President Trump reschedules marijuana, moves for Medicare coverage for CBD

President Donald Trump on Thursday ushered in the most momentous shift in federal marijuana policy since 1970 with an executive order reclassifying cannabis as a less dangerous drug and recognizing for the first time its medical benefits.

“I promised to be the president of common sense, and that is exactly what we are doing,” said the president, flanked by top cabinet and health officials, doctors and veterans’ advocates during an Oval Office signing ceremony.

“This is really something having to do with common sense.”

The executive order directs the Justice Department to move marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act.

Exactly when cannabis would become Schedule 3, a designation that recognizes marijuana’s medical value under federal law, was not immediately clear.

Marijuana rescheduling does not legalize the drug. Nor does it drastically change how cannabis is currently produced and sold under state law.

However, rescheduling does free the $32 billion legal U.S. cannabis industry from 280E of the Internal Revenue Code, promising near-immediate benefits in the form of federal tax relief.

Along with boosting plant-touching cannabis companies’ margins, rescheduling is also expected to encourage major institutional investors to enter the cannabis space.

Other sought-after reforms, such as banking protections and interstate commerce, will have to wait for further action, likely from Congress.

And though certain cannabis-specific barriers to researching the drug will remain, marijuana rescheduling is also expected to encourage research. Institutions, such as public universities that receive federal funding, may be less wary about handling the drug.

Trump is also directing lawmakers and officials to make CBD-based treatments available to seniors on Medicare, a revolutionary advancement that could come as soon as April 2026, according to Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

“President Trump’s executive order has unleashed a seismic shift in healthcare – one of the boldest breakthroughs in generations,” Howard Kessler, founder of The Commonwealth Project, said in a statement.

It was Kessler’s organization that produced a video extolling CBD’s potential to treat health problems in seniors that Trump posted to his Truth Social page in September.

“While the rescheduling of cannabis will dominate the headlines, it’s his revolutionary pilot Medicare program that brings immediate, life-altering relief and access to cannabinoid-based therapies for millions of seniors grappling with chronic pain and debilitating conditions,” Kessler added.

Trump is said to have been influenced to rescheduling marijuana thanks in large part to Kessler, a Mar-a-Lago Club member, as well as Kim Rivers, CEO of Tallahassee, Florida-based Trulieve Cannabis Corp.

Both Oz and Trump hinted at that influence campaign on Thursday.

“It’s something having to do with the fact that so many people that I respect asked me to do it – people that are having problems, big problems with illness,” Trump said. “With cancer in particular.”

“Howard Kessler, God bless you for being a pain in our sides,” Oz said. “Mister President, he’s promised to stop calling you – on this issue.”

Last year, Trump became the first major party presidential candidate to endorse adult-use marijuana legalization when he said he would vote for Amendment 3, a Trulieve-funded push to legalize cannabis in Florida.

This is a developing story and will be updated.