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10 11
trator with instructions to reopen the record for the submis- previous Administrator's ruling stemmed from reasoned deci-
sion of new evidence, sionmaking, however, because we remanded it to the agency.
We decline to do so because petitioners have failed to We thus confine our review to the current Administrator's
demonstrate that they have in fact been adversely affected by treatment of the record in the Final Order.
the tack of notice. During the nearly two years between the _n support of their bias claim, petitioners point to what
publication of the eigh>factor test on February 22, 1988, and they describe as a long history of the Drug Enforcement
the Administrator's ruling on December 29, 1989, petitioners Administration's anti-marijuana prejudice as evidenced by
never sought, to reopen the record. As parties to an impor- this court's need to remand their petition on four occasions
taut controversy, they had a responsibility to proffer any and what they describe as the prior Administrator's "unusual-
evidence that was made newly relevant by the adoption of the ly strident decision" rejecting the administrative law judge's
criteria. Their failure to do so suggests either that they were recommendation that the drug be rescheduled. They also
satisfied that the evidence already presented would meet the cite various statements by the present Administrator in the
teet or that they had no further evidence to offer. Thus, we Final Order as evidence of a lack of objecti;dty..gee, e.g., 57
have no reason to believe that petitioners would have pursued F'ed. Reg. at 10,502 ("The only favorable evidence that could
an "alternative course of conduct" had the test been punished be found by [petitioners] consists of stories by marijuana
earlier. Zahara_:is, 744 F.2d at 714. users"); id. ("[slick people are not objective scientific observ-
Furthermore, we do not agree that MeLon, tit Stee[ Prod- ers, especially when it comes to their own health."); id. at
uets v. Thomas, 838 F.2d 1317 (D.C. Cir. 1988), supports their I0,503 ("Sick men, women and children can be fooled by these
position. That cane is distinguishable. McLouth arose in the claims and experiment with the drug .... tt is a cruel hoax
context of a rulemaking in which an agency failed to identify to offer false hope to desperately ill people.").
adequately a key standard in its notice of proposed ru/emak- We are not impressed. The need to remand a ease several
ing in violation of 5 U.S.C. § 553. Unlike petitioners, the times is _mt. evidence per se of agency prejudice. Nor do we
McLouth challengers knew the governing legal standard by think the statements cited by petitioners show that, the
the time they were called on to submit evidence; their Administrator was unfair, especially when considered in the
complaint was that they had not had a chance to challenge the context of a reasonable preference fl_r rigorous scient, ific
standard at the time it was adopted. 838 F.gd at 1322-23. proof over anecdotal evidence, even when reported by re-
We held that the challengers were not required to demon- spected physicians.
strate that the failure of notice had caused "specific preju_ Moreover, our review of the record convinces us that the
dice" because "we cannot say whth certainty whether petition- Administrator's findings are supported by substantial cri-
ers' comments would have had some effect [on the adoption of deuce. See 21 U.S.C. § 877 (1988) (substantial evidence
the standard] if they had been considered when the issue was ............... o
"
. I_gb I e_211 t:_Ut..a, iil lg
_ll_lktl'tl UplOlieb bO
open." Id. at 1323-24. Here, petitioners' challenge is not to lugs). The Final Order canvasses the record at length, h,
the standard but to their claimed inabi]ity to respond to it. recites the testimony of numerous experts that marijuana's
2. The Reasoned Decisionmaking Ctaim medicinal value has never been proven in sound scientific
in ACT, Alliance and NORML argued that the prior A& studies. The Administrator reasonably aecoated more weight
ministrator had been biased and ignored the record. On this to the opinions of these experts than to the anecdotal testimo-
appeal, petitioners repeat these claims and accuse his succes- ny of laymen and doctors on which petitioners relied. The
sor of the same errors. We need not consider whether the Administrator noted that
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