Hoban Law to DEA: We’ll See You in Court

“We will see the Federal Government in Court” says Hoban Law Group, one of America’s most experienced firms in the cannabis and hemp industries.

It’s in response to the DEA’s aggressive attempt to bring CBD, a non-psychoactive compound, into the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule 1 drug.

The move by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is “cloaked in the guise of a bureaucratic technicality,” said the Hoban Law Group in a statement.

In the hemp and marijuana space since 2008, the Hoban group argues the DEA can’t create a statute. The Denver-based attorney specializes in cannabis law, and teaches law at the University of Denver.

DEA oversteps, again

In truth, the DEA doesn’t have the authority to make a law and schedule controlled substances without an act of Congress.

“The DEA can temporarily outlaw a substance that constitutes a “public health crisis” without any outside input if the Food and Drug Administration has not approved the drug. Over the next two or three years, the Department of Health and Human Services then determines whether the drug is indeed a threat. If so, the ban becomes permanent; if not, it is reversed,” according to STAT, a journalism institution focused on science, biotech, and politics.

Hundreds of thousands of patients around the country rely on non-psychoactive CBD products to manage pain, inflammation, seizures, and other medical conditions.

Oops, they did it again

The DEA was going to put kratom on the schedule 1 drug list, alongside heroin, but due to public and political objection – it remains unscheduled. The DEA received more than twenty-thousand comments online against the scheduling, an abnormally high amount of public interaction with the government agency.

“The DEA has sought to unilaterally create laws before and has lost when challenged,” said Hoban. For example, the DEA also tried to ban hemp foods in 1999.

In the end, the hasty decision and lack of research, amplified by the public outcry, made the DEA back down in both cases.

DEA representative Russell Baer recently told VICE News that the new code is simply an internal accounting mechanism. “The purpose is to drill down and get more accurate information about research that’s being conducted with CBD in particular.”

These futile attempts at prohibition are part of the agency’s duties. They are the drug enforcement agency, and therefore their livelihood depends on having drug laws to implement.