Marijuana Moment: DOJ Asks Federal Court To Further Delay Lawsuit On Marijuana Rescheduling Process As Trump Weighs Reform Proposal

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The Department of Justice has agreed to further postpone a case challenging the administrative process behind the marijuana rescheduling proposal being considered by the Trump administration.

In a joint filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, DOJ and plaintiff Panacea Plant Sciences (PPS) founder and CEO David Heldreth said that, because there haven’t been any recent advancements in the broader rescheduling issue, the separate litigation related to administrative procedures should continue to be stayed through the end of the year.

That is not necessarily a reflection of the status of the Trump administration’s rescheduling process. Rather, it is directly responsive to litigation over how the federal government approaches scheduling actions. The president said late last month that he would be making a decision on the overarching proposal to move marijuana to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) within weeks.

But for now, because the administrative hearing process remains stalled, both DOJ and PPS told the court that the stay should be kept in place until January 27, 2026, when another joint report from the parties will be due.

Last January, the court approved a prior stay request for the same reasons. Then in June, the parties requested another stay that was granted, with a joint report due by Monday. This filing is the latest iteration in the case.

“Because the administrative proceedings remain stayed, the parties respectfully submit that the stay continues to be warranted,” it says. “And to avoid conflicts around the holidays, the parties further propose to submit another joint status report on whether the stay continues to be warranted in the next 120 days, by January 27, 2026.”

Last year, PPS’s Heldreth filed the underlying lawsuit that laid out several allegations against DEA, which he said warranted judicial intervention in the agency’s hearings on DOJ’s proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the CSA.

That followed now-retired DEA Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) John Mulrooney’s prior denial of Panacea’s request to postpone rescheduling hearing over the agency’s alleged “improper blocking” of witnesses.

In the original lawsuit, Heldreth had argued that the agency’s now-postponed hearing should be stayed for four main reasons, including alleged violations of a Clinton-era executive order requiring federal bodies to consult with tribal entities on rulemaking decisions that impact them, as well as the Regulatory Flexibility Act and Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act.

The fate of rescheduling remains uncertain. While Trump endorsed the reform on the campaign trail ahead of his second term, his more recent comments about an imminent decision lacked specificity and any concrete sense of whether he is still supportive of the policy change.

Industry stakeholders were energized over the weekend, however, when the president shared a post on Sunday that showed a video from the pro-rescheduling Commonwealth Project touting the health benefits of hemp-derived CBD, particularly for seniors who may use it as an alternative to traditional pharmaceuticals.

Meanwhile, a new poll shows that a majority of Americans don’t consider marijuana dangerous, though most do think consuming cannabis increases the likelihood that people will transition to using more dangerous drugs.

The poll is one of the latest temperature checks on American sentiment toward drug policy as Trump weighs the rescheduling proposal.

And while a leading prohibitionist group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), recently claimed a poll they commissioned demonstrated majority opposition to rescheduling, a policy change that Trump endorsed on the campaign trail, the result flies in the face of multiple other national surveys showing support for reform that goes beyond rescheduling.

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Another recent survey from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR), which was conducted by the firm Forbes Tate Partners, showed that seven in 10 American voters want to see the end of federal marijuana prohibition—and nearly half say they’d view the Trump administration more favorably if it took action on the issue.

A poll released in June that Marijuana Moment partnered on with the cannabis telehealth platform NuggMD showed that a majority of marijuana consumers disapprove of the Trump administration’s actions on cannabis policy to date, but there’s also a significant willingness among users to shift their position if the federal government opts to reschedule or legalize marijuana.

Earlier this year, meanwhile, a firm associated with Trump—Fabrizio, Lee & Associates—also polled Americans on a series of broader marijuana policy issues. Notably, it found that a majority of Republicans back cannabis rescheduling—and, notably, they’re even more supportive of allowing states to legalize marijuana without federal interference compared to the average voter.

Read the latest filing in the DOJ rescheduling process lawsuit below:

Photo elements courtesy of rawpixel and Philip Steffan.

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