The DEA hearing is done. Now the paperwork fight starts.

Two weeks of testimony ended July 15, and DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius wasted no time setting the next milestone: any party that wants to file a post-hearing brief has until Aug. 17, along with corrections to the official transcript. The briefs are optional — Julius said no one gets penalized for skipping one — but expect every serious stakeholder to file anyway.

After that, Julius writes a recommended decision that isn't binding on anyone. It goes to DEA Administrator Terry Cole, who makes the actual call on whether marijuana moves from Schedule I to Schedule III. Cole has no deadline, and Julius told the room flat out he can't estimate a timeline for either step.

The hearing itself broke roughly along expected lines: DEA's own witnesses argued regulated cannabis is safer than alcohol and tobacco and that legal markets undercut illicit supply chains, while Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a national anti-drug screening group, and law-enforcement voices from Idaho, Indiana, and Nebraska pushed back. NORML and NCIA spent the two weeks complaining the format only let opponents testify live.

Nothing changes for operators today — Schedule III products tied to FDA approval or state medical licenses already moved in April, and everyone else is still waiting on 280E relief. But Aug. 17 is now the date to watch: it's the last scheduled checkpoint before this goes fully dark inside DEA, possibly for months.