United States v. Nasir

The DEA scheduled the synthetic drug JWH-018 on an emergency basis in 2011 under a temporary-scheduling provision of the Controlled Substances Act, relying on an exception to the ordinary Congressional Review Act (CRA) procedures that would otherwise require submitting new regulations to Congress and the Comptroller General before they take effect; even so, the DEA provided notice to both houses of Congress and the Comptroller General anyway. A group of drug dealers (defendants) indicted for distributing JWH-018 analogues moved to dismiss, arguing the DEA's failure to fully comply with the CRA rendered the scheduling rule ineffective, while the government argued it had in fact complied by giving notice, and alternatively that the CRA barred judicial review of its compliance altogether.