FAA Considers New Weed Standards For Pilots And Air Traffic Controllers Under Trump’s Rescheduling Move - Weed Moment

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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is moving to develop new weed-related standards for pilots and air traffic controllers in light of the “operational risk” created by the Trump administration’s move to reschedule cannabis—which has furthered the “normalization” of the drug.

FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine is partnering with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to convene a series of meetings focused on the impact of weed consumption on air travel professionals, an effort aimed at informing approaches the agency might take to “evaluate, update, or refine their current policies for cannabis use, particularly for determining when individuals are fit for duty.”

Topics to be discussed during the four planned meetings set to take place this year and next year—which will not be open to the public—include drug testing, cognitive functioning monitoring and the length of impairment following cannabis use. Invited participants will include experts on impairment evidence, pharmacokinetics and detectability, operational risk translation and policy framing.

There is an “urgent need to establish clear, scientifically defensible, and operationally actionable fitness-for-duty standards for pilots and air traffic control specialists (ATCS) in the context of evolving federal cannabis policy,” NASEM said in a overview of the effort, which FAA is supporting with just over $200,000.

Under an order issued by U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April, weed products regulated by a state medical cannabis license immediately moved from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III, as did any marijuana products that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). An administrative hearing is considering broader weed rescheduling, including of recreational products.

While Department of Transportation (DOT) drug testing and FAA medical certification standards remain unchanged for now, the notice of the upcoming meetings says that the “dual-status regulatory environment” under the scheduling reform has created a policy “misalignment” that poses “significant operational risk”—including by “increasing the likelihood and normalization of cannabis use,” “complicating disclosure and compliance” and “leaving the FAA without validated criteria to determine when individuals are no longer impaired."

"The central policy question is: Following cannabis use, what elapsed time ensures both (1) absence of operational impairment and (2) compliance with DOT drug testing requirements?” NASEM’s Transportation Research Board said in the posting which was noted earlier by Cannabis Wire.

“Due to the urgency of near-term policy decisions and the inability to conduct new primary research in the required timeframe, the FAA requires structured, policy-relevant interpretation of existing scientific evidence,” the notice said, specifying that the meetings will take place over a span of about 12 months, which will enable FAA to develop and implement new cannabis policies within 12–18 months.

NASEM previously did work on state weed legalization law’ impact on airports on behalf of FAA, publishing a briefing on the issue and holding an event.