If you smoke weed, this is a day of celebration. It is the 4/20 of all 4/20’s! Presidents and politicians have been kicking this around for a long time. But the “golden toad” is the one that seems like it is going to put into action. So let’s go over exactly what Trump is trying to do. And don’t light your joints just yet. This still needs approval. But clearly it is a start in the right stoned direction.
President Trump’s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, signed an order reclassifying “state-licensed medical marijuana” as a less-dangerous drug. This is a major policy shift that had long been sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government in the first place. Duuuhhhhhh!!
Now this is important. The order signed by Blanche still does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use under federal law. But it does change the way it’s regulated, shifting “licensed medical marijuana” from a Schedule I drug (reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse) to the less strictly regulated Schedule III drug.
The Trump administration also said it was jump-starting the process for reclassifying marijuana more broadly, setting a hearing to begin in late June. Trump had told his administration back in December to work as quickly as possible to reclassify marijuana.
Blanche said Thursday that the DOJ was “delivering on President Trump’s promise” to expand Americans’ access to medical treatment options.
“This rescheduling action allows for research on the safety and efficacy of this substance, ultimately providing patients with better care and doctors with more reliable information,” he said in a statement.
The President’s action largely legitimizes medical marijuana programs in the 40 states that have adopted them. It sets up an expedited system for state-licensed medical marijuana producers and distributors to register with the DEA.
It stipulates that cannabis researchers won’t be penalized for obtaining state-licensed marijuana or marijuana-derived products for use in their work. And it grants state-licensed medical marijuana companies a huge break by allowing them to deduct business expenses on their federal taxes. They were not allowed to do this previously.
Since 2015, Congress has done all it can to prevent the DOJ from shutting down state-licensed medical marijuana businesses. But this news still represents a major policy shift for the federal government, which has continued its longstanding marijuana prohibition dating all the way back to the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. All of this federal nonsense when nearly all the states have approved cannabis use in some form. That being recreationally or medically.
Some in the industry are bursting with excitement. The president of the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp, Michael Bronstein, called it “the most significant federal advancement in cannabis policy in over 50 years.” “This action recognizes what Americans have long known. Cannabis is medicine,” he said in a written statement.
Others were not quite so ecstatic about any of it. Kevin Sabet, the chief executive of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said that while marijuana research is necessary, “there are many ways to increase our knowledge without giving a tax break to Big Weed and sending a confusing message about marijuana’s harms to the American public.”
“With this move, we are now confronted with the most pro-drug administration in our history,” Sabet said. “Policy is now being dictated by marijuana CEOs, psychedelics investors, and podcasters in active addiction.”
Here is another interesting fact that must be acknowledged. Marijuana or marijuana-derived products that are not distributed through a state medical marijuana program will continue to be classified in Schedule I.
The Justice Department under Democrat President Joe Biden had proposed to reclassify marijuana, eliciting nearly 43,000 formal public comments. The DEA was still reviewing the plan when Trump took over the presidency from Biden. Trump ordered that process to move along as quickly as legally possible under his administration.
So to make it all happen faster, Blanche’s order sidestepped the review process by relying on a provision of federal law that allows the attorney general (Blanche) to determine the appropriate classification for drugs that the U.S. must regulate pursuant to an international treaty.
At the end of the day, this is a victory. But it is a victory with a few caveats. If you get your weed on the skreets, this does not pertain to you. But all potheads can put their smoke-filled heads together and sing Phish’s version of “Kumbaya”, as this is a major event and day that will go down in the marijuana history books. If we can just remember where we put those books.
