for the Democratic nomination against Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor turned Democratic congressman. Both candidates have pledged to legalize cannabis for adults if elected, but Fried has called out Crist on his GOP past, saying in October that people have been imprisoned, and Crist and other Republicans “supported and enforced racist marijuana crime bills.”

Fried and Crist are vying for the chance to take on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate who has said that recreational cannabis will not be legalized while he’s in office.

“Not while I’m governor,” DeSantis said in 2019. “I mean look, when that is introduced with teenagers and young people, I think it has a really detrimental effect to their well being and their maturity.”

Polls show that both Democrats are longshots against the incumbent.

“Ron DeSantis is motivated by money,” Fried told High Times last year in explaining the governor’s opposition to cannabis reform. “I think his motivation is more his ability to raise money.”

As NBC News explained, the lawsuit “is laden with political opportunity for Fried, who became the only Democrat elected statewide in 2018 when she ran on an unabashedly pro-cannabis platform,” with polls repeatedly showing that a majority of Floridians—like the rest of the country—support legalizing pot.

According to NBC, Fried “is bringing the suit with three citizens who have been affected by the federal rules,” and the suit “names the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Attorney General Merrick Garland as defendants.”

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Investing in a cannabis company could jeopardize an individual’s application to work under President Joe Biden, according to a new report this week.

Politico obtained a document detailing the Biden administration’s new employee conduct guidelines, reporting on Wednesday that the rules could “potentially deny security clearance to individuals who have invested in companies that are involved in the marijuana business.”

“Eligibility may be negatively impacted if an individual knowingly and directly invests in stocks or business ventures that specifically pertain to marijuana growers and retailers,” the document said. “Decisions to willfully invest in such activity could reflect questionable judgment and an unwillingness to comply with laws, rules, and regulations.”

The Biden administration has taken a relatively lax approach toward past cannabis use among employees; a White House official said last year that the “Biden White House has been more permissive than past administrations on past marijuana use.”

But there have also been reminders of the continued federal prohibition of cannabis. Last year, news broke that the White House fired dozens of staffers for previous use of cannabis.

The firings prompted a concerned letter to Biden from several Democrats in Congress, who said they were “dismayed to learn that several White House staffers were reportedly suspended, put on probation or asked to resign after honestly disclosing past cannabis use.”

“We ask that you clarify your employment suitability policies, remove past cannabis use as a potential disqualifier, and apply these policies with consistency and fairness,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “Cannabis is legal for either medical or adult use in 36 states, with more than 50 percent of the adult population having used cannabis in their lifetimes.

This number is bound to rise as states across the country legalize through voter initiatives. Just last year, cannabis was legalized in five new states through ballot initiatives, and many more states are currently working on legislation to legalize cannabis. The American people are demanding a change to punitive and harsh cannabis laws that have always been unequally applied.”

The Biden administration pushed back on the reports, telling CNBC at the time that “no staffers have been fired due to pot use from ‘years ago’ or from ‘casual or infrequent use’ in the past 12 months.”

According to CNBC, “President Donald Trump’s White House, for instance, did not allow any past marijuana use over the prior year, and Obama’s required no pot use for the previous six months, according to the official,” while the Biden administration claims that its new policy “has allowed around a dozen White House staff to continue serving in the administration who would not have been permitted under prior administrations’ policies.”

Polls show that a majority of the public––including an overwhelming majority of Democrats––supports an end to pot prohibition. 

Biden, however, has long resisted the idea of outright legalization. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden said that he backed the decriminalization of weed, but not an end to prohibition. 

The position has put Biden at odds with his party, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who has admitted to smoking marijuana in the past and has said that she is in favor of legalization.

In their letter to Biden last year, the Democratic lawmakers alluded to both Harris’ and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s admitted past use.

“Those in the upper ranks of your administration won’t face consequences for their cannabis use, and nor should they, but the same standard should be applied across the administration,” the letter said. 

A poll last year among cannabis industry executives found a relatively bearish outlook toward legalization under Biden. Sixty-two percent said they don’t believe the current administration supports cannabis, while 41 percent said that federal legalization is still at least five years away.

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A choice between rehab and prison is no choice at all. Biden’s ‘mandatory rehab’ is a bad idea masked as drug reform.

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Biden’s attorney general, DEA head, and ‘drug czar’ will carry out his drug policies. Who should get the jobs?

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