DEA Gets 30,000 Public Comments on Marijuana Rescheduling, San Francisco Drug Overdoses Decline, More... (7/17/24)

Nitazenes are showing up in the Massachusetts drug supply, the Biden administration extends a declaration of national emergency aimed at Mexican drug cartels, and more.

San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. Fatal drug overdoses are declining in the city. (Creative Commons)

Marijuana Policy

DEA's Proposed Marijuana Rescheduling Rule Draws More Than 30,000 Public Comments. With less than a week left for public comment on the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) proposed rule to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the agency has already seen more than 30,600 comments submitted. Nearly 3,000 have come in in the last week and more than 1,100 have arrived in the last three days.

The Department of Justice, which oversees the DEA, published the notice of proposed rulemaking on May 21, making July 22 the final day to comment.

The notice of proposed rulemaking came after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended to the DEA that marijuana be moved to a Schedule III classification. The HHS determination came after the Biden administration asked the agency to undertake a review.

Many comments voiced support for rescheduling, while others argued that moving marijuana to Schedule III does not go far enough and the substance should be descheduled. Some commenters opposed any relaxing of marijuana scheduling, citing the "gateway theory" or claiming harms to society from cannabis use disorder.

Advocacy groups on both sides produced sample comments for their supporters to submit. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) saw more than 2,500 comments submitted using its language. In comparison, the anti-reform group Smart Approaches to Marijuana saw nearly 550 comments submitted using its language.

Drug Policy

Massachusetts Reports Growing Presence of Nitazenes in Drug Supply. Nitazenes, synthetic opioids much more powerful than fentanyl, are showing up in drugs samples by a drug checking program in the state. Public health officials say the number of samples testing positive for nitazenes is small but growing rapidly.

"The numbers increased beyond what we were expecting," said Traci Green, an epidemiologist at Brandeis University who works with Massachusetts Drug Supply Data Stream. "It's better to learn more and be prepared than to ignore it and wait until a serious alarm needs to be raised."

According to the DEA, nitazenes were first detected in the US drug supply in 2019 as traffickers and drug users "look for novel opioids that are not illegal."

But Sarah Mackin, director of harm reduction at the Boston Public Health Commission, said this is a familiar pattern.

"The more that we crack down on things like fentanyl and heroin, that’s going to lead to the rise of other things that are infiltrating the drug supply," Mackin said. "Nitazenes is just the newest thing to come through," after xylazine, the animal tranquilizer found in 9% of overdose deaths in 2023.

Macklin has found nitazenes in several drug samples this year, with the drug measured at five times more potent than fentanyl. It is showing up in powders that sometimes also contain xylazine, a non-opioid sedative commonly known as "tranq."

"These can be more complicated overdoses that require longer rescue breathing or more oxygen support," said Mackin. "We're seeing people who are very over-sedated and take longer to bring back."

San Francisco Drug Overdoses Decline. City officials announced Monday that fatal drug overdoses had reached their lowest level in nearly two years, dropping to 48 overdose deaths in June -- down more than 15 percent from the 57 deaths in June 2023 and the lowest monthly total since July 22, when there were 43 reported overdose deaths.

Although Mayor London Breed (D) has engineered a crackdown on drug dealing and public drug use in select neighborhoods in the city, no one has attributed the decrease in overdose deaths to increased enforcement. Instead, public health officials cited citywide programs as playing a role.

Dr. Hillary Kunins, the director of behavioral health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, cited increased access in recent months to the overdose-reversing medicine Narcan, as well as more street care teams and both telehealth and in-person treatment.

But Stanford University professor and drug expert Keith Humphreys pointed to broader drug use trends -- not city policies.

"There's certainly some sensible things going on -- the biggest one: making anti-overdose medication widely available to as many people as possible," he told KQED. "We've been doing that for years at a pretty high level -- the good that did was baked in already, so I don't think that would explain a change like this."

Humphreys said the decline in overdoses mirrored national data and suggested that more fentanyl users are doing so knowingly and not suffering "surprise overdoses" from drugs they did not know contained fentanyl.

Foreign Policy

Biden Administration Extends National Emergency on Mexican Drug Cartels. The Biden administration has moved to continue a declaration of a national emergency "with respect to significant transnational criminal organizations" that was due to expire next week. The emergency was declared in a 2029 executive order from then-President Donald Trump and aimed at Mexican drug trafficking organizations, the so-called cartels.

"The activities of significant transnational criminal organizations have reached such scope and gravity that they threaten the stability of international political and economic systems," the administration said in a letter to Congress. "Such organizations are becoming increasingly sophisticated and dangerous to the United States; they are increasingly entrenched in the operations of foreign governments and the international financial system, thereby weakening democratic institutions, degrading the rule of law, and undermining economic markets. These organizations facilitate and aggravate violent civil conflicts and increasingly facilitate the activities of other dangerous persons."

"Significant transnational criminal organizations continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency with respect to significant transnational criminal organizations declared in Executive Order 1358," says the letter signed by President Biden.

The National Emergencies Act allows the president to invoke emergency provisions of law via a declaration of an emergency.