While the DEA's Thomas Prevoznik Turned a Blind Eye, American Cannabis Users Were Poisoned: How the DEA Regulatory Failure and Inaction Enabled a Public Health Crisis.
WASHINGTON, D.C. / ACCESS Newswire / July 4, 2025 / The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is asleep at the wheel - or worse, willfully negligent - as contaminated cannabis floods state markets, consumers are poisoned, and legitimate pharmaceutical research is actively blocked by the very agency tasked with protecting public health.
At the center of this national disgrace is DEA's Deputy Administrator Thomas Prevoznik, the long-time bureaucrat at the helm of the DEA's Diversion Control Division. While Prevoznik parades around on taxpayer-funded panels pretending to safeguard public safety, the truth is undeniable: the DEA has utterly failed its mission. As stated on the DEA website:
"The mission of DEA's Diversion Control Division is to prevent, detect, and investigate the diversion of controlled pharmaceuticals and listed chemicals from legitimate sources while ensuring an adequate and uninterrupted supply for legitimate medical, commercial, and scientific needs".
State Cannabis Chaos Exposes DEA Incompetence
The latest scandal comes out of Massachusetts, where state regulators just suspended the license of Assured Testing Laboratories -one of the largest cannabis labs in the state-after uncovering what they describe as an "intentional effort to conceal" failing safety results on cannabis products.
The lab, which tested 25% of all cannabis in the state, was caught falsifying reports, hiding contamination, and greenlighting dangerous products that should have failed mandatory yeast, mold, and microbial standards. Thousands of cannabis products were put into consumer hands without accurate safety testing.
Yet not a word from the DEA.
Not a single enforcement action.
No national recall.
No intervention.
The DEA's Mission: Betrayed from Within
The DEA's own mission is crystal clear:
"To prevent, detect, and investigate the diversion of controlled substances while ensuring an adequate and uninterrupted supply for legitimate medical, commercial, and scientific needs."
Under Prevoznik's failed leadership, that mission has become a farce.
The DEA has allowed state cannabis markets to operate as the Wild West: no national oversight, no quality control, no consistency.
Consumers across the U.S. are being exposed to tainted, contaminated cannabis products, while the DEA turns a blind eye.
At the same time, the DEA is actively blocking federally compliant pharmaceutical cannabis development including MMJ BioPharma's FDA-approved clinical research for devastating conditions like Huntington's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis.
Why Is Prevoznik Blocking Science While Allowing Poison?
The hypocrisy is staggering:
The DEA refuses to grant a federal manufacturing license to MMJ BioPharma, whose plant-derived, pharmaceutical-grade cannabis medicines are produced under strict FDA standards.
Meanwhile, Prevoznik's division permits contaminated street level cannabis to flood state markets with no uniform standards, no federal action, and no public warning.
It's the worst of both worlds:
The public is unprotected and medical innovation is obstructed.
The Human Cost of Prevoznik's Failures
Families with children suffering from intractable epilepsy, cancer, or neurological disorders are denied access to standardized, pharmaceutical cannabis because the DEA won't act.
At the same time, recreational markets pump out high-potency THC products riddled with mold, pesticides, and unregulated contaminants: products that in some cases are making people sick.
This is not regulation.
This is dereliction of duty.
Time for Accountability: Fire Prevoznik, Reform DEA
The solution is clear:
Thomas Prevoznik must be immediately removed from his position for gross negligence and regulatory malpractice.
The DEA's obstruction of pharmaceutical cannabis research must end.
Oversight of cannabis research should be transferred to agencies that understand science-such as the FDA or NIH.
Congress must investigate how the DEA has allowed the national cannabis market to devolve into chaos while blocking life-saving medicines from reaching patients.
"The DEA's Diversion Control Division, under Prevoznik's leadership, has failed to protect the public, failed to uphold science, and failed to meet even the most basic standards of competence," said Duane Boise, CEO of MMJ BioPharma Cultivation .
"It's time for the DEA to be held accountable for decades of failure."
The American People Deserve Better
The DEA exists to serve and protect the public, not to act as a political roadblock while Americans are poisoned and scientific progress is stalled.
Prevoznik failed. The DEA failed.
It's time for Congress, the courts, and the public to take back control.
MMJ is represented by attorney Megan Sheehan.
CONTACT:
Madison Hisey
MHisey@mmjih.com
203-231-8583
SOURCE: MMJ International Holdings
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/healthcare-and-pharmaceutical/deas-thomas-prevoznik-fails-again-cannabis-users-poisoned-while-pharm-1045808
