Schedule III: The March Towards Full Medicalisation Continues – by Simpa
You Cannot Prescribe Freedom
Late last year, US President Donald Trump took the next significant step towards federally rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III under the US Controlled Substances Act (CSA). However, much of the mainstream media reporting would have you believe that Trump just ‘legalized’ cannabis; the truth, as always, is far more complex and convoluted.
Before continuing, I have to address the fact that the US still uses the word ‘marijuana’ when describing and defining cannabis in law. I will not be doing so in this article, as I believe that the continued formal usage of this unscientific term, with its racist etymology, is evidence that consecutive governments of the omni-party have no interest in rectifying the historic evils of prohibition and providing meaningful restorative justice, social inclusion, and active participation for its victims.
In December 2025, the US President signed an executive order directing US Attorney General Pam Bondi to take the next step in the process to reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III federally. While many conservative groups and some cannabis advocates have welcomed the news and are crediting the President for advancing cannabis policy reform, it was actually the previous administration that started the process this administration is now seeking to expedite.
In October 2022, then-President Joe Biden instructed the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) to review the federal scheduling of cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The following year, in August 2023, the HSS recommended that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) federally reschedule cannabis to a Schedule III drug under the CSA.
In May 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted a proposed rule change to formally reclassify cannabis as Schedule III, which initiated a public comment period that received over 42,000 submissions. According to data analysis, 70%* of responses wanted the DEA to go further and deschedule cannabis entirely, removing it from the CSA.
A few months later, in August 2024, the DEA announced it would hold an administrative law judge (ALJ) hearing about the proposed rescheduling of cannabis. In November 2024, a group of pro-reform advocates filed a motion to disqualify the DEA from the proceedings due to ‘improper communications’ with anti-cannabis campaigners.
The initial motion was denied, but after new evidence emerged in January 2025, the group filed for reconsideration. The judge denied the motion but allowed them to file an interlocutory appeal to the DEA. Subsequently, the rescheduling hearing was cancelled after several delays, and the process was indefinitely paused until the advocate’s appeal is resolved.
In early 2025, a new head of the DEA was confirmed by the US Senate on the promise of ‘prioritising the issue.’ However, the rescheduling process remained in a stalemate all year due to the ongoing appeal, which was still ‘pending with the administrator.’
Despite the arrival of a new administration at the White House and Donald Trump’s promise in August 2025 to decide the proposed rescheduling of cannabis “in the coming weeks”, nothing happened until the aforementioned signing of the recent executive order in December.
In January 2026, the DEA again stated that the rescheduling appeal process ‘remains pending’, which means that cannabis cannot be lawfully federally rescheduled under the CSA until the appeals process is complete, regardless of the President’s recent actions. The executive order fails to set a firm deadline for rescheduling, allowing the DEA to continue dragging this out as long as they want.
Although the US Attorney General, empowered by the President’s order, does have the authority to pressure the DEA, they still ultimately remain the decision-makers when it comes to the federal rescheduling of cannabis. Under the current framework, the DEA will have to resolve the appeal and hold the ALJ hearing on the proposal to reschedule cannabis to Schedule III federally.
This will result in a decision to either keep cannabis in Schedule I, move it to Schedule III, or restart the process. Should the DEA fail to resolve the appeal and the process collapse, there are still a few ways to force rescheduling into law.
The DEA could pursue a different administrative path to reschedule cannabis. The DOJ could declare the process complete and publish a rule in the Federal Register changing the scheduling of cannabis to Schedule III. The US Congress could threaten to limit DEA funding or could amend the CSA directly through legislation. However, given the mounting opposition to rescheduling from both anti-cannabis and pro-cannabis advocates, any deviation from formal processes could give grounds to legal challenges against the administration’s decision.
The rescheduling of cannabis would impact the various facets of the estimated $38 billion US-regulated cannabis industry differently. For simplicity’s sake, in the future, I will use the terms ‘Hemp’, ‘Medical’, and ‘Recreational’ to explain the impacts of rescheduling on the three main branches of the overarching industry, despite my disdain for the outdated and loaded vernacular.
‘Hemp’
The ‘Hemp’ industry is already facing an extinction-level event following the recent passing of the federal spending bill, which includes a provision to effectively ban synthetics and full-spectrum products, tighten up the legal definition of ‘Hemp’, and add all isomers of THC, not just Delta 9 THC, to the 2018 Farm Bill definition. Luckily, the industry has been given a 12-month grace period before the law comes into effect, giving it time to fight back against the legislation and new definitions.
The combination of the 2018 Farm Bill updates and the rescheduling of cannabis will highly likely result in the US ‘Hemp’ industry eventually losing regulatory control of all natural, semi-synthetic, and synthetic cannabinoids, including CBD, to the so-called ‘medical’ and ‘recreational’ industries in the coming years.
The consequences of these legislative changes will remould the ‘hemp’ industry into a purely agricultural and industrial sector producing non-intoxicating, non-consumable products. The same thing has been happening to various European countries for the last decade.
‘Medical’
The ‘medical cannabis industrial complex’ would arguably be the biggest winner of a schedule III ruling. The new scheduling would not only recognise the ‘medicinal benefits’ of Cannabis Sativa L in law, but it would also seem not to impact existing state medical access programs.
Schedule III may lead to tax breaks for state-regulated ‘medical’ cannabis companies, expand qualifying conditions, reduce barriers for patients, and increase cannabinoid access. It may also theoretically be used to implement new programs in the remaining 10 states that haven’t already enacted a domestic ‘medical’ sector.
One of the most significant potential issues for the industry is the fact that under Schedule III, the DEA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would be responsible for federally approving and regulating cannabis medicines and cannabis products for medicinal consumption. This means that eventually, all dispensary products sold as ‘medical’ will have to be FDA-approved drugs.
In many ways, the rescheduling of cannabis to Schedule III would complete a 30-year-long experiment in how best to integrate and regulate cannabis under the pre-existing federal pharmaceutical framework. Since the passing of Prop 215 in California (1996), each subsequent state that has passed similar legislation enabling limited lawful access to cannabis for medicinal purposes has done so in a way that increasingly reduces patient autonomy and self-sufficiency.
We saw the same thing happen with Papaver Somniferum (the Opium Poppy) opiates, and opioids over the last century, and now it’s the turn of Cannabis Sativa L.
‘Recreational’
The same thing is happening with so-called ‘recreational’ cannabis, gradually reducing and removing autonomy and self-reliance from the consumer with each new iteration of legal regulation.
This creates profit for licensed producers, investors, and capitalists, while impoverishing the same communities ravaged and victimised by the ongoing ‘war on drugs’.
Despite what the internet would have you believe, Trump didn’t sign the executive order at 4:20 PM. Do not get it twisted, this is not a victory for the legacy cannabis culture. Schedule III is the most unambiguous indication yet that, as far as the investor and ruling class are concerned, cannabis products and cannabinoids should be controlled by the pharmaceutical industry. Likely to protect its vested interests in other monopolised global industries.
The signing of this executive order is set against a backdrop of increasingly paranoid propaganda-style reporting from the MSM about an ongoing ‘scromiting epidemic’ and a recent Gallup poll revealing that just 54% of Americans report drinking alcohol, the lowest percentage since records began in 1939.
So while some cannabis advocates and industry players have been making the usual “a step in the right direction” arguments, the majority of the legacy industry seems to have reacted with anger and frustration at the President’s anticlimactic proclamation.
To survive the ongoing global medicalization of cannabis and cannabinoids, the legacy cannabis culture is going to have to decide which horse it’s going to back. Whether to support further corporate capture under ‘legalisation’ or to ubiquitously deschedule the plant and decriminalise all cannabis-related offences for the individual. Even then, does the nascent industry have enough capital and support to challenge the behemoths of ‘big pharma’ and the emergent ‘medical cannabis industrial complex’? Only time will tell
Written by Simpa
Published in Weed World magazine issue 176
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