Imagine being told for fifty-five years that a plant is as dangerous as heroin, only to watch the same government quietly prepare to admit it belongs next to Tylenol with codeine. That bizarre chapter of American policy might finally be closing, and the man holding the pen could very well be Donald Trump.
I’ve followed cannabis policy long enough to know that “soon” usually means “maybe never.” Yet this time feels different. Multiple sources say the President is weeks—possibly days—away from issuing an executive order directing federal agencies to treat marijuana as a Schedule III substance. If it happens, it will be the most significant federal cannabis reform since Richard Nixon ever unintentionally made possible.
A Quiet Phone Call That Could Change Everything
The turning point apparently came during a single conference call. On one side: industry executives and advocates armed with data. On the other: a skeptical House Speaker who listed every traditional objection. By the end, Trump reportedly sounded sold. Classic Trump—sometimes the last voice in the room wins.
That’s not gossip-level detail, sure, but the broader picture is solid: the administrative machinery is already moving. The Justice Department recommended the change over a year ago. The formal review process is technically ongoing, yet everyone knows those reviews can drag forever unless someone at the very top lights a fire.
From Schedule I to Schedule III: What Actually Changes?
Right now, federal law claims marijuana has no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse—the official definition of Schedule I, the same category as LSD and ecstasy. Moving it to Schedule III would place it alongside ketamine, anabolic steroids, and yes, Tylenol with codeine.
Practically speaking, that shift would:
- Allow doctors to prescribe it through normal pharmacy channels (eventually)
- Ease research restrictions dramatically
- Give legitimate businesses banking and tax benefits they’ve been denied for decades
- Remove the threat of federal raids in states that have already legalized
- Signal to the world that America’s war on this particular plant is effectively over
In my view, the research access alone justifies the change all by itself. We’ve lived with the ultimate Catch-22: politicians demanding “more studies” while simultaneously making studies almost impossible. Schedule III status cracks that paradox wide open.
The Human Stories Behind the Policy
Policy debates can feel abstract until you meet the people stuck in the middle.
Veterans with crushing PTSD who say cannabis is the only thing that quiets the noise in their head. Cancer patients who can finally eat again after chemo because of a few drops of oil. Parents of children with severe epilepsy who moved entire families across state lines for legal access to CBD.
“I watched my appetite come back the same week I started medical cannabis. I stopped looking like a skeleton. That’s not politics—that’s survival.”
— stage IV patient, speaking anonymously to researchers
Those stories aren’t rare; they’re the norm in every state that has reformed its laws. The federal government has simply refused to listen for half a century.
The Market Is Already Reacting
Markets never wait for official confirmation. When word of the phone call leaked, the main U.S. cannabis ETF jumped over 38% in after-hours trading. That’s not subtle.
Investors understand something fundamental: Schedule III doesn’t legalize recreational marijuana nationwide, but it removes the Sword of Damocles that has hung over every legal operator since Colorado and Washington went first in 2012. Suddenly, real banking, real insurance, real institutional money—everything becomes possible.
Some will call it speculation. Others will call it catching up to reality.
Why Now? Politics, Science, and Simple Fatigue
Three forces have converged.
First, public opinion. Roughly seven in ten Americans now support legalization. Even most Republican voters have moved on.
Second, the science is no longer debatable. Thousands of studies—many conducted despite federal obstacles—show clear medical benefit for chronic pain, nausea, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis spasticity, and more.
Third, pure exhaustion. The mismatch between state and federal law has created a regulatory mess that satisfies nobody. Prosecutors don’t want to chase state-legal businesses. Banks don’t want to lose their charters. Patients don’t want to risk prison for medicine.
An executive push to Schedule III is the cleanest off-ramp available.
Potential Roadblocks (Because Nothing Is Ever Easy)
Don’t celebrate yet. Administrative procedures still matter. The DEA could drag its feet. Legal challenges are guaranteed—both from prohibition hardliners and from companies that profit from the current gray market.
And of course, presidential attention spans are famously… flexible. A single bad headline or a persuasive dinner guest could shift priorities overnight.
Still, the momentum feels stronger than any moment since the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp. People inside the process describe an air of inevitability.
What Schedule III Would—and Wouldn’t—Do
Let’s be crystal clear about limits.
- It does not legalize recreational sales nationwide
- It does not automatically expunge past convictions
- It does not end all state-level prohibition (states could still ban it)
- It does open the door to FDA-approved cannabis medicines
- It does make legitimate business dramatically easier
- It does send an unmistakable cultural signal
Think of it as the end of federal hypocrisy rather than the end of prohibition.
The Bigger Picture: Rewriting Fifty Years of Reefer Madness
In a way, this moment feels like the final unraveling of the 1970s moral panic. The same era that gave us the War on Drugs is finally meeting its expiration date on at least one front.
Future historians might look back and wonder how we ever classified a plant used safely for millennia in the same box as synthetic opioids. They’ll probably shake their heads at the lost research years, the filled prison cells, the veterans denied relief.
And they’ll note that, in the end, it wasn’t radical activists who forced the change. It was simple reality—plus one very unpredictable president deciding the status quo had gone on long enough.
Sometimes history moves in mysterious ways.
So keep an eye on the news wires. If that executive order drops in the next few weeks, we’ll be living in a different country overnight—one that finally treats cannabis like the complex but largely beneficial plant it is.
After fifty-five years, that wouldn’t be progressive. It would just be sane.
