Nicole Huff, CEO of Wildflower Medical Dispensary in Aberdeen, Mississippi, received an email from a DEA diversion investigator in the agency’s Jackson District Office. DEA concluded that two of Wildflower’s employees have felony convictions. The email gave the dispensary three options.
Wildflower could waive its right to expedited processing and seek an employment waiver. It could withdraw its DEA application altogether. Or it could have the application sent to DEA headquarters for an Order to Show Cause proceeding before an administrative law judge in Washington, D.C.
Huff reportedly plans to fight the decision. She is requesting employment waivers for both workers. If necessary, she will take the case in front of an administrative law judge.
Her argument, as reported by Marijuana Moment, leans on the fact that both employees have worked at Wildflower for more than a year without incident. Wildflower wants the court to recognize something akin to grandfathering for nonviolent offenders. The workers were already on staff, in good standing, before the DEA application was submitted.
The case is one of the first public collisions between state-licensed cannabis operators and federal DEA employment rules.
It provides that a DEA registrant “shall not employ, as an agent or employee who has access to controlled substances, any person who has been convicted of a felony offense relating to controlled substances.”
The prohibition also covers anyone who has had a DEA registration denied, revoked, or surrendered for cause. It is a flat prohibition, not a suggestion. It has applied to every pharmacy and drug wholesaler in the country since the early 1970s.
DEA regulations do contemplate waivers. Waivers are available only where “there are valid reasons to believe that diversion is unlikely to occur.”
Factors weighed include the nature of the prior offense. They also include the extent of proposed access to controlled substances and the registrant’s own security safeguards.
The regulation predates the cannabis industry by half a century.
DEA’s April 2026 final rule moved FDA-approved marijuana products and marijuana covered by a state medical marijuana license into Schedule III. Adult-use marijuana remains in Schedule I.
The rule created a pathway for state-licensed medical marijuana businesses to register with DEA as manufacturers, distributors, or dispensers. DEA said a state license constitutes “conclusive evidence” of state-law authorization.
The agency also said state-required reports, records, order forms, labeling, packaging, disposal, and physical-security measures will generally substitute for federal versions. Its stated rationale was to leverage state regulatory infrastructure that has “matured significantly” over the last three decades.
But registering means becoming subject to the same security regulations that apply to every pharmacy, hospital, and drug manufacturer in the country. DEA registrants have never gotten to pick and choose which security regulations apply to them.
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