In 1986, after Cannabis saved and forever changed my life, I began working to end the unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious laws against Cannabis that were killing millions of Americans. I began an informal NORML chapter at UNM which later turned into The Hemp Coalition (THC) so we could receive funding as an “educational” rather than a “political” group. In 1997 I narrowed my focus to Medical Cannabis after California legalized Medical Cannabis. Later that year I became involved in the case of a Curandera who had been arrested for growing 6 Cannabis plants that she used to make a topical pain salve for elderly members of her community. I connected her with an attorney friend of mine and together we drafted a case based on Medical Necessity and Religious Freedom. I acted as an expert witness, and after a brilliant exam by our attorney and a pathetic cross exam by the prosecutor, the charges were dropped against her. That was when I began looking into what I might be able to accomplish in the courts.
In 1999 I went to Philadelphia as part of a Class action Lawsuit filed by Lawrence Hirsch, seeking to force the DEA to reopen the Compassionate Use Program that was still providing legal Medical Cannabis to a select group group of American Citizens. This program had been shut down by the DEA when they received a flood of new applications. Thus. the DEA was denying access to life saving medication to countless Americans similarly situated. Judge Katz agreed that the DEA had reasonable cause to close the program even if it might violate equal protection but unfortunately an appeal of that decision never came to fruition.
In 2008, I filed a suit in the US District Court for New Mexico after DEA had delayed action on a Rescheduling Petition filed by Jon Gettman 6 years earlier, that I was a party to. I argued this delay proved that the administrative process was futile and that the Court needed to step in to protect the safety of American Citizens. The Court disagreed. I was told that 6 years was not necessarily excessive and that in order to make that argument I would need to file my own rescheduling petition, so I did.
I filed my own Rescheduling Petition in 2009 and on August 12, 2016, the DEA settled that petition. The DEA was forced to admit that Cannabis is not a “gateway drug”, doesn’t cause psychosis, doesn’t cause lung cancer and doesn’t make you stupid. More importantly, HHS and FDA told DEA they had to stop blocking research and that they had to allow more people to grow Cannabis for research purposes. However, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the head of DEA to block implementation of those policy changes, in violation of the law and DEA has continued to block Medical Cannabis Research.
In May 2017 I filed a new Rescheduling Petition and in September the head of DEA, Chuck Rosenberg, resigned. He stating he doesn’t trust the administration to follow the law. (Neither do I) After 6 months of delay, I sent a nasty letter to the new head of DEA and 2 months later he finally denied my Petition. I appealed the denial to the Court of Appeals in DC. I argued that the DEA and Attorney General can not be trusted to obey the law and therefore Cannabis must be exempted from control under the CSA and turned over to the States to regulate Medical, Recreational, Religious and Industrial use of Cannabis. The DEA argued that because Cannabis was in the most restrictive status of the Single Convention Treaty at the United Nations that it must be kept in the most restrictive status of the CSA. The 3 judge Panel assigned to my case denied my motion for Writ of Mandamus (2 were appointed by Bush and 1 by Trump, so not a surprise). I filed a petition for Rehearing En Banc which was denied so I appealed to the Supreme Court.
Although my petition was picked as the Petition of the Month by Supreme Court Press, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, leaving the future of Cannabis to the United Nations. So I began working on a Legal action against the UN but then Covid happened. I had begun studying the benefits of Cannabis in fighting Covid during the SARS-CoV-1 scare in 2002 and I changed my focus from legal to educational. I wrote a paper on the potential of Cannabis to help with treatment, and possibly prevention of Covid-19 that I sent to dozens of members of the UN, WHO, NIH, FDA and CDC in May of 2020. I asked them to remove cannabis from the most restrictive status of the Single Convention Treaty so that research on Covid would not be restricted. A few months later I received a letter from the WHO stating that they were looking into moving Cannabis to a less restrictive status and that I should contact the US if I wanted to see research done on Cannabis for treating Covid. With the United States leading the charge, on December 2, 2020 the UN finally removed Cannabis from the most restrictive status of the Single Convention Treaty so that it could be used for Medical purposes. On December 10, 2020 I filed a new Rescheduling Petition.
After another legal challenge, and then orders from the Biden administration, the FDA finally concluded the review initiated by my Rescheduling Petition. They recommended that Cannabis be moved to Schedule 3 of the CSA so that it would be available for medical use in the US. After more delays and another lawsuit, the Attorney General ordered the DEA to move Cannabis to Schedule 3. Hearings were scheduled for early December of 2024 but the DEA stacked the witness list with law enforcement and prohibitionists, while denying testimony from Native American groups, Veterans groups, many other experts and interested groups, They even claimed I was not qualified to provide testimony even though I filed the Petition the review was based on. Although hearings should have been rescheduled for late January or early February of 2025 once again the DEA is refusing to follow the law and has failed to reschedule the hearings.
2020 RESCHEDULING PETITION
5/23/2024 Order- Rehearing En Banc
5/3/2024 Petition for Rehearing En Banc
3/18/2024 Petition for Summary Judgement
2/5/2024 Petition for Writ of Mandamus
2/8/2023 Motion for Summary Judgement
2/24/2023 Motion in Opposition
1/25/2023 Petition for Rehearing En Banc
1/13/2023 Petition for Writ of Mandamus
7/14/21 Anne Milgram reschedule 2020
THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
12/4/2020 Wold Health Organization
MAY 2020 Cannabis and Covid-19: The Endocannabinoid System to the Rescue!
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
6/20/2019 SCOTUS Petition for Writ of Certiorari
2017 RESCHEDULING PETITION
7/24/2018 Motion for Summary Judgement
7/6/2018 Response to Answering Brief
7/5/2018 My response to DEAs response
5/1/18 Petition for Writ of Mandamus
2009 RESCHEDULING PETITION
11/14/2016 Petition for review