Arizona Tribune - Thanksgiving Wishes to the DEA's Anti Cannabis Holdouts - And Gently Suggests They Spend a Moment Thinking About Patients Waiting for Legal Medicine

WASHINGTON, D.C. / ACCESS Newswire / November 27, 2025 / MMJ International Holdings Extends Warm Thanksgiving Wishes to DEA's Anti-Cannabis Holdouts - And Encourages a Moment of Reflection for Patients Still Waiting for Federally Legal Medicine

MMJ International Holdings, developer of the nation's fully federally compliant, natural cannabis-derived pharmaceutical for Huntington's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis, today extends a sincere Happy Thanksgiving to the small but deeply entrenched group of DEA officials who, for the past seven years, have ensured that American patients still lack access to a medicine federal law actually allows MMJ to develop.

On this national day of gratitude, MMJ respectfully invites the former and current architects of the DEA's anti-cannabis posture - the institutional "old guard" of the Biden-era bureaucracy - to pause between turkey, football, and family and consider the Americans living with crippling neurological disorders who continue to wait for relief.

A Special Thanksgiving Message to the DEA's Anti-Marijuana Traditionalists

MMJ extends warm holiday wishes to:

• Anne Milgram - former DEA Administrator

• Thomas Prevoznik - longtime Diversion Division leadership

• Matthew Strait - former Deputy Assistant Administrator

• Aarathi Haig - DEA Attorney

…and the broader "Institutional Cabal of Cannabis Paralysis," whose longstanding position has paradoxically been:

• State-legal THC? Acceptable.

• Illegal hemp markets flourishing nationwide? No problem.

• A federally regulated, FDA-compliant pharmaceutical for terminal and degenerative illness?
  Absolutely not-please wait seven more years.

"We genuinely hope they enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving," said MMJ President & CEO Duane Boise. "And as they do, we hope they reflect on the irony that the only federally legal pathway to cannabinoid medicine-the FDA/DEA pathway MMJ has followed flawlessly-is the one their agency has obstructed the most."

A Holiday Reminder: Patients Don't Get a Break From Suffering

MMJ's natural, full-spectrum pharmaceutical program includes:

• FDA Orphan Drug Designation for Huntington's Disease

• A DEA Schedule I import permit - the first ever issued for natural THC + CBD for pharmaceutical development

• GMP-manufactured soft-gel capsules, already completed

• Full stability testing, chromatography, and dosage validation

• IND applications awaiting only final FDA alignment

Yet, despite having a medicine fully manufactured and ready for clinical trials, MMJ remains stuck behind years of administrative delay, a constitutionally invalid DEA ALJ system, and a regulatory maze engineered by the previous administration.

"Chorea doesn't take holidays," Boise said. "Huntington's doesn't break for long weekends. And families praying for treatment don't get to pencil their hope into next year's calendar."

A New Era of Governance: Applying "Right to Try" to DEA Obstruction

President Trump championed Right to Try to expand access to investigational medicines for patients with no time to lose.
MMJ argues that the DEA's obstruction of FDA-compliant cannabinoid drug development now directly contradicts that principle.

"With the new Administration restoring legality-first governance and confronting entrenched bureaucratic roadblocks, we finally see a path where delay, deflection, and obstruction give way to science-based regulation," Boise said. "The government cannot praise Right to Try while allowing DEA to block the only federally legal medicine for devastating neurological diseases."

A Thanksgiving Wish for Progress

MMJ remains unwavering in its mission to develop safe, consistent, federally lawful cannabinoid pharmaceuticals under full FDA oversight.

"We sincerely wish every DEA official - past and present - a peaceful, restorative Thanksgiving," Boise said. "And we hope that when they sit down to dinner, they consider the patients whose tables may have an empty chair next year unless these life-changing therapies finally move forward."

About MMJ International Holdings

MMJ International Holdings is a U.S.-based pharmaceutical company developing natural, plant-derived cannabinoid medicines for FDA approval. Its subsidiaries - MMJ BioPharma Cultivation and MMJ BioPharma Labs-operate entirely within federal law to advance soft-gel formulations for Huntington's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis under the FDA's botanical drug framework.

MMJ is represented by attorney Megan Sheehan.

CONTACT:

Madison Hisey
[email protected]
203-231-85832

SOURCE: MMJ International Holdings

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

H.Romero--AT