Derek S. Maltz was appointed acting administrator of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on January 21 by the Trump Administration. The DEA is the federal agency with the authority to decide whether cannabis should be rescheduled from Schedule I drug to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act. According to a DEA announcement of the appointment, Maltz succeeds Anne Milgram who left the agency just last week.
Maltz was a “career Special Agent who served 28 Years at DEA Before Retiring in 2014”, and the former chief of the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force (the country’s largest and oldest drug task force). He has also “been a Champion of Law Enforcement’s Fight against Global Drug Trafficking and Terrorism,” according to a release.
Maltz said that, if the science supported cannabis’ rescheduling “then it is fine,” as the The Associated Press (APMaltz told a story in an article published on May 20, 2024. APIt’s clear to me the Justice Department hijacked this process of rescheduling, putting politics before public safety.
You can also find out more about the following: AP The article quoted anonymous sources as saying that Maltz revealed to the author in an interview “that Milgram had told him privately” the truth about the terrorists. [rescheduling] The U.S. Justice Department has taken control of the DEA’s process and will not sign the document. [then-DEA Administrator Anne Milgram] But by Attorney General Merrick G. Garland.”
Garland, the DOJ’s deputy secretary of justice, signed and issued the notice of proposed rulesmaking (NPRM), the following day on May 21st, 2024.
The following are some of the ways to get in touch with us. AP reported, “‘DEA has not yet made a determination as to its views of the appropriate schedule for marijuana,’ reads a sentence tucked 13 pages into Garland’s 92-page order … outlining the Biden administration proposal to shift pot from its current Schedule I alongside heroin and LSD to the less tightly regulated Schedule III with such drugs as ketamine and some anabolic steroids.”
Maltz was appointed as the cannabis rescheduling is already in doubt. The rescheduling of hearings, originally set to begin on Jan. 21, was delayed after DEA Administrative Law Judicial (ALJ) John J. Mulrooney allowed an interlocutory appelation to a denied request to reconsider DEA’s involvement in the hearings as the proposer of the proposed rule which had been put forth by DOJ.
“In granting the appeal on Jan. 13, … Mulrooney … said the hearing to debate the merits of a proposed rule to reclassify cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act is ‘canceled.’ The hearing proceedings, with expert testimonies scheduled to run through early March, are now ‘stayed,’ pending a resolution of the interlocutory appeal to the DEA administrator,” Cannabis Business Times reported.
Trump “can decide to stop the current scheduling process.” The Congressional Research Service reports that, under administrative law, if a federal organization has not published a rule final before a new White House administration is elected, the president may order its withdrawal. CBT reported.