WASHINGTON D.C. — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order moving products sold under state medical cannabis licenses and prospective FDA-approved cannabis products from Schedule I to Schedule III. The Department of Justice clarified that the change does not legalize recreational or medical marijuana under federal law.

Schedule I is defined as substances with no accepted medical use, while Schedule III includes legal but regulated substances such as certain doses of Tylenol with codeine and ketamine. Under the new classification, researchers will be able to bypass more onerous rules for studying cannabis compounds, and state-legal cannabis companies will be able to claim federal tax deductions for business expenses for the first time. The FDA-related portion of the order applies only to prospective FDA-approved cannabis products that do not exist yet, though a few cannabis-related pharmaceuticals are already FDA approved.

"This rescheduling action allows for research on the safety and efficacy of this substance, ultimately providing patients with better care and doctors with more reliable information," Blanche said. He also posted online, "Under the decisive leadership of [President Trump], this Department of Justice is delivering on his promise to improve American healthcare."

The Drug Enforcement Administration will hold a new administrative hearing for rescheduling on June 29. In December 2024, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling on the Justice Department to loosen marijuana restrictions. President Joe Biden took similar steps to reclassify marijuana, but the process was not finalized by the time he left office in January 2025.

Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at the Drug Policy Alliance, said the action falls short of broader reform. "While some marijuana-related products are no longer being treated as schedule I, it's not accurate to say marijuana has been broadly rescheduled – this is partial rescheduling, at best," Packer said. "More concerning, it appears to predetermine the scheduling outcome for future FDA-approved drugs containing marijuana without a full, evidence-based risk evaluation."

She also said the approach "disproportionately excludes Black and Latino cannabis entrepreneurs, who are more likely to hold adult-use licenses due to the high barriers to entry in early medical markets, while equity programs that have since helped create pathways into the industry were largely advanced through adult-use legalization."

Ryan Hunter, chief revenue officer at Spherex labs, criticized the bifurcated treatment of identical products. "This is a very silly announcement. I can't imagine who thought this was a good idea," he said. "A person who buys an ounce of marijuana from the medical side of a dispensary, and a different person who buys an ounce of marijuana from the adult use side of that dispensary are being treated differently from a legal perspective, and it starts from there," Hunter said. "They're exactly the same products. The cost is the same, the facilities are the same, the employees are the same."

Marijuana is currently legal in some form in 40 U.S. states. A 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that 57 percent of U.S. adults said marijuana should be legal for both recreational and medical purposes, 32 percent said it should only be legal for medical purposes, and 11 percent said it should not be legal at all.