Trump pick for interim DEA leader is marijuana rescheduling skeptic

A former top U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official who cast doubt on marijuana rescheduling last year is President Donald Trump’s interim choice to oversee the DEA – and, potentially, the agency’s historic rescheduling process.

The Trump administration on Monday tapped Derek Maltz to take over as DEA administrator on an interim basis, Bloomberg News reported.

Maltz, whose 28-year DEA career included 10 years as special agent in charge of the agency’s Special Operations Division, assumes control from the agency’s previous chief, Anne Milgram.

Maltz will inherit from Milgram an ongoing and contentious process to reclassify marijuana under federal law.

Trump is pro-rescheduling; his DEA pick, not so much

In a September post on his Truth Social platform, Trump signaled support for downgrading marijuana’s status under the Controlled Substances Act, a process that former President Joe Biden launched in October 2022.

That process is in temporary limbo pending an appeal that seeks to remove the DEA as overseer of the process.

Trump loyalists, including Texas Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy praised the selection of Maltz, pointing to the former agent’s resume that includes successes against international “narco terrorism” and the capture of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

However, Maltz also has cast doubt on the marijuana rescheduling process that he’ll now inherit.

It all started in May 2024, when the U.S. Justice Department published the “interim proposed rule” that reclassified marijuana as a Schedule 3 drug, down from Schedule 1.

It was former Attorney General Merrick Garland – not Milgram – who signed off on the finding of “substantial evidence that marijuana does not warrant” its present Schedule 1 status.

An additional memo from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel that cites DEA objections to reclassifying marijuana indicates the agency fought the decision to pursue rescheduling, a process it now is overseeing.

Maltz: Rescheduling is ‘politics over public safety’

Maltz, then retired from the DEA and working as head of government relations for a software company, also had strong words after the May ruling became public.

“It’s crystal clear to me that the Justice Department hijacked the rescheduling process, placing politics above public safety,” he told the Associated Press.

“If there’s scientific evidence to support this decision, then so be it. But you’ve got to let the scientists evaluate it.”

According to one analysis, such scientific evaluation already had been done: In August 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services found that cannabis has a “currently accepted medical use” in the United States.

However, as the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel memo indicated, the DEA questioned the process used to make that determination.

There’s no clear timeline as to when or if Maltz might entertain the appeal that has temporarily halted the marijuana rescheduling process.

A hearing before Chief Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney II was to begin in earnest Jan. 21.

But that process has been paused indefinitely after an appeal from cannabis interests that accused the DEA of “bias” against rescheduling.