Tilray Brands - American Cannabis Update Could the DEA have shown their hand for a 2024 Rescheduling?
"I believe DEA knew they would reschedule to III since before October.
My Take
The INCB met for 4 days last week in Vienna.
https://www.incb.org/incb/en/news/press-releases/2024/the-international-narcotics-control-board-concludes-139th-session.html
This line struck me as significant.
“The Board reviewed its efforts to build the capacity of national authorities to improve the availability of controlled substances for medical and scientific purposes.”
Which aligns with the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act, H.R. 8454 signed into law by Biden in Dec 2022. The law specifically was created to increase access to an uninterrupted supply of marijuana including for specific strains for research purposes.
Every year the DEA is required to evaluate the need to increase quotas for Class I drugs for research purposes. In 2023 the DEA had to double the quota for marijuana because of research demand to 6.7 million grams from the 2022 quota, which was 3.2 million grams. It was 2 million grams for 2021. For 2024 there was no increase to the quota for marijuana, despite having increased bulk manufacturers 7 fold from 1 supplier to 7.
Last November the DEA increased delta-9 THC quotas from 384,460g to 1,523,040g, while all other THC quotas increased from 15,000g to over 1,000,000g.
In my mind there is only one reason the DEA did not propose any increase to marijuana quotas. That is because research quotas only apply to schedule I and II drugs.
I think the DEA has known they were going to reschedule to III all along. This doesn’t mean they aren’t still working out all the final details, or holding it back for political reasons. But I definitely think it’s going to happen before October, when they are again required to set quota limits.
Some references.
https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/advisories/2022/12/medical-cannabis research#:~:text=In%20a%20significant%20federal%20policy,(the%20Cannabis%20Research%20Bill).
https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ215/PLAW-117publ215.pdf"
Great observation made by a reddit poster Mr molecule