You may have heard recently that President Trump is considering whether to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III.
Although there is a lot of noise surrounding this topic, the following explanation will clarify some misconceptions about this process.
For starters, many who argue that marijuana should not be classified as a Schedule I drug often point out that marijuana is in the same drug category as heroin. Without a proper understanding of the drug scheduling process, this logic may seem reasonable.
What is missing from this discussion is an understanding of what it means for a drug to be in Schedule I, II, III, IV, or V.
The Basics
We’re going to go through some common misconceptions around drug scheduling to clear them up.
The Schedule I category is for the most lethal drugs, like heroin.
No. Drug scheduling is not a harm index, which means that Schedule I drugs are not more lethal or harmful than drugs in lower classifications. Schedule I drugs are characterized as drugs with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
Currently, marijuana fits both descriptions because it lacks an accepted medical use and has a high potential for abuse.
While the FDA has approved drugs made from isolated components of marijuana, it has not approved the whole plant. Dronabinol is a Schedule III drug that is a synthetic form of THC and comes in pill form. Dronabinol is used to treat nausea in cancer patients. A comparison can be seen with Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), which is known as the “date rape” drug. GHB itself is a Schedule I drug, but sodium oxybate, a compound of GHB, is a Schedule III drug used to treat cataplexy and narcolepsy. It is important to understand that marijuana in its whole form will likely never be FDA approved for medical purposes.
The second criterion for Schedule I Drugs is their high potential for abuse. Current data from the CDC has found that 30% of marijuana users develop an addiction to the drug.
As has been shown, marijuana is correctly identified as a Schedule I drug, despite false narratives pushed by the marijuana industry.
VIDEO: Kevin on Why Marijuana and Heroin are Both Schedule I Drugs
You can’t research Schedule I drugs.
This is simply false. Marijuana has been studied and researched by the federal government for years, going back 50 years.
At SAM, we support increasing marijuana research; however, rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III would have minimal impact on advancing this research and could lead to various harms. In fact, a 2022 SAM-backed bill titled the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act (MMCREA), was signed into law by President Biden.
Congress, Don’t Give the Marijuana Industry a Tax Cut (Newsweek): Dr. Kevin Sabet highlights in this article that marijuana research has been ongoing and continues to happen. He notes that the majority of the data has consistently shown negative effects of marijuana use.
The addiction industry has marketed the effort to reclassify marijuana as a leap forward for research and criminal justice reform. In reality, it is neither of those things. Extensive research already occurs on marijuana in the United States and Europe, which is why we have a growing corpus of scientific and medical data about its harms, which include a significant risk of psychosis and schizophrenia.
Trump Might Reclassify Marijuana. He Should Do This Instead (City Journal): Here, the Manhattan Institute’s Charles Fain Lehmann points out that President Trump doesn’t need to reschedule marijuana to increase research efforts, as he can use a SAM-backed law that President Biden signed, which expands marijuana research.
That’s why the Trump administration, rather than rescheduling, should push as hard as possible into actually expediting medical marijuana research. Doing so would give Trump the political victory he wants, without making pot more accessible and incurring any of the associated consequences . . . . Trump could take several unilateral actions to speed medical marijuana research. Start with recommitting his administration to implementing the MMCREA—which members of Congress complained the Biden administration was dragging its feet on.
Rescheduling will advance criminal justice reform.
Proponents of rescheduling marijuana often argue that it would improve criminal justice efforts in this country.
This claim is not only false but also contradicts what would occur if marijuana were rescheduled. Rescheduling the drug will not result in anyone being let out of jail (although the number of people in jail for weed charges alone is extremely small) and it will do nothing to ease any racial or socioeconomic disparities in the criminal justice system.
In fact, evidence shows it will likely do the opposite.
Did Recreational Marijuana Increase Crime in the Long Run? (Sunyoung Lee)
This study collected significant amounts of data suggesting that:
[T]he legalization of recreational marijuana is associated with substantial and sustained increases in both property crime rates and violent crimes over time. Particularly, instances of property crime, larceny, and burglary exhibited significant and immediate spikes following the implementation of RML [Recreational Marijuana Legalization], with these heightened tendencies persisting consistently over time.
Nonwhite, less affluent groups are disproportionately crime victims. So the inference is easy to make that increases in crime will have an outsize effect on them. And while, again, rescheduling to Schedule I is not legalization, it will certainly unleash massive commercialization in legal states thanks to increased revenues once the 280E tax restriction ends.
What are the implications of that?
The Unequal Geography of Recreational Cannabis Retailers in the U.S. (Lindsay Kephart et al.)
Researchers and Harvard and Columbia took an innovative approach to find out, looking at the density and prevalence of retail marijuana shops and cross-referencing that with income levels and demographics. Their key conclusion:
Census tracts with higher levels of socioeconomic deprivation, or racialized and economic disadvantage, had a significantly higher odds and rate of having cannabis retailers. In the adjusted analysis, tracts with the greatest concentration of low-income Black or Hispanic residents had 2.0–2.5 times the odds of cannabis retailer presence compared to more advantaged tracts.
Diving Deeper
You might be wondering why the marijuana industry would want to reschedule marijuana if it doesn’t truly expand research or improve criminal justice.
The answer to the question of “Why are they doing it, then?” is simple: money.
Trulieve is the big money behind rescheduling (The Drug Report): This Drug Report explainer, by SAM staff, walks through the money marijuana major Trulieve has pumped into the effort to legalize and reschedule this dangerous drug. Some key numbers: the company almost single-handedly funded Florida’s 2024 recreational marijuana use legalization ballot drive, giving $141.9 million of the $149.7M raised. And mewly released records show $750,000 from Trulieve to President Trump’s inaugural committee (two payments in Dec. 2024, disclosed in April 2025 reporting). More reporting indicates marijuana industry leaders—including Rivers—attended a $1M-per-plate Bedminster fundraiser where rescheduling was allegedly discussed directly with Trump as he weighed Schedule III in Aug. 2025.
Currently, Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits traffickers of Schedule I and Schedule II drugs from deducting business expenses or receiving tax credits. If marijuana were rescheduled, this would result in over 2 billion dollars in tax breaks for the marijuana industry. Additionally, we know that foreign drug cartels have quickly taken root in states with legal marijuana. These cartels, specifically Chinese drug cartels, often operate as legal marijuana businesses.
Easing cannabis restrictions would set back the ‘Golden Age’… and boost China (New York Post): Here, Kevin argues that President Trump’s potential rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III is counter to inaugurating America’s “Golden Age.” Empowering Big Marijuana and criminal networks, especially Chinese illegal marijuana operations, endangers Americans on multiple levels. It would fuel the illegal market even in states like New York and California, where illicit activity already dwarfs legal sales. Overall, public health harms—including addiction and mental illness— would further worsen while offering no real societal benefit.
In Maine, the top marijuana regulator admitted that the state is issuing licenses to foreign drug cartels. In other words, rescheduling marijuana would directly benefit foreign drug cartels, providing them a tax break and incentive to keep operating as a “legal” marijuana business.
VIDEO: Up Close with the CCP
Further Reading
In Smokescreen: What The Marijuana Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know, SAM President Kevin Sabet returns to a discussion of organized crime and how legalization fuels it. In the book, he argues that legalization has not been reduced, but in many instances exacerbated crime and public safety risks. He includes insiders’ accounts and whistleblower testimonies revealing the continued growth of illicit markets even amid legalization, indicating that criminal networks are still deeply involved because the legal market fails to meet total demand. Written in 2021, it foregrounds the Chinese catastrophe we face today. It’s worth noting that this book does not just cover this aspect of the marijuana industry, but every aspect, serving as a primer for anyone interested in learning about the marijuana industry and advocacy against it.