President Donald Trump said on Dec. 15 that he’s considering an executive order to reclassify marijuana out of Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), a category reserved for drugs deemed to have no medical value and a high potential for abuse.
The president was asked about the plan during a ceremony at the White House on Monday, presenting the Mexican Border Defense Medal, which recognizes service members deployed to the U.S.-Mexico Border.
“We are considering that,” the president said. “Because a lot of people want to see the reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that can’t be done unless you reclassify. So we are looking at that very strongly.”
A review process started by President Joe Biden in 2022 could reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, but if finalized, it would not legalize or decriminalize the drug.
Trump told reporters in August that his administration was “looking at reclassification,” but that a determination would not come until later.
“We’re looking at it. Some people like it. Some people hate it. Some people hate the whole concept of marijuana, because if it does bad for the children, it does bad for people that are older than children,” Trump said. “But we’re looking at reclassification, and we’ll make a determination over the next, I would say, over the next few weeks, and that determination, hopefully, will be the right one.”
The president added that marijuana is a “very complicated subject” and that he believes the plant has done great things in the medical field, even if there are “bad things having to do with just about everything else but medical.”
Picking Up Where Biden Left Off
If the president proceeds with the executive order, it could mean picking up where his predecessor left off, as it wasn’t clear if the federal government would proceed with reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III substance after Biden urged the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to review the drug’s status in 2022.
Biden’s Justice Department followed suit in May 2024 and announced it was formally moving to reclassify marijuana out of Schedule I, which requires directing the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to change its classification status.
However, after the Democratic Party lost control of the executive branch in last year’s election, it was uncertain if the Justice Department and DEA would continue the process of moving marijuana into Schedule III with widely used medications, such as anabolic steroids, testosterone, and ketamine.
Schedule I, by contrast, is reserved for drugs with no “currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” including LSD, ecstasy or MDMA, and heroin.
Legal Implications
Putting marijuana in a different category of the Controlled Substances Act does not legalize or decriminalize the plant, but it can ease red tape on legal markets in states with recreational or medical marijuana laws.
Some banks refuse to do business with companies in the industry because marijuana is still a Schedule I substance at the federal level.
Additionally, marijuana being on Schedule I has made it difficult for universities and organizations to conduct authorized clinical studies that involve giving the drug to participants, sometimes relying on self-reported experiences with the drug that are less empirically rigorous for medical research, according to Vrana.
“I can only get cannabis and cannabinoids from a handful of federally approved sources,” he said in August, adding that it puts the university’s funding at risk.
“It makes it harder for us to conduct clinical trials that would help us better understand the potential benefits—and harms—of cannabis.”
