The Trump administration is moving to federally reschedule marijuana because cannabis reform is “overwhelmingly popular” with voters and because doing so will help people who need access to the drug for medical purposes, the White House press secretary says.
“The president hears from a number of people, both inside and outside the administration, and frankly, the American people,” Karoline Leavitt, President Donald Trump’s press secretary said on Friday. “If you do look at the public polling on this issue, it is overwhelmingly popular with the vast majority of Americans.”
She added in response to a question about the issue from a Real America’s Voice reporter that “rescheduling will lead to more research into cannabis as a drug, especially for those who need it for medical treatment.”
“And so the president was willing to take this step to do that at the behest of the American public, who largely support it, and many of his health advisors on his team who he spoke with about it,” Leavitt said, referencing comments that Trump made a day earlier after the Department of Justice announced that cannabis rescheduling was happening.
During a press event in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump spoke about the medical benefits of marijuana.
“A lot of people are suffering from big problems, which this seems to be the best answer,” he said. “They’re very happy about it. So the rescheduling is starting, and that’s a big thing, rescheduling.”
The president noted that his administration’s actions on cannabis rescheduling came after his friend Howard Kessler told him about how he used medical marijuana.
“He had some medical difficulties, and he came upon this by accident, in a way,” he said. “He had to go through a lot of different medications, and he said this was the one that was much better than anything else. And so he experienced that. He didn’t benefit by it, other than from the standpoint that he lives a much better life now.”
“So hopefully you don’t need it,” Trump said. “But if you do need it, I hear it’s the best of all the alternatives.”
Separately on Thursday, the president called on Congress to take action to amend a law that threatens to federally recriminalize hemp-derived full-spectrum CBD products later this year.
“We must get this done RIGHT and FAST, especially for those who saw that CBD helps them,” he said in a social media post. “Plus, I am told it will also help our GREAT FARMERS, who we love, and will always be there for.”
Days earlier, Trump had complained that federal officials were “slow-walking” following through on his cannabis order.
“You’re going to get the rescheduling done, right, please? Will you get the rescheduling done, please?” Trump said during a signing ceremony for a separate order on psychedelics, seeming to speak to a Department of Justice or White House official during an event in the Oval Office. “You know, they’re slow-walking me on rescheduling. You’re going to get it done, right?”
Trump in December signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to expeditiously finish the process of moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday announced that rescheduling is finally happening through a process that will happen in phases.
Under an order signed by Blanche, marijuana products regulated by a state medical cannabis license will immediately move to Schedule III, as will any marijuana products that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Then, beginning on June 29, there will be a new expedited administrative hearing process to consider the broader rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III. The Federal Register filing on the hearing says it “will conclude not later than July 15.”
DOJ is ending a prior administrative hearing process on the rescheduling proposal that stalled near the end of the Biden administration amid litigation from pro-reform parties that alleged improper agency communications and witness selection decisions.
Rescheduling won’t federally legalize cannabis, but it will remove certain Schedule I research barriers, while benefitting state-licensed marijuana businesses by allowing them to take federal tax deductions they’re currently barred from under an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E.
To that end, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said they plan to issue new tax guidance for the marijuana industry following the rescheduling announcement.
Meanwhile, “any form of marijuana other than in an FDA-approved drug product or marijuana subject to a state medical marijuana license remains a schedule I controlled substance, and those who handle such material remain subject to the regulatory controls, and administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions, applicable to schedule I controlled substances set forth in the CSA and DEA regulations,” Blanche wrote.
For now, DOJ is establishing “an expedited review process for entities holding state medical marijuana licenses who seek registration as a marijuana manufacturer, distributor, or dispenser” in order to become federally compliant under Schedule III.
In order to align with an international drug control treaty “requirement that a government agency serve as the exclusive purchaser of cannabis production,” DOJ is rolling out a process by which the federal government will technically purchase marijuana from producers and then sell it back to them or related entities.
“Registered manufacturers must store crops in a facility to which DEA maintains access until that transaction is complete, and each manufacturer registration must specify the areas in which cultivation is permitted,” Blanche’s filing says.
The order also allows researchers to legally obtain marijuana products from state-licensed businesses to be used in studies, for the first time.
There has been some uncertainty about how DOJ would navigate the issue. While the department faced a mandate from the president, top officials have been notably silent on the issue in the months since receiving that directive—even as the White House touted Trump’s order as an example of a policy achievement during the first year of his second term.
When Trump issued the rescheduling order late last year, Pam Bondi was attorney general. She opposed cannabis reform as Florida’s attorney general and she didn’t attend the president’s signing ceremony for the rescheduling executive order.
Now, the process is being overseen by Blanche, who said in response to a written question about marijuana rescheduling during his confirmation process to become deputy attorney general that he would “give the matter careful consideration after conferring with all relevant stakeholders, including DEA personnel.”
The president’s rescheduling directive was overwhelmingly popular among cannabis consumers, according to a recent poll from the cannabis telehealth platform NuggMD.
About 83 percent of respondents said they support the executive order, compared to 7 percent who expressed opposition and 10 percent who said they didn’t have an opinion about the proposed reform.
The cannabis rescheduling process was initiated by then-President Joe Biden, under whom the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a 252-page report finding that marijuana does not meet the criteria to remain classified as a Schedule I drug.
The Department of Justice later issued a proposed rule to move cannabis to Schedule III, which then led to a stalled administrative hearing process.
A Democratic senator told Marijuana Moment in January that it’s “too early to tell” what the implications of Trump’s cannabis order would be—saying that while there are “things that look promising” about it, he is “very concerned about where the DOJ will land.”
“The ability of the Trump administration to speak out of both sides of their mouth is staggering,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said. “So I’m just going to wait and see right now. Obviously, there’s things that look promising—to end generations of injustice. I really want to wait and see.”
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Also in January, two GOP senators filed an amendment to block the Trump administration from rescheduling cannabis, but it was not considered on the floor.
A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report discussed how DOJ could, in theory, reject the president’s directive or delay the process by restarting the scientific review into marijuana.
The Department of Justice separately missed a congressionally mandated deadline in January to issue guidelines for easing barriers to research on Schedule I substances such as marijuana and psychedelics.
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