The Games DEA Attorneys Play: What Marijuana Rescheduling Closing Brief Didn’t Tell Judge Julius

DEA attorneys told the marijuana rescheduling ALJ judge to give the other side’s experts “little to no weight.” It never told him what its own DEA and FDA two scientists said under oath.

WASHINGTON, D.C. / ACCESS Newswire / August 22, 2026 / The post-hearing briefs in DEA’s marijuana rescheduling proceeding are now public. MMJ International Holdings, Inc. (“MMJ”) read the Government’s 50-page closing argument against the seven briefs filed by the opposing parties.

The Government attacked nearly every witness the other side called.

It said almost nothing about its own.

Thirty-one citations and one

Dr. Dominic Chiapperino is the FDA official who supervised the eight-factor scientific evaluation on which the entire rescheduling proposal rests. The Government’s brief cites him 31 times – abuse potential, receptor pharmacology, dependence profiles, the framework for accepted medical use.

It never cites the testimony quoted in opposing briefs: that marijuana is a “variable substance” without “known and reproducible” chemistry, and that on the first element alone it “[w]ould not have passed” DEA’s traditional five-part test.

Dr. Luli Akinfiresoye is a pharmacologist in DEA’s Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section. The Government’s brief cites her once – for the finding that marijuana “is not a substance as it is not a singular molecular entity.”

It never cites the testimony that marijuana failed every element of the five-part framework, or that those conclusions were the consensus view of her section at DEA.

Thirty-one and one. Anyone can count them.

Meanwhile the Government told Judge Julius that many opposing witnesses were “so-called expert witnesses” who “do not have the qualifications,” and that the tribunal “should give such testimony little to no weight.” Certain testimony, it said, was “irreparably tainted.”

“DEA spent its closing argument explaining why everyone else’s experts should be ignored,” said Duane Boise, Chief Executive Officer of MMJ International Holdings. “It never got around to its own. The Government can change its legal test. It cannot cross-examine its own scientists out of the record.”

One sentence, carefully written

Near the end of its brief, the Government writes:

“None of the testimony from the Opposed Parties contradict these findings.”

Read it again. It does not say no testimony contradicts the findings.

It says none from the Opposed Parties.

The testimony that creates the most trouble for Schedule III did not come from the Opposed Parties. It came from the Government’s own witnesses, on cross-examination.

That is not sloppy drafting. That is precise drafting.

The analysis at the center of the case – and the witness who never came

The Government’s accepted-medical-use finding rests on a two-part test. Part One asks whether licensed practitioners have widespread current experience using marijuana medically under state programs. It produced the number DEA repeats throughout its brief: more than 30,000 practitioners, 43 jurisdictions, six million patients.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health performed that analysis. OASH sent no witness.

Chiapperino, who works at FDA and did not perform it, was left to present it – and testified that OASH handed FDA the memorandum already completed, and that he could not explain how OASH interpreted practitioner experience.

The Government carries the burden of proof. It proved the foundation of its case with a document whose authors never took the stand and whose methods its own witness could not describe.

Opposing briefs add what the Government’s does not: fewer than half the practitioners recommending marijuana in state programs are physicians, only some jurisdictions used expert or scientific review to approve qualifying conditions, and the national totals were never broken down by the conditions the Government actually relies on.

DEA’s own findings say what its argument does not

The most damaging material in the record did not come from an opponent. It came from the Government’s proposed findings of fact.

DEA asks Judge Julius to find that marijuana “is not a single chemical with a consistent and reproducible chemical profile or predictable and consistent clinical effects.”

That variability in composition and impurity profile presents “major considerations for the potential variability of drug effects and safety.”

And that “[b]ecause of the different sources of marijuana in state-approved programs, there are no unified controls on the cultivation and manufacturing of marijuana products, which raise concerns regarding the products’ safety, quality, and consistency.”

Those are the Government’s requests. They appear in the same brief asking the judge to find that marijuana has an accepted medical use and belongs in Schedule III.

State programs are reliable enough to establish accepted medical use – and lack unified controls raising concerns about safety, quality and consistency. The Government asks that both be true at once.

Advocacy is permitted. Explanation is required.

No attorney has to argue the other side’s case. DEA’s lawyers are entitled to press their position as hard as anyone.

An agency decision is different. Final agency action must rest on reasoned consideration of the whole record, and material evidence cutting against the conclusion cannot simply vanish from the analysis. Judge Julius heard the testimony. He is not confined to the Government’s account of it. Neither is a reviewing court.

August 26

On August 20, Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek C. Julius ordered 294 corrections to the roughly 2,500-page hearing transcript and directed that the corrected version be published on DEA’s website no later than August 26, 2026.

Some corrections reverse meaning. Reported examples include “illegal” corrected to “legal,” “increase” to “decrease,” “admitted” to “omitted,” and “there’s adulterants” to “there’s no adulterants.”

That is why MMJ has identified testimony through the parties’ filed briefs and their transcript citations rather than treating the uncorrected daily transcript as the official record.

On August 26, the corrected transcript becomes public. Then everyone can read for themselves what the Government’s witnesses actually said under oath – and what DEA’s closing brief left out.

Why MMJ is watching

MMJ has spent more than eight years and more than $10 million developing standardized cannabinoid pharmaceutical candidates through FDA and DEA. It evaluated seven formulations before selecting a final oral dosage form of 5 mg CBD and 2.5 mg THC per soft-gel capsule, and completed manufacture of 50,000 capsules with Catalent Pharma Solutions in May 2022. MMJ holds two Investigational New Drug files and Orphan Drug Designation for its Huntington’s disease program. Its candidates remain investigational, are not FDA-approved and remain under Full Clinical Hold; MMJ makes no representation that they are safe or effective.

MMJ BioPharma Cultivation applied to DEA in December 2018 to manufacture cannabis active pharmaceutical ingredient for federally authorized research. Seven years later, that application is still unresolved.

MMJ is a petitioner in federal litigation challenging Attorney General Order No. 6754-2026 and an appellant in separate litigation concerning a CMS cannabinoid program.

About MMJ International Holdings, Inc.

MMJ International Holdings, Inc. is a privately held pharmaceutical company developing standardized cannabinoid-based investigational medicines through federal pathways administered by FDA and DEA. MMJ BioPharma Labs holds a DEA Schedule I analytical-laboratory registration. MMJ BioPharma Cultivation has a pending DEA bulk-manufacturing application. MMJ’s investigational programs concern potential treatments for Huntington’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

CONTACT:
Madison Hisey
MHisey@mmjih.com
203-231-8583

STATEMENT. Quotations from the Government’s Post-Hearing Brief and from briefs filed by other designated parties are taken from filings in DEA Docket No. 1362, Hearing Docket No. 26-96, dated August 17, 2026, copies of which have been made publicly accessible by news organizations. Citation counts reflect MMJ’s review of the filed Government brief and may be independently verified. Testimony described here is quoted or characterized as it appears in those briefs, which cite the daily hearing transcript before correction; on August 20, 2026 the tribunal ordered 294 corrections, with the corrected transcript to be published no later than August 26, 2026, and quotations should be verified against it before use in litigation or regulatory submissions. MMJ’s characterization of the Government’s brief and the conclusions MMJ draws from comparing it with other filings reflect MMJ’s opinion; MMJ does not assert personal knowledge of any Government attorney’s subjective intent. MMJ was not a designated party to the administrative proceeding and takes no position on what the Administrative Law Judge should or will recommend; the recommendation is advisory and the DEA Administrator retains ultimate administrative authority, subject to judicial review. MMJ’s product candidates are investigational, have not been approved by FDA and remain subject to a Full Clinical Hold; no clinical trials have been completed and no conclusions concerning safety or efficacy may be drawn. There can be no assurance that FDA will lift any clinical hold, that DEA will act upon MMJ’s pending registration application, or that any court or agency will reach a particular result. MMJ is a petitioner in federal litigation concerning the April 2026 rescheduling order and an appellant in litigation concerning a CMS cannabinoid program; no court has ruled on the merits of MMJ’s claims and no outcome is predicted or implied. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any security.

SOURCE: MMJ International Holdings

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