On September 11th, 2023, leading legal experts, INCBA President Jason Horst, Managing Partner of Horst Legal Counsel, PC, Amber Littlejohn, Of Counsel at Ice Miller LLP, Shane Pennington, Partner at Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP, and Khurshid Khoja, Founder of Greenbridge Corporate Counsel discussed the Department of Health and Human Services’ recommendation to the Drug Enforcement Agency to reschedule cannabis to Schedule III, what its potential implications could be for the industry and the legalization movement, and what still needs to happen before rescheduling becomes a reality.
First, thanks so much to my friend and Mexico City attorney Elias Lisbona Jassán of Perez Ferrer Abogados , who co-authored this piece with me, David Feldman . To answer the question in the headline, I think the legal term is “sort of.” This topic, of course, is important not only for the 120 million folks living in Mexico but for all of us in the rest of North America. It also portends where things might be headed in the rest of this hemisphere, and increases pressure on US lawmakers and leaders to consider further action if Mexico were to join Canada with full adult-use legalization. In addition, it enhances the hope of many to create multilateral trade in cannabis once the US moves to legalize it. How did we get here? For those who have not focused much on the developments in Mexico, let’s review the timeline in order. • Cannabis became illegal in Mexico in 1920. Interestingly, for just four months in 1940, cannabis became “legal,” when then-President Lázaro Cárdenas enacted r...
