The Drug Enforcement Administration has rejected witnesses and testimony from the group fighting to keep two psychedelic compounds out of Schedule I. The agency has a meeting scheduled in November to consider banning the two drugs.

Green Market Report wrote in August that the DEA proposed to put 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI) and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine (DOC) in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, with the hearing scheduled to take place Nov. 12-22. The final meeting is to be held on Nov. 25.

The DEA has been trying to put the two compounds into Schedule I since April 2022, but Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) has been fighting the ban along with Panacea Plant Sciences. They filed a lawsuit, but it was dismissed, essentially clearing the way for DEA to proceed with banning DOI and DOC. However, the hearings remained scheduled.

Rejected witnesses and exhibits

On Sept. 26, the DEA filed a Motion in Limine which said,

The government moves to exclude various witnesses, witness testimony, and exhibits proposed by Panacea Plant Sciences (Panacea), the Science Policy Counsel, Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Dr. Raul A. Ramos (SSDP/Ramos) on the grounds that much of the proposed testimony and exhibits are incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, and/or unduly repetitious.

The motion went on to say that while the group also proposed to offer 88 exhibits (SSDP/Ramos exhibits), none of them were properly paginated or marked for identification as laid out in the pre-hearing ruling.

The DEA also pointed out that the witnesses weren’t specific regarding their planned testimony. It cited that the summaries of the testimony provided only “areas to be covered” and withheld the relevant facts that the government would need to ascertain whether the testimony related to the factors regarding the banning.

The government agency also accused some of the witnesses of having unsupported conclusory statements versus factual statements. Some witnesses were called out for having speculative testimony or testimony not related to the factors regarding the potential ban.

The DEA said that Panacea’s witness, CEO David Heldreth, would have his testimony excluded in its entirety, because “Mr. Heldreth is not offered as an expert and presents no expertise that would assist the Tribunal. The Tribunal has no basis to conclude that Mr. Heldreth is qualified to testify regarding the pharmacological effects or DOI or DOI. Nor is there any basis to conclude that Mr. Heldreth is an expert on the state of current scientific knowledge of either DOC or DOI, the risk of abuse, or any other issue raised by the factors discussed above.”

The motion also called Hedreth’s potential statements on abuse or diversion “strictly speculative.”

Push back

Not surprisingly, the SSDP filed a motion in the DEA administrative Court pushing back on the DEA’s rejection of witnesses.

“What is the DEA so scared of that these leading scientists must be muzzled?” said Robert Rush, a Denver-based attorney who is working hand-in-hand with SSDP to keep research using DOI and DOC legal. “By trying to silence the world’s leading experts in neuroscience and pharmacology, the DEA is attempting to prevent the tribunal – and the public – from understanding the true potential of these substances.”

The group argued in its filing that the reasons for rejection – proper pagination and marks for exhibit purposes – were incorrect and the final submission folder contained the correct files. The filing did concede earlier disclosed documents did not have full pagination or exhibit identification but complained that the DOJ’s document submission system does not allow petitioners access to modify previous submissions to make changes.

The group also pushed back on the rejection of the witnesses outlining the bona fides of each.

“We have assembled a world-class international group of behavioral and molecular pharmacologists, chemists, neuroscientists, and a former Government Advisor on psychoactive drugs,” said Elijah Ullman, a Ph.D. candidate in molecular and systems pharmacology at Emory University and chair of SSDP’s Science Policy Committee.

“If the DEA believes that both DOI and DOC should be placed in Schedule I, they should have no issue allowing our witnesses to testify in full – after all, don’t they allege they have sufficient data to prove DOI and DOC are addictive and a harm to the public?” Ullman said.

“If the DEA believed their own rhetoric and description of the data, they would allow our proposed witnesses to testify in full. Otherwise, it appears to me that they are worried their dataset is lacking the scientific rigor to support their claims.”

2024.09.26 GOV DOI DOC.Mot.Inlimine KK

  ​   Psychedelics Archives – Green Market Report Read More