Advocates of the cannabis industry are understandably excited over the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (“DEA”) recent publication of its proposed rule to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule III controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”). However, the proposed rule is subject to the due process required by the federal rulemaking regime and will not be officially implemented (if at all) for at least a couple of months, possibly longer. Below we set forth the current timeline of the rulemaking process.
Further, it is helpful to understand what exactly is being rescheduled. We know there are hundreds of cannabinoids, derived from both hemp and from cannabis, and there are manufacturing processes allowing for the creation of synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol (“THC”) and other synthetic cannabinoids. So what’s being rescheduled as Schedule III? We will discuss this below.