Drug War Daily Digest -- October 1, 2026

A federal judge orders the Pentagon to show him the memo it uses to justify its lethal strikes on Latin American seamen, a DEA judge halts the marijuana rescheduling process to review a GAO report that found problems with how DHS made its rescheduling determination, and more. 

The Trump administration's justification for its lethal boat attacks is going before a federal judge, who will decide whether to make it public. (DOD)

Marijuana Policy 

Marijuana Rescheduling Halted as GAO Report Puts Federal Evaluation Standards Under Scrutiny. DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius on Tuesday stayed pending proceedings on marijuana rescheduling after a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found deficiencies in the DEA and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) rescheduling procedures that led the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) to recommend that it be placed in Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. 

The rescheduling hearing concluded in mid-July, and post-hearing briefs were filed in mid-August. The judge was expected to render a decision after that, but instead he halted proceedings while he considers a motion to admit the September 23 GAO report into the record and allow additional briefings. 

The DEA must file a response by October 13, and other designated participants in the process may also file responses. 

The GAO report examined the DEA's five-part test for determining whether a substance lacking FDA approval has currently accepted medical uses, as well as the two-part test introduced by DHS in 2023. The DHS framework considers widespread current medical use in state-authorized programs and scientific support for at least one of those medical uses. 

But the GAO report also explained that using DHS's two-pronged test allowed the agency to find current accepted medical use even when the substance did not satisfy the DEA's five-part test or had been approved by the FDA. 

Opponents of rescheduling, including the National Drug & Alcohol Screening Association, DUID Victim Voices, and Kenneth Finn, MD, moved to consider the GAO report.

"This is a significant interruption at a consequential stage of the proceeding," said Duane Boise, CEO of MMJ International Holdings. "The hearing was completed, the briefs were filed, and the next anticipated step was a recommendation. Now the judge must address whether a federal audit belongs in the record and whether additional briefing is required. MMJ expects that process to cause significant delays in completing broader rescheduling.

"The distinction between the two-part and five-part tests matters," Boise added. "One expressly requires reproducible chemistry, adequate safety studies, and controlled studies proving efficacy. The other permits a medical-use finding through a different evidentiary framework. MMJ believes those differences deserve careful examination before the federal government completes a decision with consequences for patients, researchers, and pharmaceutical developers."

Psychedelics

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies Responds to DEA Move to Ban Five Tryptamines. In a statement released on Tuesday under the name of co-executive director Ismail Ali, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), the group noted this was the second time DEA had tried to ban the five tryptamines and said it opposed the move:

"Last week, the DEA moved to place five little-known psychedelic compounds — 4-OH-DiPT, 5-MeO-AMT, 5-MeO-MiPT, 5-MeO-DET, and DiPT — into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. It’s the agency’s second attempt at this exact scheduling action; it withdrew an earlier version in 2022 after pushback from researchers and legal advocates.

"We don’t advocate for adding these substances, or any substances, to Schedule I by default.

"These five lesser known psychedelic substances — 4-OH-DiPT, 5-MeO-AMT, 5-MeO-MiPT, 5-MeO-DET, and DiPT — don’t belong in Schedule I. At MAPS, we don’t advocate for adding more drugs to the highest level of the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I does two things at once: it shuts down the research that could tell us what benefits, if any, these drugs have, and it turns personal use of them into a criminal matter. DEA’s own record doesn’t show a level of public harm that justifies either one. We’d rather see these substances stay researchable and see the people who use them treated outside the criminal system, not funneled into it by default.

"This move follows actions by the DEA to reschedule other little-known psychedelics, DOI, and DOC into Schedule I. The agency continues to inexplicably repeat the mistakes of the last fifty years by leading with criminalization instead of the research, education, and harm reduction that actually keep people and communities safe."

Foreign Policy

Federal Judge Orders Pentagon to Provide Legal Justification for Lethal Boat Strikes. In a 66-page ruling on Wednesday, US District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer ordered the Defense Department to show him a secret memo that supposedly justifies its campaign of lethal strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. After reviewing the memo, he will then decide whether to make it public. 

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed FOIA requests seeking the memo, but the Trump administration has claimed, for a variety of reasons, that the document is privileged. Judge Engelmeyer rejected most of those privilege claims. 

"The court rejects the privilege claim with respect to two of the three privileges the agencies invoke (the deliberative process and attorney-client privileges)," he wrote. "But the existing record does not permit the court to reliably resolve whether the agencies have waived their right to invoke the third (the presidential communications privilege). The court accordingly orders the agencies to furnish information to enable it to resolve that question.

The boat strike campaign, which began just over a year ago, has resulted in at least 70 US military attacks on civilian ships and claimed more than 230 lives. The operation has provoked strong criticism for undertaking the attacks when the US military is not permitted to target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. That could constitute war crimes, critics charge. 

The document at issue here, a September 2025 memo from the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, provided the Trump administration with a legal justification for the attacks—but it refused to make it public. The ACLU and CCR filed their lawsuit last December after their FOIA request was denied. 

"The public deserves to know how our government is justifying the cold-blooded murder of hundreds of civilians," Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement Wednesday. "Today’s order is a huge step in the right direction of ensuring that the government does not get to summarily execute people based on secret law."