In a landmark policy shift announced Thursday in Washington D.C., the United States federal government has overhauled the regulatory status of cannabis to widen access for medical users and clear barriers for scientific investigation into the drug’s therapeutic properties.
Under the new rule, cannabis will be reclassified from Schedule I to Schedule III of the federal government’s five-tier drug scheduling system. For decades, cannabis had been grouped alongside dangerous substances like heroin and methamphetamine as a Schedule I drug, a classification defined by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as reserved for substances with no recognized medical applications and a very high risk of dependence and abuse.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized that the reclassification, which frames cannabis as having only moderate to low potential for addictive dependence, will remove longstanding regulatory hurdles that limited patient access to cannabis-based treatments and give clinicians greater flexibility to prescribe evidence-based care to their patients. “This change expands patients’ access to life-changing treatments and empowers doctors to make better-informed healthcare decisions,” Blanche stated in an official release.
Thursday’s policy change is not an independent action: it implements a directive first laid out in a December executive order from President Donald Trump, which ordered federal agencies to take steps to remove barriers to legitimate medical research into cannabis’s safety and effectiveness as a therapeutic agent. Prior to the reclassification, the Schedule I status created extensive bureaucratic and legal barriers for researchers seeking to study cannabis, slowing progress in understanding both its benefits and potential risks. The shift to Schedule III is expected to open the door to more rigorous, large-scale clinical trials that can provide clearer data for regulators and healthcare providers moving forward.