The Trump administration is reportedly ready to move ahead with marijuana rescheduling.
More than four months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general to expeditiously finish the process of moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the administration may be finally prepared to move forward.
Citing an administration official familiar with the matter, Axios reported that action could come as soon as Wednesday.
Marijuana Moment reached out to the White House press office for more details, but a representative was not immediately available.
There has been some uncertainty about how the Department of Justice (DOJ) would navigate the issue. While the department faced a mandate from the president, top officials have been notably silent on the issue in the months since receiving that directive—even as the White House touted Trump’s order as an example of a policy achievement during the first year of his second term.
Trump himself complained last weekend that federal officials were “slow-walking” following through on his cannabis order.
“You’re going to get the rescheduling done, right, please? Will you get the rescheduling done, please?” Trump said during a signing ceremony for a separate order on psychedelics, seeming to speak to a Department of Justice or White House official during an event in the Oval Office on Saturday. “You know, they’re slow-walking me on rescheduling. You’re going to get it done, right?”
A Justice Department spokesperson told Marijuana Moment in January that they had no “comment or updates” to share on the topic. However, an agency official more recently said that DOJ was “working to identify the most expeditious means of executing the EO.”
That phrasing was notable, signaling that the department was uncertain about the administrative pathway to finalize rescheduling. The hope among advocates and industry stakeholders was that the process would be more simple, with a final signature on the existing reform proposal that was released following a scientific review initiated under the prior Biden administration.
When Trump issued the rescheduling order late last year, Pam Bondi was attorney general. She opposed cannabis reform as Florida’s attorney general and she didn’t attend the president’s signing ceremony for the rescheduling executive order.
Now, the process is being overseen by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said in response to a written question about marijuana rescheduling during his confirmation process to become deputy attorney general that he would “give the matter careful consideration after conferring with all relevant stakeholders, including [Drug Enforcement Administration] personnel.”
The president’s rescheduling directive was overwhelmingly popular among cannabis consumers, according to a recent poll from the cannabis telehealth platform NuggMD.
About 83 percent of respondents said they support the executive order, compared to 7 percent who expressed opposition and 10 percent who said they didn’t have an opinion about the proposed reform.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Trump’s first pick for attorney general this term who ultimately withdrew his nomination, recently raised eyebrows after posting on X that he’s been told the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is actively drafting a rescheduling rule and intended to issue it “ASAP.”
There was some confusion around that point, however, as a rule was already pending before the Justice Department—and a new rule would have presumably been subject to additional administrative review and public comment.
A Democratic senator told Marijuana Moment in January that it’s “too early to tell” what the implications of Trump’s cannabis order would be—saying that while there are “things that look promising” about it, he is “very concerned about where the DOJ will land.”
“The ability of the Trump administration to speak out of both sides of their mouth is staggering,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said. “So I’m just going to wait and see right now. Obviously, there’s things that look promising—to end generations of injustice. I really want to wait and see.”
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Also in January, two GOP senators filed an amendment to block the Trump administration from rescheduling cannabis, but it was not considered on the floor.
A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report discussed how DOJ could, in theory, reject the president’s directive or delay the process by restarting the scientific review into marijuana.
The Department of Justice separately missed a congressionally mandated deadline in January to issue guidelines for easing barriers to research on Schedule I substances such as marijuana and psychedelics.
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