Dear Drug Policy Reformer,

[image:1 align:right caption:true]You likely have seen the news about President Trump's 12/18/25 Executive Order addressing cannabis (marijuana) rescheduling as well as hemp and CBD concerns. Our longtime writer Phillip S. Smith has written a report about the EO, published in Drug War Chronicle here, and a piece with some reformer reactions here.

I'm writing today to note of a few things about rescheduling that we think are important to be aware of. I'll also share my general perspective about rescheduling, which is similar to that of other reformers you may have heard from (and whom Phil quoted), but with some nuanced differences.

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Sorry! Back to rescheduling.

1. Cannabis Isn't Rescheduled Yet

The first thing to bear in mind is that the Executive Order does not directly move cannabis to Schedule III – as of today it remains in Schedule I. The EO is influential and is likely to speed up the process. It may indeed make the difference in getting to Schedule III, vs. cannabis staying in Schedule I or landing at Schedule II. But the outcome is not 100% certain.

Scheduling under law is within the authority of the US Attorney General, not the President, with the process administered by the DEA. Just as President Biden was able to get rescheduling moving, President Trump's authority technically is limited to giving the process a renewed push. Any outcome is certain to get challenged in court, and if the Dept. of Justice skips any steps – for example, if Attorney General Bondi, who tends to do what Trump wants, declares rescheduling a done deal – that will increase the risk that rescheduling could get reversed.

Congress could also intervene – it's notable that 20 Republican Senators were willing to criticize a president of their own party for the rescheduling move. An intervention by Congress could block or reverse rescheduling, or limit its impact.

All that said, I believe this makes Schedule III more likely to happen, probably much more likely, and certainly more likely than it seemed for much of this year. I think that's good news.

2. Rescheduling Has Risks

Or at least it's probably good news. Schedule III has some risks. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), while theoretically having authority to regulate Schedule I drugs, in practice doesn't. With a move to any other schedule, it's possible FDA will move to regulate the cannabis trade, which currently is regulated only by states and under systems the states have devised.

Some observers think the risk is significant. FDA involvement in cannabis regulation, even if done with full good faith to the intent behind rescheduling and the laws states have passed, would change things, and not necessarily in ways that would work well or do justice to the work done by states and in the sector. We need to persuade Congress that, following rescheduling, some kind of protection or carveout for cannabis in US food and drug law is needed.

3. Trump is Slaughtering People in the Drug War

The third thing to remember is that Trump is a mass murderer. His missile strikes on small, alleged "drug boats," most of them in the Caribbean near Venezuela, all done without warning, have taken 105 lives so far.

There's no valid legal basis to allow the blowing up of boats with people in them, as opposed to doing the usual interdiction with drugs seized and arrests done. It has no serious connection to fighting drugs – it certainly doesn't limit drug availability in the United States, which isn't a destination for the cocaine being trafficked in the Caribbean. And while the president continues to talk about fentanyl, the fentanyl entering our country comes from elsewhere.

As I wrote in February and reiterated last week, it's possible that Trump could attempt Duterte-style extrajudicial drug war killings inside the US. That's still speculation, but the boat strikes along with other factors make the risk seem higher than it did just a few months ago.

So, rescheduling is good – probably – Trump's Executive Order is good. But even if he legalized marijuana, it's still the case that Trump is slaughtering people, in the drug war, right now. And anyone is potentially a target. We can acknowledge and speak honestly about any occasional good thing this White House might do, while being realistic about the rest of what they're doing. That has been our approach since Trump first ran for office in 2016.

4. Why Rescheduling Is Important

Now for what I think about rescheduling. If you've read Phil's article (linked above) or are on more than one drug reform list, you are probably aware that a lot of the discourse in reaction to the rescheduling process, and now to the president's announcement, has been to emphasize what rescheduling does not do.

Rescheduling stops far short of legalization. I agree, with certainty, that legalization – along with helping people with past convictions, getting people out of prison, inclusion for who gets a stake in the cannabis industry, etc. – is still our ultimate goal, and the most important goal.

At the same time, it is possible to underweight the importance of what rescheduling would do. In my opinion this often happens when it comes to 280E, a tax that the cannabis businesses are subject to, which would go away with Schedule III. 280E is a debilitating tax that easily takes the effective rates for a business to upwards of 70%. It does this by barring businesses from deducting most expenses, meaning they're taxed on almost all gross income, not net profit.

I don't know anyone in the movement who doesn't think 280E should go away. I do have friends who are uncomfortable with reforms that directly help only businesses, especially if the business-oriented reforms get too far ahead of the reforms we advocate to address legalization and social justice. It's the same kind of tension we've seen with regard to the issue of improving financial system access for cannabusinesses, e.g. SAFE Banking.

As you'll see in Phil's article, often this concern is voiced with respect to what repealing 280E will do for the biggest businesses and investors. But 280E applies to small cannabusinesses too, even the smallest ones. Much of the industry in the US is in a state of structural negative profit – they have been losing money for years. The 280E tax is one of the main reasons for that, and the only one directly under the control of federal policymakers.

(Some other reasons they keep losing money year after year are challenging state regulatory requirements, late payments, and the continuing resilience of the underground cannabis market. Uncomfortably for our friends who own stores, the fact of cannabis only being sold from separate stores, as opposed to being available at more general-purpose businesses, is a big part of this too.)

A big corporation involved in cannabis might decide to shut down or withdraw from the cannabis space. But if it does, its owners and investors are likely to be okay. For the small business owner (which includes the owners of equity businesses), losing money long term means they may have no choice about shutting down, or selling to a larger business for pennies on the dollar.

At businesses of all scales, the first thing to go in that situation is spending on their employees, e.g. fewer opportunities for employees to learn new skills or advance their standing in the community. Layoffs are commonplace, and pay rates probably suffer. The situation of laying off staff, and then rehiring them or new people, is an expensive one in terms of the opportunity cost for a business.

This broken financial situation may also pose safety issues for workers and owners. While doing the first ever study on the characteristics of armed robberies of state-legal cannabis stores, I noted that armed robberies are mainly a problem in the western part of the country, which is also where cannabusinesses are in the worst financial state. If indirectly, 280E appears to be a safety issue. While doing that research, I did hear from storeowners the view that businesses wouldn't truly be secure from victimization so long as they're paying 280E.

Finally on the business side, legalization itself may be jeopardized, if the industry's costs aren't lowered. Price is not the only reason many consumers have continued to buy outside of the regulated system. But clearly the high costs in this business are a reason the regulated market can't compete more effectively. If legal businesses can't bring in enough of the market to be profitable, much less to replace the underground market, the appetite of policymakers and even the public for legalization might not last. It's not a given that marijuana will be legalized federally.

Another reason rescheduling is important is we need more research, especially on medical use. One of the reasons cannabis hasn't been rescheduled already, much less approved by the FDA, is it's really difficult to do medical research with it. Schedule III is expected to make that easier.

The most important reason for expanding research is to help users of cannabis, especially patients. There's a lot we don't know about the plant and its effects. In the grand scheme of substances, it's certainly one of the safest. But the more cannabis is used, by patients in particular, and in the newer ways, the more important the things we don't know could be.

There certainly needs to be more research if the medical community is going to really buy in. Not every physician is convinced yet. For cannabis to do all it can for patients, eventually we will need buy-in from the medical community at large, and that means more research.

There is more that can be said, of course, and the dialogue on rescheduling will continue. All the different viewpoints you've seen are important and should be considered. But for now at least, our take on rescheduling is the same as it usually is when partial reforms to drug policy come up. We think we should take the win – fight for it if we need to – then continue to work for our larger goals.

Thanks for reading!

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Sincerely,

David Borden, Executive Director
StoptheDrugWar.org
"US and UN Drug Policy Reform"
P.O. Box 9853, Washington, DC 20016
https://stopthedrugwar.org