President Trump's Executive Marijuana Action Exposes the Truth-How the DEA Delayed Medicine While Protecting Everything Else

"Despite clear congressional mandates and FDA authorization, the Drug Enforcement Administration failed to act within the timelines required by law, resulting in years-long delay of medical cannabis research," said Duane Boise, President and CEO of MMJ International Holdings. "MMJ is preparing to seek relief in federal court to compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed, so that FDA-authorized clinical research may proceed as Congress intended."

APA §706(1) "agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed"

WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESS Newswire / December 26, 2025 / This Holiday season, the contradictions at the heart of the DEA and U.S. drug policy have become impossible to ignore.

As psychedelic churches secure legal exemptions to administer Schedule I substances under federal law-and as well-funded anti-cannabis groups work to roll back voter-approved marijuana laws in Maine and Massachusetts-chronically ill patients continue to wait for something far more modest, far more regulated, and far more humane:

FDA-approved cannabinoid medicine.

The reason they are still waiting is not science.
It is not law.
It is not public safety.

It is the deliberate obstruction by a small group of senior Drug Enforcement Administration diversion officials whose actions delayed federally sanctioned medical cannabis research for nearly seven years.

A Pattern of Obstruction, Not Protection

For years, an internal faction within the DEA-led or enabled by Anne Milgram, Thomas Prevoznik, Matthew Strait, Aarathi Haig, and Diversion Investigator Thomas Cook-systematically blocked FDA-authorized clinical cannabis programs despite:

• Congressional mandates (including the Marijuana Research Act)

• HHS scientific recommendations

• FDA-reviewed IND applications

• Clear statutory timelines measured in days, not years

Instead, the DEA imposed impossible conditions, including "bona fide supply agreements" that could not exist without the very registrations the agency refused to grant. Applicants were forced into an administrative law system later acknowledged by the Department of Justice itself to be constitutionally defective.

This was not caution.
This was bureaucratic sabotage.

Patient Harm Was the Outcome

The consequences were not theoretical.

They were human.

• Patients with Huntington's Disease, a fatal neurodegenerative condition with no cure

• Patients with Multiple Sclerosis, enduring progressive disability, pain, and spasticity

• Veterans with service-related neurological injuries

• Cancer patients struggling with anxiety, nausea, and pain

All waited-while paperwork was weaponized.

While these patients were denied access to clinical trials using standardized, non-smoked, pharmaceutical-grade cannabinoid medicines, the DEA claimed it was acting in the name of public safety.

Meanwhile, Everything Else Moved Forward

The hypocrisy is staggering.

Psychedelic Churches Win-Because the DEA Keeps Losing

Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), psychedelic churches have repeatedly defeated the DEA in court-or bypassed litigation entirely-securing exemptions to administer Schedule I substances such as ayahuasca and psilocybin.

The Church of Gaia and others now legally distribute powerful psychedelics in ceremonial settings, with DEA acknowledgment that it cannot meet the legal burden to stop them.

Churches are protected.
Patients were not.

Dark Money Campaigns Target Voters-Not Science

At the same time, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM)-a well-funded anti-legalization organization-has openly claimed responsibility for multi-million-dollar efforts to end adult-use cannabis sales in Massachusetts and Maine, potentially eliminating $1.8 billion in annual legal commerce.

These campaigns operate through opaque funding channels, alleged deceptive signature-gathering tactics, and ideological messaging-while the same voices oppose rescheduling, research expansion, and FDA-based drug development.

Yet FDA-guided pharmaceutical cannabis programs are repeatedly painted with the same brush as unregulated retail products.

That is not policy.
That is propaganda.

The Question No One at the DEA Will Answer

If churches can receive exemptions to use Schedule I substances...

If dark-money groups can rewrite voter approved law...

Why were dying patients denied the right to clinical trials using FDA-manufactured medicine?

Why was a pharmaceutical pathway-designed precisely to protect safety, dosing, and efficacy-treated as more dangerous than underground markets, synthetic cannabinoids, or religious loopholes?

President Trump's Executive Action Exposes the Truth

President Trump's recent Executive Order directing expedited rescheduling and modernized medical research standards did not create this problem.

It exposed it.

The Order confirms what patients, physicians, and scientists have long known:

• Marijuana has accepted medical use

• Research barriers were political, not scientific

• The absence of FDA-approved cannabinoid medicines harmed patients

History is now rendering its verdict.

The research will proceed.
The medicine will be studied.
The patients will no longer be ignored.

A Christmas Message-and a Reckoning

So yes-Merry Christmas.

And with it comes a hope that the spirit of the season does what bureaucratic power never could:

• Force reflection on the damage caused

• Demand accountability for delay

• Separate ideology from medicine

Redemption is still possible.

It begins with acknowledging harm.
It continues with humility.
And it ends-perhaps-with an apology not to companies, but to patients.

Because churches were protected.
Markets were manipulated.

And patients waited far too long.

About MMJ International Holdings
MMJ International Holdings, Inc. is a U.S.-based biopharmaceutical company developing DEA-licensed, pharmaceutical-grade, plant-derived cannabinoid medicines for FDA approval. MMJ has manufactured validated, reproducible final dose form soft-gel capsules under FDA guidance for use in clinical trials targeting Huntington's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis.

MMJ is represented by attorney Megan Sheehan.

CONTACT:
Madison Hisey
MHisey@mmjih.com
203-231-8583

SOURCE: MMJ International Holdings