A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) judge has officially ruled on which of the agency’s selected witnesses for a marijuana rescheduling hearing will be able to participate, while laying out the procedure for the administrative process—including how pro- and anti-reform speakers will be able to cross-examine one another.

The order also briefly addressed a motion filed on Monday on behalf of one of the participants that argued DEA itself should be removed from the hearing as a “proponent” of the rescheduling rule due to alleged statutory violations, including “unlawful” communication with the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. The judge said that he found the argument “wholly unpersuasive” in the context of the group’s defense of its standing in the case, but that he will soon be separately ruling on the merits of the standalone motion.

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