Harvard neuroscientist tells the D.C. Circuit that expanding marijuana access without fully addressing documented public health risks could have far reaching consequences. Rising emergency room visits, psychiatric injury, psychosis, and elevated suicide-attempt risks among adolescents the rescheduling process has overlooked.
WASHINGTON, D.C. / ACCESS Newswire / June 15, 2026 / As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit weighs an emergency motion to stay the federal government's recent marijuana rescheduling order, a newly filed declaration from a Harvard Medical School professor warns that the policy change poses "substantial" and "unacceptably high" risks to public health-particularly for adolescents and unborn children.
The declaration (Exhibit D), filed June 9 by Bertha K. Madras, Ph.D. , a Professor of Psychobiology at Harvard Medical School and former White House drug policy official, directly challenges the Acting Attorney General's April 2026 order transferring certain marijuana products from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Dr. Madras, who has over 50 years of experience in neuroscience and substance-use disorders, was the sole expert witness for the U.S. Department of Justice in prior federal cannabis litigation and was commissioned by the World Health Organization to author monographs on cannabis and its medical uses. Her declaration offers a stark scientific counterweight to the government's rescheduling rationale.
