American Trucking Associations COO ‘Deeply Concerned’ About Possible Industry ‘Safety Risks’ if Cannabis Rescheduled

In a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the chief operating officer of the American Trucking Associations (ATA) is asking the Trump Administration for clarity on the proposal to reclassify cannabis as a Schedule III drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act, Transport Topics reports. In the August 14 letter, ATA COO Dan Horvath said the organization is “deeply concerned about the safety risks of rescheduling marijuana without explicit safeguards to preserve the necessary testing authority and technical requirements for [Department of Transportation]-regulated safety-sensitive workers.”

“In congressional testimony, then-Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated that DOT believed testing for regulated safety-sensitive transportation workers would not be affected by rescheduling. However, ATA never received a response to our correspondence explaining the basis for this position or detailing how DOT intended to address any impacts to the program.” — Horvath, in the letter, via Transport Topics 

Horvath noted that in the trucking industry, cannabis accounted for about 60% of “all positive employer drug tests” reported to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse since 2020. The letter included instances of several fatal crashes in which the truck driver had ingested cannabis prior to the accident.

“Without the deterrent and detection power of marijuana testing, such preventable tragedies will only become more frequent,” Horvath wrote in the letter. “Given the heightened public attention to marijuana policy and the possibility of a federal rescheduling of marijuana in the near term, we are requesting clarity on DOT’s plans to address such a change.” 

The ATA has no formal policy on the reclassification proposal.

A plan to reschedule cannabis under the CSA was first pitched by President Joe Biden (D) last May, but stalled in January when DEA Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney, who was presiding over the hearings, decided to let the incoming Trump administration choose whether to reinitiate the process. Mulrooney recently retired, which leaves the issue solely with the new DEA Administrator Terrance Cole.

President Donald Trump (R) reportedly told donors during a dinner fundraiser at his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey, earlier this month that he is considering rescheduling cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the CSA. During a press conference last week, Trump said the Administration was “looking at reclassification” and would “make a determination over the next few weeks.”