Arizona Tribune - State Cannabis Companies Rushed To Apply for DEA Registration but DEA Cannot Rewrite Marijuana Federal Register Rules With a Press Statement

WASHINGTON, D.C. / ACCESS Newswire / May 16, 2026 / The moment the federal government opened the door to new Schedule III marijuana registration pathways, state cannabis companies rushed toward it.

Major operators began filing DEA registration applications almost immediately, hoping for:

• federal legitimacy,

• easier banking,

• and relief from crushing IRS 280E taxes.

But there is one major problem:

The DEA's own binding Final Rule published in 2020 says many of those companies spent years operating outside federal law.

And that rule is still on the books today.

The Rule Everyone Suddenly Wants To Ignore

In December 2020, the Drug Enforcement Administration published a major Final Rule governing marijuana cultivation and manufacturing.

The rule made several things very clear:

• State marijuana licenses did not replace DEA registration.

• Manufacturing marijuana without DEA authorization violated federal law.

• And prior compliance with federal law would receive "particular emphasis" in registration decisions.

The DEA stated plainly:

"State licenses to manufacture marijuana do not satisfy the requirements of Federal law."

It also stated:

"An applicant that has manufactured marijuana without obtaining a DEA registration has violated Federal law."

And finally:

"The Administrator will place particular emphasis on whether the applicant has demonstrated prior compliance with the Act."

Those are not opinions.

They are binding federal regulations published in the Federal Register.

Now State Operators Want Into the Same Federal System They Avoided for Years

For years, most large cannabis operators built businesses entirely through state licensing systems.

They:

• cultivated marijuana,

• distributed marijuana,

• and sold marijuana

without DEA registration.

Now many of those same companies are rushing to enter the federal system after rescheduling announcements created the possibility of Schedule III registration and tax relief.

But DEA's own application forms now ask applicants whether they previously:

"manufactured, distributed, and/or dispensed" controlled substances without DEA authorization.

For many operators, the honest answer is yes.

That creates a problem no press release can erase.

MMJ Took the Opposite Path

While the state cannabis industry built outside the federal system, MMJ International Holdings spent years inside it.

Its subsidiaries pursued:

• DEA registration,

• FDA clinical-trial pathways,

• pharmaceutical manufacturing controls,

• laboratory compliance,

• and federally regulated cannabinoid development.

MMJ BioPharma Labs already holds an active DEA Schedule I registration.

That means MMJ is not trying to enter the federal system now.

It entered years ago.

Why Many State Operators May Be Going Nowhere Fast

DEA is now publicly reassuring applicants that prior state-market activity will be reviewed "case-by-case."

But the agency has not formally changed its 2020 rule.

That matters because under federal administrative law, agencies cannot simply erase binding regulations through interviews or informal statements.

The 2020 rule still says:

• prior federal compliance matters,

• unauthorized marijuana manufacturing violated federal law,

• and DEA registration is central to the federal "closed system" of controlled substances.

In practical terms, this means many state operators may now face:

• inspections,

• background scrutiny,

• operational reviews,

• and difficult questions about years of federally unauthorized activity.

The rush into Schedule III may not be a fast pass into the federal system after all.

Meanwhile MMJ Is Still Stuck in a Broken Tribunal

While state operators rush forward, MMJ BioPharma Cultivation remains trapped inside a multi-year DEA administrative proceeding.

The controversy deepened after the U.S. Department of Justice itself admitted in federal court that the DEA Administrative Law Judge structure suffers from constitutional defects involving presidential oversight and separation of powers.

In simple terms:
the federal government admitted the tribunal handling MMJ's case is constitutionally defective.

Yet the proceedings continued anyway.

The Federal Cannabis Industry Is Now Colliding With Federal Law

For years, the cannabis industry operated under the assumption that:

• state legality would eventually override federal reality.

Now federal reality is back.

The DEA's own rules still say:

• federal registration matters,

• prior compliance matters,

• and the closed federal system matters.

And companies that ignored that framework for years are now discovering that entering the federal system may be much harder than simply filling out an application.

The Core Question

If DEA's own rules say prior federal compliance receives "particular emphasis," then who should really be at the front of the line:

The companies that followed the federal pharmaceutical pathway from the beginning -

or the companies that spent years outside it and only rushed toward federal registration once tax relief and Schedule III became possible?

Madison Hisey
[email protected]
203-231-8583

SOURCE: MMJ International Holdings

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

N.Mitchell--AT