April 23, 2026
President Trump just eased restrictions on medical marijuana. This is not a surprise—we’ve known this was coming since President Biden began the process back in 2023.
But as of today, according to this order signed by the Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FDA-approved products containing marijuana and marijuana products regulated by a state medical marijuana license have been reclassified from a Schedule I drug down to a Schedule III drug. Marijuana has been a Schedule I drug, along with LSD and heroin, for years—like some of the most dangerous drugs that the DEA considers to have no medical use and a high potential for abuse.
Schedule III includes things like ketamine and testosterone, and the DEA considers these to have a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Importantly, this does not make marijuana legal in the eyes of the federal government, and this does not downgrade the classification of recreational marijuana—yet. More on that in a second.
But until then, there are lots of states where possession of marijuana is still a criminal offense, and changing from Schedule I to Schedule III federally mostly won’t change that. In some states, it may reduce or eliminate the criminal penalties, but in others it won’t.
The DOJ says, “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.” So really, it’s just opening up money, access, and research opportunities. That means banks may be more willing to do business with business owners in states where marijuana is legal, and it opens up federal tax benefits for those business owners. It also makes it easier to conduct research on the health effects of cannabis consumption and for pharmaceutical companies to bring cannabis-based drugs to market.
Now, as I mentioned, President Biden actually already began this process. I reported on it back in September of 2023 and May of 2024 in these videos. Biden’s Department of Justice began the process of creating a new rule that reclassified marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. Then in December of 2025, I reported President Trump issued an executive order to speed up that process—and now today, Trump’s Justice Department finalized it.
But let’s talk about recreational marijuana. The other part of this order is that the Department of Justice has begun the process of an expedited administrative hearing process to consider the broader rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, which could include recreational marijuana. The new hearing process will begin in late June of this year, and the goal of that first hearing is to provide a timely and legally compliant way to evaluate more widespread changes to marijuana’s status under federal law.
Read the notice here.
