"Before the DEA's June 29 Rescheduling Hearing Proceeds, a Foundational Question Demands an Answer: Is This Process Constitutional" asked Duane Boise CEO MMJ International Holdings.?
The Department of Justice has already told a federal court that the administrative law judge framework being used to conduct the hearing "does not comport with the separation of powers and Article II." The DEA is proceeding anyway.
WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESS Newswire / June 12, 2026 / On June 29, 2026, the Drug Enforcement Administration is scheduled to convene an expedited rescheduling hearing - a proceeding that will determine the federal scheduling status of marijuana and carry consequences measured in billions of dollars across the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and commercial cannabis industries.
There is a question that has received almost no public attention in the lead-up to that hearing. It is not a question about science, or tax policy, or market access. It is a question about whether the federal government has the legal authority to conduct the proceeding at all.
On February 27, 2025, the Department of Justice filed a formal Notice of Change in Position in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island, in the case of MMJ BioPharma Cultivation Inc. v. Bondi, Civil Action No. 1:24-cv-127-WES-PAS. In that notice, DOJ's Acting Solicitor General informed the court of the following:
"The multiple layers of removal restrictions for administrative law judges ['ALJs'] in 5 U.S.C. § 7521 do not comport with the separation of powers and Article II and . . . the Department of Justice will no longer defend them in litigation."
Read that again. The Department of Justice - the federal government's own law enforcement and legal authority - has formally concluded that the statutory protections shielding DEA Administrative Law Judges from presidential oversight are unconstitutional. And the DEA is now scheduling a consequential rescheduling hearing using those very same ALJs under that very same framework.
The government has acknowledged the constitutional defect in its own adjudicatory process. The June 29 hearing proceeds regardless?
What the DOJ Concession Actually Means
Under 5 U.S.C. § 7521, Administrative Law Judges are insulated from removal except for good cause, as determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board - itself an independent agency whose members are also protected from removal. This double layer of insulation is precisely what the Supreme Court examined in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, both of which held that such structures can unconstitutionally impede the President's Article II authority to oversee the Executive Branch.
DOJ's February 2025 concession in MMJ BioPharma Cultivation Inc. v. Bondi extended that logic directly to DEA ALJs. The government did not merely flag a legal concern. It formally abandoned its defense of the statutory framework entirely and notified the court in writing.
That concession is now part of the public record. It is cited in pending D.C. Circuit litigation - consolidated Case Nos. 26-1106, 26-1130, and 26-1136 - challenging the rescheduling order itself. And it raises a question that courts will ultimately need to answer: can a federal agency conduct binding administrative adjudications using an ALJ structure that the government's own lawyers have concluded is unconstitutional?
The June 29 Hearing Is Not a Peripheral Proceeding
The rescheduling hearing scheduled for June 29, 2026 is not a routine administrative matter. The AG Order No. 6754-2026, which purported to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, was issued without notice-and-comment rulemaking - itself a legally contested action now before the D.C. Circuit. The June 29 hearing represents the DEA's attempt to provide after-the-fact procedural legitimacy to an order whose legal foundation is already under active judicial challenge.
Using constitutionally compromised ALJs to conduct that proceeding compounds the legal vulnerability of the entire rescheduling framework. A decision produced by an adjudicatory process the government itself has identified as defective will carry that defect through every subsequent legal challenge.
The Supreme Court made clear in Axon Enterprises v. FTC that structural constitutional challenges to agency adjudication - particularly those involving removal protections - can be raised in federal district court without waiting for the conclusion of agency proceedings. That principle is directly applicable here. Litigants do not have to wait for June 29 to pass before asking a court to examine whether the proceeding is constitutionally sound.
A decision produced by a constitutionally defective process does not become valid simply because the agency proceeded with confidence.
The Disparity That Makes This More Than an Abstract Legal Question
For more than eight years, MMJ International Holdings and its subsidiaries - MMJ BioPharma Cultivation, Inc. and MMJ BioPharma Labs, Inc. - have pursued the federal regulatory pathway established by Congress and the FDA. The company holds Orphan Drug Designation for a THC/CBD combination therapy targeting Huntington's disease, maintains two active Investigational New Drug authorizations, and operates DEA-registered Schedule I laboratory infrastructure. Every step has been taken inside the constitutional and regulatory framework as designed.
While federally compliant pharmaceutical applicants continue to wait - subject to the full rigor of the FDA drug approval process, DEA registration requirements, and Schedule I research protocols - state-licensed cannabis operators are now positioned to receive substantial commercial benefits through a rescheduling framework issued without notice-and-comment rulemaking, administered by ALJs the government has conceded are unconstitutionally insulated from oversight, and moving forward on a timeline that forecloses meaningful judicial review before economic consequences crystallize.
That disparity is not incidental. It is the direct consequence of allowing administrative convenience to override constitutional process - precisely what the Supreme Court has repeatedly warned against in its recent administrative law jurisprudence.
The Question Before the Courts
Multiple legal challenges to the rescheduling order are now before the D.C. Circuit. The constitutional defect identified by DOJ in MMJ BioPharma Cultivation Inc. v. Bondi is among the arguments squarely before the court. A stay motion is under active consideration.
The question framed by that litigation is straightforward: before the DEA convenes a rescheduling hearing on June 29 using Administrative Law Judges whose statutory removal protections the Department of Justice has already conceded are unconstitutional, should a federal court first determine whether that proceeding can lawfully go forward?
That is not a question about whether marijuana should be rescheduled.
It is not a question about the science, or the policy, or the commercial implications.
It is a question about whether the federal government is capable of conducting a lawful process - and whether it is willing to ask that question of itself before proceeding.
Without a lawful process, there can be no lawful outcome. That principle applies regardless of which side of the rescheduling debate one occupies.
For Patients, the Process Is Not an Abstraction
The patients who have the most at stake in the outcome of federal cannabis policy are not investors tracking Schedule III tax implications. They are individuals living with Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis, and other serious neurological conditions for whom pharmaceutical-grade cannabinoid medicine - developed through rigorous FDA-supervised clinical protocols - represents a potential therapeutic option that has been systematically delayed by the same administrative apparatus now under constitutional challenge.
A rescheduling framework that is legally defective from the moment of its issuance does not serve those patients. It creates years of additional uncertainty, litigation, and regulatory instability that will further delay the development and approval of legitimate pharmaceutical cannabinoid medicines.
The constitutional question is not a technicality. It is the foundation. And it needs to be answered before June 29, not after.
About MMJ International Holdings, Inc.
MMJ International Holdings, Inc. (MMJIH) is a U.S.-based biopharmaceutical company pursuing pharmaceutical-grade cannabinoid therapeutics exclusively through the FDA botanical drug development pathway and DEA Schedule I registration framework. MMJIH holds Orphan Drug Designation for a THC/CBD combination therapy targeting Huntington's disease, maintains two active IND applications with the FDA, and operates DEA-registered Schedule I laboratory infrastructure. MMJIH is a petitioner and plaintiff in consolidated D.C. Circuit litigation (Case Nos. 26-1106, 26-1130, 26-1136) challenging the constitutional and procedural validity of AG Order No. 6754-2026.
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/marijuana-rescheduling-delayed-or-denied-marijuana-faces-its-biggest-1176445
