DEA sued over delays in opening records for psychedelics and cannabis

Through Johanna Skopl

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been sued for failing to respond in a timely manner to requests for records on psychedelics and cannabis, Marijuana Moment reported.

This new lawsuit focuses on the DEA’s alleged “unlawful policy of delaying responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, particularly regarding psychedelics and marijuana documents that proponents say are for legal and journalistic purposes.” have sought purposes”.

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DEA “disregards these principles of transparency and good governance,” the lawsuit says. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a Department of Justice FOIA guidance note emphasizing that “agencies should respond to requests in an open and timely manner.”

Among the lawsuits, a Texas doctor cited the DEA’s erroneous interpretation of the “right to trial” statutes regarding psilocybin in the Texas federal district court. Attorneys Matt Zorn and Kathryn Tuckerboth also worked on the case.

Plaintiffs have set forth the reasons they are concerned by the DEA’s recalcitrance over FOIA requests, “the agency has adopted an unlawful policy and pattern or practice of labeling requests as ‘complex’, regardless of the actual complexity of the.” documents sought,” the lawsuit says.

For its part, DEA has said the requests raise “extraordinary circumstances” that exempt them from the statutory time limit to respond. Additionally, the DEA Defense says that “attribution of the FOIA requests is “complex” because retrieving the documents in question may require coordination with field offices.”

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“This policy and pattern or practice is based on a perversion of the plain language of FOIA,” the lawsuit states. “Plaintiffs are attorneys and their clients who submitted FOIA requests to DEA only for the agency to unlawfully ignore statute deadlines simply because the requested documentation was not available in DEA’s FOIA office.”

Now the plaintiffs are asking the court to order the Justice Department and DEA to “order the unlawful policies and patterns or practices and direct the defendants to take prompt corrective action to prevent future FOIA violations.”

This article originally appeared on Benzinga and has been republished with permission.