President Donald Trump campaigned on supporting marijuana reform, making history as the first major party nominee to back cannabis legalization alongside his Democratic opponent. But four months into his presidency, the federal rescheduling process remains frozen with no action from his administration to revive it.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s effort to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act has been indefinitely stalled since January 21, when procedural appeals halted hearings that were expected to conclude the most significant federal cannabis policy shift in decades.
A 90-day status update filed in April revealed Trump’s acting DEA administrator has failed to set a briefing schedule to resolve the appeal, effectively leaving the process in limbo despite the president’s campaign rhetoric supporting reform.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump voiced support for marijuana rescheduling and backed Florida’s adult-use cannabis ballot initiative. The historic alignment between Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on cannabis policy led advocates to believe federal reform was inevitable regardless of the election outcome.
“The debate around this is over with both leading presidential candidates embracing rescheduling — the policy and the politics are aligned; it’s now only a matter of time,” David Culver of the US Cannabis Council said before the election.
But Trump’s administration now has the power to withdraw the Biden-era proposal entirely before any final rule is published, according to administrative law experts. His DEA nominee Terry Cole, a veteran law enforcement official, has not stated his position on cannabis policy.
Related: Acting DEA Chief Says Cannabis Review Is Not Dead—Yet—as Successor Looms
The rescheduling effort began in May 2024 when the Justice Department proposed the change following a Department of Health and Human Services review finding marijuana has “currently accepted medical use” and relatively low abuse potential.
However, the process became mired in allegations that the DEA rigged participant selection to favor rescheduling opponents. Court documents show the agency considered 163 applicants but selected only 25, with critics alleging improper communications with anti-rescheduling groups.
When the DEA submitted its own evidence supposedly supporting rescheduling, the documentation argued marijuana had no medical value—contradicting the HHS recommendation and raising questions about the agency’s commitment to reform.
DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney granted an appeal of his decision not to remove the DEA from overseeing the process, calling allegations of agency bias evidence of “puzzling and grotesque lack of understanding” if proven true.
Cannabis industry leaders who celebrated Trump’s campaign promises now face uncertainty about whether his administration will follow through. Rescheduling would provide tax relief to state-legal cannabis businesses and ease research restrictions, though marijuana would remain federally illegal.
Paul Armentano of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) said administrative challenges to marijuana’s Schedule I status historically “take years to resolve.”
Cannabis currently is classified alongside heroin as having no accepted medical use, a designation that federal health agencies now dispute but Trump’s administration has yet to change.
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