On Thursday, December 18th, President Trump signed an executive order seeking to expedite the rescheduling of marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug. On this episode of Policy Outsider, we do a lightning round with Heather Trela, Rockefeller Institute’s resident cannabis policy expert, on what the executive order does and does not do, what rescheduling means for the marijuana industry, and what we can expect in the months to come.
Guests
Transcript was generated using AI software and may contain errors.
Joel Tirado 00:00
Welcome to Policy Outsider presented by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. I’m Joel Tirado. On Thursday, December 18th, President Trump signed an executive order seeking to expedite the rescheduling of marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug. On this episode of Policy Outsider, we do a lightning round with Heather Trela, Rockefeller Institute’s resident cannabis policy expert, on what the executive order does and does not do, what rescheduling means for the marijuana industry, and what we can expect in the months to come. That conversation is up next.
Joel Tirado 00:59
Alright, Heather, welcome back to the show. We’re here to talk about the executive order issued by President Trump, which addresses the rescheduling of cannabis. So this is something that we’ve talked about on the show, something that you’ve written about. So can you just give us a quick refresher on what rescheduling means and how we got to Thursday’s announcement?
Heather Trela 01:21
Sure, so references to scheduling refer to the Controlled Substances Act that was passed in 1970 that created classifications for controlled substances. Schedule one was viewed as having highly addictive and no medical use, and it goes down as the schedules increase, the concern for dependency decreases, and this is actually this executive order yesterday is kind of taking something across the finish line that was started under the Biden administration. President Biden had issued an executive order in October of 2022 asking to for this to be examined to see whether or not rescheduling would make sense. So it’s actually a pretty bipartisan action.
Joel Tirado 02:01
Okay, so it’s a process initiated, geez, three years ago now, and it would move the scheduling of marijuana from schedule one to schedule three. So what did this executive order do? Why was it necessary? What? What role did it play in this process?
Heather Trela 02:19
So this executive ordered two things really. One was more expected than the other. One is to ask the attorney general and the Department of Justice to expedite the movement of rescheduling cannabis from schedule one to schedule three. The other thing that they did was it urges congress to re examine hemp and the definition that’s being used in order to allow people access to CBD for medical uses, previously, the definition had been changed, and this would ask Congress to reexamine that. Also, part of the discussion around this executive order, though not actually in the executive order, was the calling for a pilot program that would allow some seniors that receive Medicare coverage to have CBD covered as part of that coverage. There’d be limits. It would be pilot program. The earliest that could launch would be in April of 2026
Joel Tirado 03:17
so going back real quick, the hemp definition. This is something that was recently that we talked about research you wrote about recently, so just real quick that we seem to be having this sort of whiplash with the hemp stuff.
Heather Trela 03:32
So yes, the hemp piece, there is a whiplash. It comes from changes that were made by Congress in the most recent spending bill that was passed after the government shutdown, it closed a loophole for hemp by restricting how much THC and CBD and other chemicals could be in hemp and what could be sold, which is going to be very restrictive for the hemp industry. So this is actually potentially a lifeline to the hemp industry to at least let some products back on the market with some redefinition. So the first definition of hemp was too broad, the most recent was too constricted. And so maybe they’re hoping for something in the middle that will balance the concern for public health over the health benefits, as many people find from CBD and hemp derived products.
Joel Tirado 04:20
And this is just Trump saying, hey, Congress, you should take action on the definition of hemp. He actually isn’t doing anything.
Heather Trela 04:28
No, it’s encouraging Congress to reexamine this and work with executive agencies to find what’s the right threshold, what balances both concerns and what definition captures that and makes everybody not, if not happy, at least finds a balanced approach to this.
Joel Tirado 04:45
Yeah, you know good government, where everyone’s a little bit miserable, but no one’s too miserable, exactly. So we’ve talked about this before, but let’s just, you know briefly go through, what does cannabis what is moving it from schedule one to schedule three? Mean, what does this do and not? Do for the industry, sure.
Heather Trela 05:01
So there’s kind of two, two things that this does immediately when it moves to schedule three, it allows marijuana industries to take tax deductions that have previously been prohibited to them. So previously, if you were operating a cannabis business, you could not take deductions for payroll advertising because of schedule one, this was prohibited by a section of the tax law called Two. Ade moving to schedule three opens that up and makes it easier for cannabis businesses to take those deductions and hopefully become more profitable. The other big thing is this will remove a lot of barriers to research by not only taking the barriers away from the studies, but also opening up federal money to fund these studies. That’s been a prohibition under its status as schedule one drug. It was much harder to do this kind of research. What it doesn’t do scheduling, rescheduling. It does not legalize marijuana. Does not change the status at the state level. It is still federally illegal, and it also does not change any interstate commerce provisions, any of those things. What it may also do is some states have cited marijuana status one, I’m sorry, schedule one status, as a reason not to legalize. Whether or not that was their actual reason not to legalize, we’ll find out, because that’s no longer a barrier to their considering. So we may see some states expand their marijuana legalization.
Joel Tirado 06:26
What is the So, what sort of is the timeline here? Now that you know this, this eo is in place and and you know, Trump has indicated, hey, my administration is is behind this. Let’s finish this. So what are we talking about?
Heather Trela 06:41
So that’s kind of the weak part of this executive order. If you want to say that, is there are no timelines, it’s, you know, Department of Justice will expedite, but doesn’t say when or how fast. It still has to go through the rescheduling process. It can’t skip any steps. Congress has been asked to look at this definition. There’s no timeline for that either. You know, ideally, that would be done before the provisions that were in the spending bill go into effect in November of 2026 I believe it is because when that was passed. So there’s a lot of wiggle room here. There’s a lot of this isn’t going to be it could be very quick. It could be very slow. There’s also a chance that the advocacy group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, who are anti legalization, will sue. They’ve indicated that that’s their plan, once the rescheduling process is completed, that they will sue to prevent this from happening. They’ve actually recruited former Attorney General Bill Barr to help them so that could slow things down as well. So could be quick, could be slow, great.
Joel Tirado 07:47
So, you know, something to keep an eye on. And definitely some question marks here, it kind of, you know, seems like there always are some question marks, but anything else to add on, either the hemp portion, or the rescheduling process.
Heather Trela 08:05
I mean, one thing to watch is the Department of Justice has not been super in favor of this move. This is why it did not get finished under the Biden administration. If there’ll be an internal disagreement with how quickly this should move, something worth watching as well. Also part of this is CBD will finally get some evidence research put behind it to make see its effectiveness and how helpful it is in treating certain medical conditions. CBD is not a controlled substance. It’s just regulated by the FDA, and it really hasn’t been regulated by the FDA very clearly. So this will push for more research to be done and to see what medical claims that have been made are verifiable, what CBD can use for. So this could be kind of the first time the federal government is really stepping in to regulate this segment of the industry.
Joel Tirado 08:58
Yeah, great. And that seems to fit, I think, with what the Trump administration seemed to be emphasizing in some of the press that I saw around this, that this, this executive order, is really to promote medical research, yes, and it’s not a broad, sweeping kind of legalization. So it’s just to increase our understanding of the effects of this.
Heather Trela 09:17
Correct in his comments, signing this the President actually advocated against using marijuana recreationally. So this is, yes, definitely a focus on medical and how these substances can help people with ailments or other injuries. Excellent.
Joel Tirado 09:32
Well, we’ll look forward to circling back around on this as it continues to move through its rescheduling process. Thanks again to Heather Trela, Director of Operations and fellow at the Rockefeller Institute, for sharing the latest in the ongoing saga of marijuana rescheduling. If you liked this episode, please rate, subscribe, and share. It will help others find the podcast and help us deliver the latest in public policy research. All of our episodes are available for free wherever you stream your podcasts and transcripts are available on our website. I’m Joel Tirado; until next time. Policy Outsider is presented by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. The Institute conducts cutting edge nonpartisan public policy research and analysis to inform lasting solutions to the challenges facing New York state and the nation. Learn more at rockinst.org or by following RockefellerInst. That’s i n s t on social media. Have a question, comment, or idea? Email us at [email protected].
“Policy Outsider” from the Rockefeller Institute of Government takes you outside the halls of power to understand how decisions of law and policy shape our everyday lives.
Listen to a full episode archive on Spotify, or subscribe on your preferred podcast platform.
