DEA Rescheduling Hearing Begins June 29 — And Every Invited Witness Opposes Reform

The most consequential cannabis policy proceeding in a generation opens in six days — and not a single party invited to testify supports the reform on the table. On June 29, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time, the Drug Enforcement Administration will convene an administrative hearing at its facility at 700 Army Navy Drive in Arlington, Virginia, to weigh whether marijuana should be rescheduled beyond the narrow Schedule III order already in effect. Of the seven interested persons the agency selected to participate, all seven oppose marijuana reform.

That detail — first reported by Marijuana Moment and confirmed by Cannabis Business Times — is the story. The hearing isn't a debate so much as a record-building exercise stacked with one side, and it lands at a moment when the cannabis industry thought the rescheduling fight was largely settled. It isn't. Here's who's in, who got shut out, the schedule that will govern the next two weeks, and what's actually at stake.

What's happening on June 29

To understand the hearing, you have to separate two things that are easy to conflate. In late April 2026, the Justice Department issued an order placing FDA-approved marijuana products and products sold under a qualifying state license into Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act — a historic but deliberately limited move that we covered when the DOJ signed the Schedule III order. That order is done. It is in effect.

The June 29 hearing is about whether to go further — a broader rescheduling of marijuana itself, the question that has been winding through the DEA's administrative process since the original 2024 proposed rule. The agency is holding the expedited hearing to build a formal evidentiary record on that broader proposal before the Administrator makes a final determination. In other words: the partial win is locked, but the bigger prize — full rescheduling, and the policy and tax consequences that flow from it — is exactly what these two weeks of testimony will shape.

This continues a process Budpedia readers have followed for months, from the original NORML and SAM filings to participate to the lawsuits filed by Smart Approaches to Marijuana and former AG Bill Barr seeking to block rescheduling outright.

The witness list: who's in

On June 22, the DEA notified the seven interested persons it selected to participate in the hearing. They are:

• Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) — the leading national anti-legalization advocacy group
• The National Drug & Alcohol Screening Association — a trade group for the drug-testing industry
• The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation — a state law-enforcement agency
• The states of Nebraska, Idaho, Indiana, and Louisiana — four prohibition-state governments participating jointly
• DUID Victim Voices — an organization focused on drugged-driving harms
• Kenneth Finn, MD — a pain-management physician and prominent rescheduling critic
• Phillip A. Drum, PharmD — a pharmacist who has publicly opposed cannabis reform

Every one of these parties is on record opposing the move from Schedule I. There is no licensed operator, no patient-advocacy group, no medical-cannabis researcher, and no reform organization among them.

Who got shut out

The absence is as telling as the roster. According to the reporting, the DEA rejected applications from groups that would have argued in favor of rescheduling, including:

• NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws)
• The Drug Policy Alliance
• The American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH)

These are exactly the organizations that have spent years assembling the scientific and economic case for moving marijuana off Schedule I. Their exclusion means the hearing's evidentiary record — the formal basis the Administrator can cite in a final decision — will be built almost entirely from testimony hostile to reform.

Why does a one-sided record matter so much? Because administrative determinations are reviewed on the record. A final order that rests on a hearing where opponents had the floor and proponents were excluded hands reform advocates a powerful procedural argument on appeal: that the process was not a genuine weighing of evidence. The same SAM-aligned litigation strategy that produced the Barr lawsuit to block Schedule III cuts both ways — and reform groups are already signaling they'll challenge the proceeding's fairness.

The June 24 prehearing deadline

Before anyone testifies, the schedule front-loads paperwork. The presiding administrative law judge ordered each designated party to file a brief prehearing statement — not to exceed 25 pages — no later than June 24, 2026. Those statements must name the party's witnesses and summarize what each will testify to.

That makes this Wednesday, June 24, the first hard milestone. The prehearing statements are the closest thing to a preview of the hearing's substance: they'll reveal which expert witnesses each party intends to call and which arguments — public-health harms, drugged-driving data, youth-access claims, international-treaty obligations — the opponents plan to put on the record. Expect the contours of the two-week hearing to come into focus the moment those filings post.

Logistics: what to expect, and what you won't see

A few practical realities shape how this plays out:

• In person, not televised. The hearing is being held at the DEA's Arlington facility and is not being livestreamed or broadcast. Public access is limited to in-person attendance, which means coverage will depend heavily on reporters in the room rather than a public feed.
• A built-in recess for July 4. The hearing commences June 29 and then recesses on July 3 so all parties can mark the 250th anniversary of American independence. It reconvenes July 6.
• A hard finish line. The proceeding must conclude no later than July 15, 2026. That's an aggressive timeline for a matter of this magnitude — a feature of the "expedited" framing the DEA has used throughout.

After the hearing closes, the ALJ will issue a recommended decision, and the DEA Administrator will ultimately make the final rescheduling determination. The hearing is a critical input, not the last word.

What's actually at stake

It would be easy to shrug at a hearing where the outcome looks pre-sorted. That would be a mistake. The stakes are concrete:

Taxes (280E). Full Schedule III treatment is what frees plant-touching businesses from IRC Section 280E, the provision that bars cannabis companies from deducting ordinary business expenses and pushes effective tax rates well above 70% for many operators. The partial April order delivered relief to a narrow slice of the market; broader rescheduling is what would extend it. We broke down the mechanics in our guide to the end of 280E and what Schedule III means for cannabis taxes.

Research. Schedule III status dramatically lowers the barriers to studying cannabis — fewer registration hurdles, easier access to study material, and a realistic path to FDA-approved cannabinoid medicines.

The federal-state gap. Rescheduling does not legalize marijuana federally, end state-level prohibition, or automatically open interstate commerce. But how far the reschedule goes determines how wide the remaining gap is between a still-illegal-at-the-federal-level plant and a multibillion-dollar regulated state market. That same tension is driving parallel fights over hemp-derived cannabinoids, like the Barr hemp bill to regulate the $30 billion intoxicating-hemp industry.

The narrative. Perhaps most underrated: the hearing produces the official record that politicians, courts, and future administrations will cite for years. A record built entirely by opponents shapes the story even if the final policy outcome lands elsewhere.

What to watch next week

Three things will tell you where this is heading:

1. The June 24 prehearing statements — the witness names and argument summaries that preview the whole proceeding.
2. Any emergency motions from excluded reform groups — watch for NORML, DPA, or ATACH to challenge their exclusion or seek to file as amici before June 29.
3. The opening day, June 29 — how the ALJ frames the scope, and whether the "opponents only" composition draws procedural objections on the record from the start.

Budpedia will update this story as the prehearing statements post and the hearing opens. For an industry that spent 2026 believing rescheduling was a settled question, the next three weeks are a reminder that the fight over marijuana's federal status is still very much live — and still being argued in a room where, for now, only one side was given a seat.

Cannabis laws and access vary widely by state, and a Schedule III shift won't change where you can legally buy. Whatever your state allows today, you can find a dispensary near you on Budpedia — every listing checked against state license rolls before it goes live.