Attorney General Misses Deadline For Rules To Make It Easier To Study Schedule I Drugs Like Marijuana And Psychedelics

Schedule I research guidelines just blew past their deadline, and the silence is deafening. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, was supposed to roll out interim rules that would actually make it easier to study tightly controlled drugs like marijuana, psilocybin, and MDMA. Congress said “January 16.” The calendar said “January 16.” The science community waited, pens poised, IRB approvals ready, lab lights buzzing. Nothing. When you’re talking about marijuana research and other Schedule I substances, delay isn’t neutral; it’s a tax on curiosity, on clinical progress, on the simple act of getting answers about pain, addiction, overdose, and mental health. This is the kind of quiet bureaucratic chokehold that doesn’t scream; it just starves.

The frustrating part is that lawmakers already built the on-ramp. Buried inside the HALT Fentanyl Act—best known for locking fentanyl analogues into Schedule I—sits a set of provisions designed to streamline the DEA registration process for legitimate research across the Schedule I landscape. Think of it as a long-overdue “fast lane” for science: simplified registration for projects funded by HHS or the VA; a clear path for research conducted under an FDA IND; and realistic clocks that actually respect the tempo of modern labs—30 days for already-registered investigators to start after notifying DEA, 45 days for the agency to make the call on new applicants. There’s even a carve-out allowing small-scale manufacturing for studies without a separate registration—dosage form development included—so long as the feds get notified. None of this authorizes growing marijuana, and none of it means “anything goes.” It means measured, transparent access with oversight—exactly the kind of structure that could turn a thousand stalled grant abstracts into real-world data. The law exists on paper; you can trace it line by line in Section 3 of the act on Congress.gov, if you like the smell of new statutes in the morning.

But paper progress doesn’t move beakers. Absent formal Schedule I research guidelines from the Justice Department, scientists remain trapped in a Kafkaesque maze: contradictory instructions, discretionary delays, and shifting interpretations that make “evidence-based policy” feel like an inside joke. Advocates call this “research harm,” the preventable damage that happens when policy is opaque and processes are slow. It’s the pale, institutional cousin of prohibition; less dramatic than a raid, more insidious than a headline. Meanwhile, a separate political drum keeps pounding: the White House ordered marijuana moved to Schedule III, a reshuffle that could lower barriers to clinical work and shift the economics of the legal cannabis market. Yet even that path is lined with questions, which is why a Democratic Senator ‘Very Concerned’ About How DOJ Will Handle Marijuana Rescheduling warned that the details matter more than the press release. Without coherence at DOJ and DEA—without the rules that tell researchers where to stand and how to move—promises stay promises.

Clarity isn’t a luxury in drug policy; it’s the oxygen. Ask anyone burned by federal-state contradictions. Congress is now scrutinizing why legitimate companies are getting product seized despite following state law—a story threaded through the uneasy marriage between the Controlled Substances Act and state-legal commerce, and one that’s captured in Congressional Leaders Push Feds To Explain Marijuana Product Seizures From State-Legal Businesses. The research world watches those enforcement spasms like weather radar; when storms hit commerce, labs hunker down. Add to that the looming specter of a federal CBD crackdown and you start to see how fragile the ecosystem is for hemp farmers, clinicians, and patients alike—context explored in Hemp Farmers And Patients Who Rely On CBD Need More Than Just A Delay In The Looming Federal Ban (Op-Ed). States, for their part, sometimes get the memo: fix the rules, publicly, and people can plan. Just look at how regulators refine guardrails in medical programs, like the adjustments covered in Missouri Regulators Move To Clarify Medical Marijuana Patients’ Purchasing Limits. That’s the assignment at the federal level too: write the playbook, then let the players play.

So here’s the bottom line, delivered without garnish: the HALT Fentanyl Act promised a workable path for Schedule I research; the attorney general missed the first step; and every day without guidance is another day that breakthroughs die in committee. Publish the interim rule. Confirm the 30- and 45-day clocks. Spell out the notice requirements for small-scale manufacturing. Hold open listening sessions with researchers, IRB chairs, hospital pharmacists, and sponsors who live inside these constraints. Measure success in approvals, study launches, peer-reviewed publications, and real-world outcomes—things you can point to when you say that cannabis research, psychedelics research, and public health all got less theoretical and more humane. Until then, “marijuana policy reform” remains a slogan competing with inertia. If you’re following this story because you care about a smarter, safer, and more evidence-driven cannabis future, take a breath, stay sharp—and when you’re ready to explore compliant products crafted for connoisseurs and the canna-curious alike, step into our shop: https://thcaorder.com/shop/.