Today, December 18, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order that reclassified marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, which will improve medical marijuana and cannabidiol research to better inform patients, doctors, and all healthcare professionals treating patients who use marijuana.
This move will not legalize or decriminalize marijuana, but it will ease barriers to research and boost the bottom lines of legal cannabis businesses operating in the 24 states that have approved recreational use.
The Biden administration proposed rescheduling in 2024, but the process stalled. Trump’s order will direct agencies like the DEA to finalize this via rulemaking, easing research and tax burdens (e.g., lifting IRC Section 280E restrictions) without full legalization.
From The White House @WhiteHouse:
- The Order directs the Attorney General to expedite completion of the process of rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III of the Controlled Substance Act (CSA).
- The Order directs the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political, and Public Affairs to work with the Congress to allow Americans to benefit from access to appropriate full-spectrum CBD products while still restricting the sale of products that pose serious health risks.
- The Order directs HHS to develop research methods and models utilizing real-world evidence to improve access to hemp-derived cannabinoid products in accordance with Federal law and to inform standards of care.
Removing Barriers to Research
Rescheduling marijuana corrects the Federal government’s long delay in recognizing the medical use of marijuana and will vastly improve research on safety and efficacy.
- Marijuana is currently controlled as a Schedule I substance, which is defined as having no currently accepted medical use, a high potential for abuse, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.
- Rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III is consistent with the 2023 recommendation from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that recognized for the first time that marijuana has a currently accepted medical use.
- 40 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia have State or locally sanctioned, regulated medical marijuana programs, and HHS found that 30,000 licensed health care practitioners are authorized to recommend the medical use of marijuana for more than six million registered patients for at least 15 medical conditions.
- The FDA reviewed the landscape of medical use of marijuana and found credible scientific support for its use to treat anorexia related to a medical condition, nausea and vomiting, and pain.
- Chronic pain affects nearly one in four U.S. adults and more than one in three U.S. seniors, and six in 10 people who use medical marijuana report doing so to manage pain.
- One in 10 seniors used marijuana in the last year and evidence shows improvements in some seniors’ health-related quality of life and pain with medical marijuana use.
- However, the lack of appropriate research on medical marijuana and consequent lack of FDA approval leaves American patients and doctors without adequate guidance on appropriate prescribing and utilization, especially as just over half of older Americans using marijuana have discussed the usage with their healthcare provider.
- Schedule III status will allow research studies to incorporate real-world evidence and models that can assess the health outcomes of medical marijuana and legal CBD products while focusing on long-term health effects in vulnerable populations like adolescents and young adults.
Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump is Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research
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