From Washington Post:
White House pushes imminent easing of controls on marijuana
Under an administration plan, marijuana would be moved to Schedule III, like some common prescription painkillers. It now has the same Schedule I classification as heroin.
Under the plan, marijuana would be moved to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act, similar to some common prescription painkillers. Marijuana currently has the same Schedule I classification as heroin.
The people cautioned that the administration’s plans are in flux and could change. The White House and the DEA did not immediately respond to questions about the administration’s plans.
Axios first reported that the administration is seeking to soon reschedule marijuana.
Trump in December ordered federal agencies to quickly ease restrictions on marijuana and make CBD more available, framing the moves as efforts to improve medical research. He also stressed that he was notdecriminalizing marijuana on a federal level, as many states have for recreational or medical use.
“Unless a drug is recommended by a doctor for medical reasons, just don’t do it,” the president said last year. “At the same time, the facts compel the federal government to recognize that marijuana can be legitimate in terms of medical applications when carefully administered.”
But there has been little public action to reschedule the drug since Trump’s order, frustrating advocates who have spent years urging the federal government to relax restrictions.
Trump over the weekend expressed his own frustrations as he prepared to sign an order loosening federal restrictions on psychedelics.
“Will you get the rescheduling done, please?” Trump said Saturday in the Oval Office, appearing to direct his comments toward White House policy officials. “Joe, they’re slow-walking me on rescheduling,” the president added, addressing podcaster Joe Rogan, a proponent of rescheduling marijuana and psychedelics. It was not clear which drug the president was referring to.
President Joe Biden’s Justice Department in 2024 formally recommended that marijuana be reclassified as Schedule III, but the move stalled amid legal disputes and a pending DEA administrative hearing. As part of its plans to expedite the rescheduling of marijuana, the Trump administration would move to end those hearings and start a new process, according to the people with knowledge of the administration’s plans.
Drug policy experts said that federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services were required to undertake reviews related to public health and safety, even if the pace of that work agitated Trump.
“His frustration with government processes, particularly those that protect public health, is evident,” said Regina LaBelle, director of the Addiction and Public Policy Initiative at the Georgetown University Law Center and a former drug policy official in the Obama and Biden White Houses. “The executive order doesn’t negate the need for the analysis that HHS and DEA are obligated to follow.”
Most Americans support relaxing restriction on marijuana. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month found that 53 percent of adults supported legalizing the drug, including 35 percent of Republicans.
Some critics of the Trump administration’s plans noted that support for legalization has softened as the drug has become more available, with much of the shift coming from Republicans. An April 2022 YouGov pollfound that 60 percent of adults supported legalizing marijuana, including 46 percent of Republicans.
“I think that people are seeing the effects of marijuana in their community as it’s become more ubiquitous,” said Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which advocates against legalization. He cited data on the effects of the drug, including studies that have linked youth use of marijuana and later schizophrenia, as well as quality-of-life concerns, such as the smell of the drug that has become familiar in major cities.
Advocates for legalization of marijuana have argued that federal restrictions are outdated and unnecessary.
“I feel like it should be like alcohol,” Rogan said on his podcast in December. “I think you should be of a certain age to be able to use it.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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