President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that reclassifies marijuana as a Schedule III drug. It was previously a Class I drug, which is in the same category as heroin and LSD.
By doing so, the federal government now recognizes that marijuana has a "moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence." The signing itself does not fully make marijuana use legal, but it could continue the process of legalizing the drug.
"We have people begging for me to do this, people that are in great pain," Trump said. "For decades, this action has been requested by American patients suffering from extreme pain, incurable diseases, aggressive cancers, seizure disorders, neurological problems, and more, including numerous veterans with service-related injuries and older Americans who live with chronic medical problems that severely degrade their quality of life. And it's really, I mean just, I can't tell you, I think I probably have received more phone calls on this, on doing what we're doing. I don't think I received any calls on the other side of it, but hopefully, this reclassification, which, by the way, polls at 82% will help many of those patients live a far better life."
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Kent Vrana, director of the Penn State Center for Cannabis and Natural Product Pharmaceuticals, said this reclassification has real-world implications.
"Rescheduling could make it easier for patients to access medical marijuana. It could open the door for insurance companies to cover it because they currently won’t cover Schedule I drugs," Vrana said. "It would also have a major impact on the growth of the industry. Because of marijuana’s Schedule I status, the industry is a cash-based system. You can’t use credit cards because the federal government oversees the banking system. Businesses also can’t write off business expenses or get tax deductions. In that way, rescheduling could help grow the industry as a whole."
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that the reclassification opens the door for research to be used to explore marijuana's possible benefits.
