Week two of the DEA hearing: the testimony that isn't happening

The DEA's rescheduling hearing is now in its second week at the agency's Arlington headquarters, working toward a hard deadline: the record closes no later than July 15. DEA called an FDA scientist as its first witness, and the agency has continued making the case for marijuana's medical benefits and relative safety on the record.

But the story generating the most pushback isn't what's being said in the courtroom — it's who's missing from it. Back in June, DEA selected seven hearing participants, and every one of them opposes rescheduling. Requests to participate from NORML, the Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug Policy Alliance, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and several other reform groups were denied.

Cat Packer of the Drug Policy Alliance, who observed the proceedings, argued the hearing has sidestepped the harms of decades of criminalization — the arrests, convictions, and collateral consequences that state legalization was partly built to undo. Separately, transportation groups including the American Trucking Associations have weighed in against rescheduling over drug-testing concerns for safety-sensitive jobs, while the Department of Justice has pushed back on what it called "pocketbook interests" lobbying against the move.

None of this changes the timeline. The hearing record has to close by July 15, and whatever goes into it — and what's conspicuously left out — is what DEA's final rescheduling decision will be built on.