Former Attorney General William Barr says the Biden administration is “ignoring legal standards and scientific evidence” to justify its proposal to federally reschedule marijuana, even as former President Donald Trump, who appointed him, has recently embraced state-level legalization.
In an op-ed for Fox News that was published on Thursday, Barr took aim at the Biden-Harris administration for pushing to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substance Act (CSA). He said the modest reform is an attempt “to score political points” ahead of the November election.
“Pandering to progressive voters, the administration is pushing hard to reschedule marijuana by bypassing the DEA,” Barr, whose current law firm represented the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) in submitting a public comment opposing the rescheduling move, said.
He accused the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of “sidestepping the established standards for scheduling drugs and conjuring up a new set of criteria designed to deliver the administration’s desired result” to reschedule marijuana.
“Politics, not science, is driving the Biden-Harris administration’s push to reschedule marijuana,” Barr, who opposed Trump during the most recent primary election but is now backing the Republican ticket heading into November, wrote. “Had it not jettisoned established standards and lessened the rigor of the scientific process, the administration could not validate rescheduling.”
Barr’s op-ed does not make mention of Trump’s recent comments supporting a cannabis legalization initiative on Florida’s November ballot.
The former top federal law enforcement official said marijuana does meet the criteria for Schedule I classification, in part because he feels the increased THC levels in commercially available products in state markets demonstrates its high abuse potential. He also said cannabis use carries “wide-ranging negative effects on mental and physical health.”
He added that, in order to “circumvent the inconvenient reality that marijuana has no approved medical use, the Biden-Harris HHS argued that the fact some states have passed laws allowing medical use of marijuana is sufficient to establish that it has legitimate medical use.”
These talking points have often been voiced by prohibitionists, including SAM and several conservative congressional lawmakers opposing the rescheduling move.
“Drug laws are meant to protect American citizens—and especially American children—from dangerous substances,” Barr said. “But by politicizing the rescheduling process, the Biden administration is playing with people’s lives amid the worst drug crisis our nation has ever faced.”
The former attorney general, who also held the post during President George H.W. Bush’s administration, also argued that while “not all marijuana users go on to use harder drugs,” he claimed “the vast majority of people who use harder drugs started with marijuana.”
“It is grossly irresponsible to facilitate the use of a gateway drug at a time when more than 100,000 Americans are dying of drug overdoses each year,” he said.
Barr also said the country “would be subsidizing the marijuana industry” if marijuana is moved to Schedule III, because state-licensed companies would be able to take federal tax deductions they’re currently barred from under the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E.
“Rescheduling would give government sanction to the cannabis industry’s campaign to downplay marijuana’s addictive potential and health risks, allowing weed peddlers to cultivate broad-based dependence on the drug and expand their pool of repeat customers,” he said.
“We hear a lot from the current administration about the ‘rule of law.’ But by ignoring legal standards and scientific evidence in its rush to loosen restrictions on marijuana, the Biden-Harris administration is riding roughshod over the rule of law and playing fast and loose with the health and safety of the American people—all for political gain.
During the Trump administration, Barr faced criticism after initiating investigations into cannabis industry mergers that were described as improper.
At a Senate hearing in 2019, Barr said that while he personally opposes legalization, he would prefer for Congress to pass a bill respecting the rights of states to implement their own cannabis policies rather than maintain blanket federal prohibition.
At his confirmation hearing earlier that year he said he would not go after marijuana companies that have operated in compliance with Justice Department guidance that was rescinded by his predecessor, Jeff Sessions.
Separately, Robert F. Kennedy, a former 2024 presidential candidate who has since been tapped to join the transition team for Trump after endorsing the GOP candidate, is drawing attention to Vice President Kamala Harris’s prosecutorial record on marijuana.
Amid increased attention to Trump’s position on federal and state-level cannabis reform issues, RFK Jr. shared a video of an earlier exchange between Harris and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) during a 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate when the then-congresswoman criticized the then-senator over marijuana-related prosecutions she oversaw as a California prosecutor and state attorney general.
Recent comments from Trump have also signaled support for Florida’s marijuana legalization initiative that will appear on the ballot followed meetings with a GOP Florida senator and the CEO of the primary financial backer of the initiative, Trulieve’s Kim Rivers, sources told Marijuana Moment.
In more recent comments published on Tuesday, Trump said medical marijuana has been “absolutely amazing” for patients, and that the Florida legalization initiative is “going to be very good” for the state after it passes, which he expects to happen.
Following Trump’s announcement of support for the Florida cannabis legalization ballot measure, Harris’s campaign started working to remind voters that while in office, Trump “took marijuana reform backwards.”
In a memo from a senior campaign spokesperson, the Harris campaign accused Trump of “brazen flip flops” on cannabis. The Democratic campaign says it’s one of the Republican former president’s “several bewildering ‘policy proposals’ that deserve real scrutiny.”
RFK Jr. Attacks Harris’s Marijuana Record After Endorsing Trump
Former Attorney General William Barr says the Biden administration is “ignoring legal standards and scientific evidence” to justify its proposal to federally reschedule marijuana, even as former President Donald Trump, who appointed him, has recently embraced state-level legalization. In an op-ed for Fox News that was published on Thursday, Barr took aim at the Biden-Harris Read More