Trump poised to reclassify marijuana as Schedule III on Thursday: Report
- President Donald Trump plans to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug, defined as having no accepted medical use and high potential for abuse, to Schedule III, which includes drugs with moderate to low potential for dependence, easing federal restrictions but not fully legalizing marijuana.
- The reclassification aims to facilitate more comprehensive medical research on marijuana, which has been limited due to its current Schedule I status, and has received bipartisan support from some lawmakers despite ongoing skepticism from others.
- Experts have mixed views: some see rescheduling as an opportunity to advance research and acknowledge limited medical benefits, while others doubt significant new medical discoveries will emerge solely from the change in classification.
- The change was expected to be signed by Trump via executive order on Thursday, though the timing remains uncertain, with the Biden administration previously recommending moving marijuana to Schedule III after reviewing its classification.
President Donald Trump is expected to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug on Thursday, CNN reports.
Newsweek contacted the White House for comment via email after office hours.
Trump has voiced his intentions to bring about the change in classification for some time. During his election campaign, he said he would "continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule III drug." A reclassification would ease federal restrictions, though not result in full legalization.
Some Democrats and Republicans have been united in their support of the reclassification, citing benefits in medical contexts, and a number of states have already legalized marijuana. Other lawmakers remain skeptical.
CNN reported that Trump is expected to sign an executive order to reclassify the drug from Schedule I, which includes drugs like heroin, to Schedule III, which features Tylenol mixed with codeine, ketamine and testosterone.
The Drug Enforcement Administration defines a Schedule I drug “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Schedule III drugs are defined as those with “a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”
The Schedule I classification has been a barrier to those seeking to conduct research on cannabis or cannabinoids, and develop products for the medical marijuana business. Limited research exists on both the health harms and benefits of marijuana in medical contexts, with experts saying more research is required.
Trump told reporters on Monday he is looking at directing federal health and law enforcement agencies to treat marijuana as a Schedule III drug. "A lot of people want to see it—the reclassification—because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that can't be done unless you reclassify," the president said.
Last year, the Biden administration asked the Department of Health and Human Services to review marijuana's classification, and the agency recommended moving it to Schedule III.
Dr. Kevin Hill, director of addiction psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and psychiatry professor at Harvard University, told Newsweek earlier: "Rescheduling cannabis makes sense from a theoretical standpoint: cannabis has some, albeit limited, medical purposes. Rescheduling will be an opportunity for research on a larger scale, but it will be important for stakeholders like states and companies currently profiting from cannabis sales to contribute more to the research than they have thus far."
Jonathan Caulkins, professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, also told Newsweek earlier: "It is hard to imagine that there are many wonderful medical benefits of cannabis waiting to be unlocked by this change because U.S. federal scheduling status of course has no impact on the ability to do such medical research in any other country. If there were such benefits, they could have been discovered by any of the other countries with a modern pharmaceutical research base."
While the reclassification is planned for Thursday, CNN journalist Kit Maher cited a senior White House official as saying the “timing could always shift.”