Former DEA Heads, GOP AGs Seek Hearing on Marijuana Rescheduling; China-US Meeting on Fentanyl, More… (6/21/24)

Marijuana Coverage

Louisiana’s onerous proper governor vetoes a invoice that may have eased the pardon course of for first-time pot possession offenders, the Home Committee on the CCP kinds a fentanyl working group, and extra. 

Former DEA Heads, Republican Attorneys Basic Search Public Listening to on Marijuana Rescheduling Proposal. The forces of recalcitrance are mobilizing to attempt to thwart marijuana rescheduling, with a gaggle of former DEA directors and a gaggle of Republican state attorneys basic each asking the company to carry a public listening to on the plan to maneuver marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Managed Substances Act. 

“Given the magnitude of the impression of the proposed rule and contemplating we face an unprecedented drug overdose disaster on this nation,” stated the group of six former DEA directors and three former appearing directors, “we write to emphasise {that a} listening to on this rulemaking is within the public curiosity.” The previous DEA heads added that the transfer is “seemingly essentially the most consequential rulemaking DEA has ever tried.”

The 18 Republican attorneys basic sounded an identical notice. 

“A public listening to is within the public curiosity, and subsequently within the curiosity of our states,” added the attorneys basic, led by South Carolina AG Alan Wilson (R). Others who signed on signify Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. All are Republicans.

The 2 teams’ requests got here simply earlier than a Thursday deadline for submitting feedback requesting that DEA maintain a listening to on the proposal.

Louisiana Governor Vetoes Invoice Facilitating Expedited Pardons for First-Time Marijuana Offenders. Exhausting proper Gov. Jeff Landry (R) has vetoed a invoice that may have given the chief department the flexibility to grant expedited pardons to first-time marijuana possession offenders, Home Invoice 391, suggesting it was a soft-on-crime measure.  

In his veto message, Landry stated one cause he killed the invoice was as a result of he noticed it as “an try and have Louisiana settle for President Biden’s invitation to the states to hitch his soft-on-crime, no-consequences-for-criminals agenda.”

The invoice would have allowed the governor to pardon eligible offenders with out first receiving a suggestion from the state Board of Pardons. The measure simply handed each Republican-dominated chambers. 

The transfer drew scorn from the Nationwide Group for the Reform of Marijuana Legal guidelines (NORML), with Deputy Director Paul Armentano noting that different states across the nation are taking steps to proper the previous wrongs of pot prohibition and saying that “it is a disgrace to see Louisiana’s governor taking the state in a unique path.”

International Coverage

Chinese language, US Officers Maintain Talks on Countering Fentanyl Commerce. The US and China held high-level talks on Thursday on counternarcotics cooperation. The assembly got here simply days after the 2 international locations introduced a breakthrough in bilateral cooperation during which each international locations labored collectively to bust a cash laundering operation the place Chinese language prison parts washed drug cash for the Sinaloa Cartel. 

Rahul Gupta, director of the White Home Workplace of Nationwide Drug Management Coverage (ONDCP—the drug czar’s workplace) met in Beijing with China’s minister of public safety, Wang Xiaohong.

With fentanyl linked to a whole bunch of hundreds of US overdose deaths, the US has been pushing China for extra legislation enforcement cooperation, together with taking over cash laundering and controls over precursor chemical compounds. Chinese language chemical corporations typically play a sport of whack-a-mole, shifting from fentanyl to completely different analogs because the Chinese language authorities strikes to manage present ones. 

The day after the assembly, the Supreme Folks’s Procuratorate, the county’s high prosecutors’ workplace, referred to as on legislation enforcement throughout the nation to concentrate on preventing drug trafficking. The workplace stated it was prepared to indicate its “willpower and angle to accentuate efforts to crack down on associated crimes.”

Home Choose Committee on the Chinese language Communist Occasion Proclaims Formation of Fentanyl Working Group. Committee management introduced Thursday the formation of the Choose Committee on the Strategic Competitors Between the USA and the Chinese language Communist Occasion’s Coverage Working Group targeted on combatting the Chinese language Communist Occasion’s position within the fentanyl epidemic—a task the Chinese language Communist Occasion denies. 

The Fentanyl Coverage Working Group might be led by Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) and Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA). Reps. Neal Dunn (R-FL), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Dusty Johnson (R-SD), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), and Michelle Metal (R-CA) will even serve on the Fentanyl Coverage Working Group.

The Coverage Working Group (PWG) might be charged with elevating consciousness of the CCP’s position within the fentanyl disaster by means of Committee occasions and producing laws to fight the risk. Its work will begin instantly and can construct upon the Choose Committee’s April report which charged, amongst different issues, that the Chinese language Communist Occasion is subsidizing the export of lethal fentanyl into the USA.

Particularly, the Fentanyl Coverage Working Group will work to

Codify, strengthen, and impose sanctions on entities concerned within the fentanyl commerce.Enact and make use of commerce and customs enforcement measures to limit fentanyl trafficking.

Shut regulatory and enforcement gaps exploited by PRC cash launderers and fentanyl merchants.