Topline
The Trump administration’s acting attorney general Todd Blanche signed an order on Thursday reclassifying FDA-approved and state-licensed medical marijuana as a less dangerous drug, placing it in the less strictly regulated Schedule III category.
President Trump previously directed the Justice Department to reschedule the drug in a December executive order.
Getty Images
Key Facts
The move will not legalize marijuana, but instead move it from Schedule I to Schedule III.
Schedule III drugs have a “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence,” and include anabolic steroids, ketamine and products with less than 90 milligrams of codeine, such as Tylenol with codeine, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Rescheduling marijuana as Schedule III will make it easier for medical researchers to conduct studies with the drug.
Key Background
The push to reschedule marijuana began under former President Joe Biden, who in 2022 directed the Department of Health and Human Services to study whether the drug should be classified as Schedule I. The results of that study from the Food and Drug Administration came in 2023, and recommended the DEA move the drug to Schedule III. Schedule I drugs are defined as having no accepted medical use and have a high potential for abuse, according to the DEA, and include drugs like heroin, LSD, ecstasy and peyote. The FDA study recognized that dozens of states have legalized marijuana for medical use in some form to treat things like chronic pain. Biden supported moving marijuana to Schedule III, but the effort stalled until the Trump administration revisited it last year. Trump signed an executive order in December citing the 2023 study and instructing then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to reschedule the drug in a “most expeditious manner.”
What To Watch For
Rescheduling marijuana would likely reduce the tax burden cannabis companies currently face. While marijuana is a Schedule I drug, cannabis companies are required to pay an effective tax rate of about 60% of gross revenue before business deductions.