🏛️ DEA judge stays rescheduling to weigh GAO

Today's edition is sponsored by modash. Their support keeps these briefings free and focused on what actually matters.

Jeremy Berke of Cultivated Media joins Erik and me on today's episode of The Hybrid, out this morning, the same week Cultivated opened its paid membership to support additional, in-depth reporting. Really enjoyed talking to Jeremy about cannabis media and modern journalism. It’s worth a listen and if you’re not already, definitely subscribe to Cultivated’s daily newsletter. Listen on Spotify and everywhere you get your podcasts.

As for yesterday, a DEA judge paused the marijuana rescheduling proceeding Tuesday to decide whether last week's GAO report belongs in the record, and DEA answers by October 13th. In Oregon, the company behind most of the country's hemp seed is planning for life after Section 781. Massachusetts regulators want to hear by October 9th whether a cannabis worker's badge should follow the worker, and Missouri now needs a customer's written consent before a dispensary keeps their name. In Harrisburg, a hospice bill cleared the Senate committee where legalization has been parked.

🏛️ The record, on hold
🌾 Seed without a buyer
🪪 A badge that travels
📋 Sign here, please

Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius stayed DEA's marijuana rescheduling proceeding on Tuesday while he decides whether to reopen the record for last week's Government Accountability Office report. The motion came from three opponents who took part in the June and July hearing: the drug-testing trade group NDASA, DUID Victim Voices and Dr. Kenneth Finn. GAO found that DEA has no written procedures for how its staff evaluate and schedule drugs, and the movants want that finding in front of Julius before he writes his recommendation. His order gives DEA until October 13th to file up to 20 pages on whether the record should reopen, and other parties may respond.

Give the movants their due. A hearing record is supposed to hold what the decision-maker relies on, and a federal audit of the scheduling process is a fair thing to ask about. The report reviewed procedures across 208 substances, though, and found DEA landed where HHS recommended in all 84 final rules it checked. It says nothing about marijuana's abuse potential or medical use, which is what the eight factors weigh. I expect Judge Julius to lift the stay without reopening the record, since a finding about missing manuals changes no fact in this one.

The stay does complicate the calendar. Much of the talk around this proceeding has had the judge’s recommendation on Administrator Terrance Cole's desk in time for a final rule before the November 3rd midterms, and five weeks was already a tight window for that. DEA doesn't have to wait until October 13th to file, so the department controls how much of the next two weeks the stay consumes. An early filing would be the clearest sign the administration still wants a rule before Election Day. If DEA takes the full time, Julius still has to rule on the motion and finish his recommendation, and a final rule before November 3rd becomes very hard to see. If he orders merits briefing on the report instead, I'd expect the recommendation itself to slip into 2027. The April order that moved state-licensed medical cannabis to Schedule III stands either way. (Marijuana Moment; Law360; U.S. Government Accountability Office)

📊 University of Michigan researchers counted about 3.9 million registered medical cannabis patients in 2024, up from roughly 747,000 in 2016, and almost 36,000 authorized clinicians, in two papers in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Chronic pain accounted for 65 percent of reported qualifying conditions, followed by PTSD at 29 percent and anxiety at 17. Registration has been flat since 2022, which the authors tie to adult-use states, where a patient can skip the card and its fee. DEA's final brief in the rescheduling hearing cited more than six million patients and 30,000 practitioners in 43 jurisdictions. Both figures can be honest, because states count patients in different ways, a limitation the authors raise about their own numbers. (Marijuana Moment; Annals of Internal Medicine)

Seth Crawford co-owns Oregon CBD Seeds in Independence, which he told the Oregon Capital Chronicle supplies 75 percent of the hemp seed grown in the United States. Section 781 leaves his fields alone and reaches his customers: the processors whose products stop being federal hemp once they carry more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. So Crawford plans to sell seed to home growers. In Albany, Oregon CBD Company closes its CBD store at the end of this month, where pet tinctures and topicals were the best sellers, while the dispensary on the other side of the same building stays open.

Two dates govern, and both are on our Deadlines, Decoded tracker. Cannabinoids the plant can't produce on its own lose federal hemp status November 12th, and everything else follows December 11th. Seed and genetics are the part of the hemp economy the 2018 farm bill was written to build, and they are losing their market to a definition aimed at products several steps downstream. The CBD on those Albany shelves sits closer to the full-spectrum products the administration has asked Congress to protect than to the converted THC the law was written to reach, and Congress hasn't acted on that request. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)

🍺 Pallets of THC seltzer are packed up at Saucy Brew Works in Cleveland's Ohio City, headed for Indiana after Friday's Sixth Circuit order restored part of Ohio's enforcement against intoxicating hemp sold outside dispensaries. Co-founder Brent Zimmerman told News 5 Cleveland three things: (i) it's the third time since January his Ohio sales have stopped; (ii) the seltzers are nearly a quarter of beverage sales across his five pubs; and (iii) jobs will go. Case Western law professor Jonathan Entin read the order as narrower relief for the plaintiffs, with no pass on complying with Ohio's rules. Zimmerman's ask is for Ohio to open a license a brewery can actually get while the cases run, since SB 56 as written sends intoxicating hemp through dispensaries. (News 5 Cleveland)

A MassINC Polling Group survey of 800 likely voters for CommonWealth Beacon, taken September 14th through 22nd, found 61 percent opposed to Question 8 and 27 percent in favor. Support ran 42 percent among Republicans and 21 percent among Democrats. MPG's Rich Parr said cannabis and guns are the only questions on the ballot drawing voters out, and No on 8 put its first paid ads on digital, streaming and broadcast Tuesday. Massachusetts also requires a winning initiative's yes vote to reach 30 percent of all ballots cast, a second bar the repeal campaign has to clear on November 3rd. The campaign's events and filings are at StoptheRepealMA.com. (Marijuana Moment; CommonWealth Beacon; Cannabis Business Times)

A licensed Massachusetts cannabis business registers every employee with the Cannabis Control Commission today and pays $115 per agent. It starts over whenever someone changes jobs, because the registration voids on separation. The Commission is taking informal comment until October 9th on two replacements it discussed September 24th, including a proposal from Commissioner Anthony Wilson. Proposal 1 would register only owners and controlling persons, end individual badges, have licensees file employee lists, and put agent liability on the licensee. Proposal 2 keeps registration but issues one Commission badge that travels across employers, paid for by the employer, with liability on the agent.

Both begin from a fair complaint. A budtender who moves between two stores in the same town goes through the same review twice, and nobody is safer for the second one. The question sat on my desk the whole time I ran the agency, and the furthest we got was one badge across establishments under common control, in 2019. There is valuable data contained in that registration. It is the Commission's only complete record of who works in the industry, which is how it could report Black general-level employees rising from 3.8 percent of the workforce in 2019 to 8.9 percent in 2023. And since April, a medical licensee seeking DEA registration needs a waiver to keep a worker with a controlled-substance felony in an access role. That is the problem that handed Wildflower Medical Dispensary in Aberdeen, Mississippi, its three bad options this month. A state suitability finding that follows the worker is something a waiver request can cite, and a list kept by each employer would leave that work to each employer. (Talking Joints Memo; Cannabis Control Commission; Marijuana Moment)

🦘 Yongji Health now controls Tasmanian Botanics, one of Australia's largest medicinal cannabis growers. It bought out the Australian shareholders of Pijen, which owns more than 95 percent of the company, in a deal the trade publication Cannabiz put at about $31 million. Yongji is a subsidiary of Guizhou Yongji Printing, a Shanghai-listed maker of cigarette packaging, the ABC reports. Chief executive Craig Knight says the more than 150 jobs at the Pontville farm stay put and calls foreign ownership one of the realities of business. The ABC has asked the Foreign Investment Review Board for comment. Australian growers have been pressing for relief from cheaper imports since at least last year, and the capital that arrived for one of the biggest came from a company that prints cigarette cartons. (ABC News)

Missouri's Division of Cannabis Regulation issued guidance on HB 2641 effective September 28th, and the provision a store manager will feel first is about data. A dispensary can no longer create or keep any record identifying a customer unless that customer has agreed in writing, at $500 per occurrence. The Division tells licensees to review delivery intake and rewards-program records. State agencies also can't give medical patient information to the federal government without a subpoena or court order.

On hemp, intoxicating products become marijuana under Article XIV. Naturally derived beverages keep their shelves through December 11th if they aren't sold to anyone under 21. Licensees may still source outside hemp inputs at 0.3 percent total THC or finished products at 0.4 milligrams per container, with synthetic and converted cannabinoids barred. The law also says cannabis workers may organize and bargain collectively. (Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation; MMJDaily; The Marijuana Herald)

Eleven Greenlight Dispensary employees in Springfield got termination calls September 17th, and a twelfth was fired the next day. Former budtender Madison Taylor told the Missouri Independent the firings came after a group of them met off the clock to talk about organizing. Management accused them of consuming cannabis at work. Greenlight, run since March 2025 by an entity affiliated with Good Day Farm, says it takes compliance seriously and doesn't comment on personnel matters. The day after the first calls, Greenlight's Joplin store voted 18 to 2 to join UFCW Local 2. The NLRB is where the workers would have to prove retaliation. (Missouri Independent; Marijuana Moment; MJBizDaily)

💳 NCS Analytics signed an exclusive deal to fold the Cannabiz Credit Association's payment records into NCS Thea, the lending tool NCS launched in April on top of state track-and-trace data. CCA puts those records at more than $3.7 billion. CCA tracks at the license level which accounts stopped paying and when. Founder Adam Crabtree's case is that a business falling behind on its vendors shows the trouble there before it shows up in revenue or inventory. We have a lot to learn about the financial health of this industry. Most licensees are private companies, and a fight between a grower and a retailer over an unpaid invoice rarely leaves a record anyone outside can read. Two firms pooling that history could fill in some of the blanks lenders, landlords and regulators have been guessing at. CCA's data reaches NCS customers this fall. (Cannabis Business Times)

💼 Federal prosecutors charged David Dinenberg, 54, of Penn Wynne, Pennsylvania, with securities fraud and four counts of wire fraud Tuesday. They allege he took more than $8.8 million from investors in KIND Financial, the cannabis payments startup he founded in 2013, by misrepresenting its revenue, valuation and prospects, and that more than $500,000 went to personal expenses. Dinenberg was forced out in 2023 and made to return his shares after investors accused him of misusing company funds, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported then. Those investors included venture capitalist Wayne Kimmel, John Legend and former Eagles running back Brian Westbrook. The charges are allegations, and they arrive three years after the people who funded the company started asking where the money went. (Patch; The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Michigan's Cannabis Regulatory Agency revoked 20 medical grower licenses held by GP Holdings, doing business as Millie Montana Industries, and fined it $2 million. Samples from three packages manifested as flower contained no THC and looked like dirt and mulch. Other packages held shake, kief or plant waste, and inspectors found untagged product in bins, barrels and outdoor storage units. The licenses had closed before the order issued. "The statewide monitoring system depends on licensees accurately reporting what they grow, possess, and transfer," said Director Brian Hanna. The complaint dates to August 2022 and the company stipulated to the facts last October, so four years is a long road to a final order in a case the licensee conceded. (Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency)

The Senate Law and Justice Committee voted unanimously Tuesday for Sen. John Kane's SB 1035. The bill would let patients with less than a year to live use medical cannabis in hospitals, nursing homes and hospices. Smoking and vaping stay prohibited, product stays locked, and each facility writes its own handling rules. A facility can also suspend compliance if DOJ, CMS or another federal agency acts against it. Chair Dan Laughlin said his own back surgery left him sympathetic to patients who can't or won't take opioids. It's the same committee where his legalization bill with Sen. Sharif Street, SB 120, has been parked. SB 1035 is the kind of cannabis bill a divided Senate can pass, narrow and written around federal risk, and I'd bet on it clearing the full Senate before the session ends November 30th.

Legalization is being argued in three suburban counties instead. At a Philadelphia conference Friday, House Speaker Joanna McClinton said Democrats are targeting Senate seats in Bucks, Montgomery and Lehigh counties. Street and other Democrats said flipping three would give the party its first Senate majority in nearly 50 years and pass a legalization bill. Street also said some frustrated Republicans may press the issue when the caucus picks leaders early next year, whatever happens in November. Stacy Garrity, Gov. Josh Shapiro's opponent, has said she'd veto legalization, which puts the governor's race on the same ballot as the question. (Marijuana Moment; WHYY)

HB 4454 bars edibles and their packaging from images or words likely to appeal to anyone under 18, from human, cartoon or animal shapes, and from any resemblance to commercially available candy. Violations cost $500 per product plus removal from the shelf. Executive Director Adria Berry has said OMMA will look at product packaged on or after November 1st, which spares inventory already wrapped, and that flavor words like strawberry should be fine. Processor John Koumbis of JKJ Processing says inspectors already disagree about the old packaging rule, and this one reaches further. A standard built on what appeals to a teenager gets defined one inspection at a time, and Berry's agency could settle much of it by publishing examples of packaging that passes. (KOCO; KOSU)

Think about the last thing that got you fired up about your job this year. Odds are it didn't come from a report. It came from someone who does the job, saying what happened when they tried it.

So we've filled a day with people like that. 

Maya Shaff, ŌURA. Leah Walker, Adobe. Georgia Humphries, Stanley 1913. Enara Roy, Halfday. Tyler Vaught, Edelman. Josh Rangel, Ogilvy. Sarah Whittle, ex-Crocs and Duolingo. 

And that's just the first wave of speakers. 

Return on Influence Festival '26 is a free, virtual day dedicated to influencer marketing. Like any good festival, there are stages. But no mud, no queues, and absolutely no porta-potties. 

Sign up today, and the rest of the lineup lands in your inbox first.

Save your spot

Policy, Decoded grows best when it's shared deliberately. Refer three people and you get 30 minutes with me, one on one, on whatever policy issue is actually in front of you. One referral earns a sticker pack, five earns How to Be Heard, our guide to making public comment that regulators actually read, and ten earns the Field Kit.

🎧 Listen on Spotify | 📬 The Sunday Read-In | ⚖️ Share with a colleague

Policy, Decoded reaches operators, investors, counsel and regulators every weekday morning. Three founding sponsorships are open.