The federal government filed its prehearing statement Wednesday ahead of next Monday’s DEA marijuana rescheduling hearing — and the witness list is an eyebrow-raiser.
The DEA is calling two witnesses. The first is Dr. Dominic Chiapperino, a fact witness from the FDA who supervised the agency’s Eight-Factor Analysis that recommended moving marijuana to Schedule III in 2023. The second is Dr. Corey Burchman, a retired anesthesiologist and pain management physician from New Hampshire who stopped practicing in 2019 and will testify that, in his medical opinion, marijuana benefits pain patients.
The contrast with SAM’s witness list is stark. SAM is calling Dr. Bertha Madras of Harvard Medical School — one of the country’s foremost experts on addiction neuroscience — and has requested a subpoena for Dr. Luli Akinfiresoye, the DEA’s own pharmacologist, whose (apparent) 106-page declaration from the 2024 rescheduling hearing concluded that marijuana carries substantial abuse potential and broad adverse health consequences. The DEA quietly dropped Dr. Akinfiresoye from its own witness list for this hearing. SAM moved to compel her attendance anyway.
Worth noting: Dr. Chiapperino’s testimony is significantly constrained. The filing states that an FDA Touhy letter limits him strictly to three topics — the scientific basis for the agency’s Eight-Factor Analysis, its assessment of marijuana’s currently accepted medical use, and its recommendation for Schedule III placement. He is explicitly not authorized to testify about the ultimate question of where marijuana should be scheduled. The FDA’s own letter states that “the ultimate placement of marijuana in any particular CSA Schedule is beyond the scope of FDA’s scheduling recommendation.”
So, it appears, the government’s lead scientific witness cannot actually speak to the central question before the tribunal.
The filing states that Dr. Burchman’s testimony will focus on the New Hampshire medical marijuana model — patient safety measures, product testing, and monthly caps on dispensing. His experience is real. But it is also narrow, regional, and drawn entirely from a state-regulated program rather than from controlled clinical research. He stopped practicing five years ago.
The government’s exhibit list is similarly revealing. Its primary scientific document is the HHS recommendation from August 2023 — the same analysis that SAM’s experts will spend considerable time dismantling as methodologically flawed, particularly its reliance on alcohol as a comparator and its failure to account for marijuana’s addiction trajectory, psychosis risk, and youth harm data.
The DEA is the agency that initiated this rescheduling proceeding. It has the burden of demonstrating that the science supports the move. Monday’s hearing will test whether two constrained witnesses and a three-year-old HHS memo are enough to clear that bar.
SAM will be watching. And The Drug Report will have daily coverage from inside the hearing room.