With the recent overturned Chevron defense by SCOTUS, I was trying to find some good. DEA’s Drug War is arguably bad (not looking for that conversation here), so does Chevron overturned make their Drug Schedules weaker by law and can be more easily challenged and overturned?
The fun part about this ruling is the final answer to most of these questions is “SCOTUS decides”. Any actions they find favorable will be ignored and any actions they oppose will be considered outside of the agency’s mandate.
It’s not a bribe. It’s a gratuity paid after the service is provided when the electee or appointee leaves office, which is totally palatable and sustainable in a failed democracy.
I suspect the main upside will be that you can argue shitty regulations aren’t valid. Like if Trump decides to allow the dumping of poison in the waterhole, it’s very clear that the the EPA is allowed to act when somebody poisons the waterhole.
Or maybe it’s just a Calvinball ruling where they decided the Supreme Court is the only branch that doesn’t have checks and balances. It is a mystery.
I don’t think so, but someone with more insight may have a different opinion.
The drug schedules are law, not created by the DEA.
Could the DEA’s interpretation of the Controlled Substances Act could be overturned, leading to changes of drug scheduling back to what was originally passed by congress?
I don’t think so, at least not easily. The specific law says that the list will be regularly updated, that updated list is found in the CFR. Since the law says this will be done, I do not really think it is the same situation, but I am not a legal scholar.
Judges already stepped on on thca. When dea tried to say the 2018 farm bill intended for thca to be illegal, courts said it says it’s legal. That’s why you can legally buy weed online in most states.
The overturn of Chevron is only significant in that courts, particularly lower appeals courts, won’t be forced to accept agency interpretations on law. They still can if that’s the better of the two. It’s a big development in APA law but it is just on how laws get reviewed when contested.
Having not looked into the drug scheduling system much I can’t say for certain on that particular topic. But I wouldn’t be shocked if something like an interpretation on paraphernalia by the DEA got shot down.
If you want some good from the Loper Bright case keep in mind that it limits new presidents from coming in and appointing biased ‘experts’ to agencies to create new interpretation of law to aid their causes. This is a double edged sword. But I think with time we willl benefit from the end of the practice and we will settle in to a more stable set of administrative rulings that doesn’t shift every 4 years.
