The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is resisting a prohibitionist group’s request for an agency official to testify about the harms of marijuana during a hearing on the Trump administration’s move to reschedule cannabis that is scheduled to start next week.
The organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), which opposes the proposed reform, wants Luli Akinfiresoye, a pharmacologist in the DEA Diversion Control Division’s Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section, to testify during the proceedings.
Akinfiresoye was previously an official DEA witness for an earlier, subsequently cancelled hearing on marijuana rescheduling during the Biden administration. During that time, she submitted into the record a report that attempts to link cannabis consumption to psychosis, depression and impaired cognitive functioning. It also says there is “great concern” about use of non-federally-approved medical marijuana products under state laws, arguing it could have “unpredictable and unintended consequences.”
However, “The Government does not intend to identify Dr. Akinfiresoye as witness for our case in chief,” during the current proceedings, DEA attorney James J. Schwartz wrote in an email to SAM this week, prompting the group to seek to subpoena the DEA pharmacologist as its own witness in the hearing.
The prohibitionist group is one of seven parties that have been invited to participate in the hearing, while no reform supporters who requested to take part are being allowed to do so.
DEA told SAM that if it wants to call the agency pharmacologist as a witness, it will need to submit a request under specific rules known as Touhy regulations, and also that the information it wants to uncover in the hearing may be shielded under the Privacy Act.
If that is the case, “the information may not be disclosed without prior written consent of those identified in documents who are protected by the Privacy Act, or pursuant to the order of a court of competent jurisdiction and signed by a Judge,” Amber Porter, section chief in DEA’s Office of Chief Counsel, wrote to an attorney at Torridon Law PLLC, which is representing SAM. “Please also be aware that one or more privileges, such as the law enforcement privilege, may bar release of the information you seek.”
The DEA report linked to Akinfiresoye’s prior testimony says that “cannabis impairs a wide range of psychomotor skills, including motor coordination, divided attention, and complex task performance.”
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