Cannabis industry advocates hail rescheduling as a significantly positive first step in the national effort to end prohibition and call on Congress to enact broader reforms

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is planning to move cannabis from Schedule I status to Schedule III in the federal Controlled Substances Act. This historic move that acknowledges the medical benefits of cannabis products still needs to be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget before the DEA initiates a public comment period.

Marijuana and its most well known psychoactive compound, THC, have been listed as Schedule I substances in the federal Controlled Substances Act since 1970, a designation reserved for drugs with high potential for abuse and no medical value. A move to Schedule III acknowledges the medicinal value of cannabis that has been known to the medical community and millions of patients using it under the care of their physicians for decades.

Rescheduling would not resolve the conflict that exists between federal law and the laws on the books in 38 states which have regulated the legal production and sale of cannabis for medical or adult use but a move to Schedule III would provide federal tax parity to state-legal cannabis businesses by allowing them to take deductions for ordinary expenses currently prohibited under a little-known provision of the federal tax code.

The cannabis industry widely agrees that rescheduling as a significant positive step but that broader federal reforms are needed to resolve the myriad issues plaguing the industry resulting from federal prohibition.

“Moving marijuana out of its absurd classification as a Schedule I drug is long overdue and we applaud the administration for finally acknowledging the therapeutic value that has been widely accepted by the medical community and millions of medical cannabis patients for decades,” said National Cannabis Industry Association CEO, Aaron Smith. “While this is undoubtedly a very positive first step, rescheduling will not end federal marijuana prohibition and doesn’t harmonize federal law with the laws allowing some form of legal cannabis in the vast majority of the states. In order for this move to be meaningful on the ground, we need clear enforcement guidelines issued to the DEA and FDA that would ensure the tens of thousands of state-licensed businesses responsibly serving cannabis to adults are not subject to sanctions or criminal prosecution under federal laws.”

“Further, it’s imperative that Congress build upon this development by passing comprehensive legislation to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and forge a new regulatory framework for whole plant cannabis products.” added Smith.

Just over half of Americans live in a state that has made cannabis legal for adults over 21 and three out of four Americans live in a state that has legalized cannabis for medical use. A November 2023 Gallup survey found that 70% of Americans support making cannabis legal for adults and a recent Pew Research Center poll found that less than 10% of Americans still support marijuana prohibition.

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The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) is the largest cannabis trade association in the U.S. and the only national organization representing small and independent cannabis-related businesses. NCIA promotes the growth of a responsible, sustainable, and inclusive cannabis industry and works for a favorable social, economic, and regulatory environment for that industry throughout the United States.

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It’s quite well known that cannabis is federally illegal in the U.S., but one of the major effects of this is that it makes studying the substance incredibly difficult to study. Given the amount of potential lying in the substance, it seems as though impeding research would be a disservice to the public, but it appears like things may be changing.

On Tuesday, the head of one of the major federal agencies stated that the scheduling of marijuana makes it “very difficult” to be researched for the purpose of finding benefits as well as potential risks.

For those who don’t know, cannabis is currently considered to be a Schedule I substance as far as the federal government is concerned. This means that not only does it have a high potential for abuse, but it states that the substance also has no potential medicinal benefits. Both of these claims are wildly untrue and simply a product of the objectively failed ‘War on Drugs’.

Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse stated that “indeed, the moment that a drug gets a Schedule I, which is done in order to protect the public so that they don’t get exposed to it, it makes research that much harder. This is because researchers actually have to go through a registration process that is actually lengthy and cumbersome.” This lengthy and cumbersome process seems to be a major deterrent for scientists to work on studying the plant.

Volkow went on to state that there is also an extremely limited amount of access to these schedules I narcotics for research purposes. Only a few federally authorized producers of the substance can distribute research-grade cannabis within the nation. The organization, however, is currently working with the DEA or Drug Enforcement Administration to begin coming up with “a path that will allow researchers to work with Schedule I drugs in a safe way, but without actually expediting that process.”

Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin stated that “there seems to be — all the problems were trying to untangle right now around cannabis, marijuana specifically, because of Schedule I, I’d have to see us put another drug there and then have to try and work backwards.” With the friendlier atmosphere surrounding hemp in the U.S. with the passing of the Farm Bill, it would seem likely that the next logical step would be to move toward legalizing marijuana.

That, or at least giving researchers a much easier pathway to study the drug at length. With all of the promising components of the plant to treat everything from cancer to anxiety, it makes no sense as to why the drug would continue to be federally restricted. The hopes are that as we continue to move throughout the future, the federal government can begin to listen to what the public wants, and implement new laws that allow for the study of, and use of cannabis on a nationwide level.

This week, UC Irvine announced it received a $9 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study how long-term cannabis exposure affects young people’s brains.

California regulators also are setting up a process to award $10 million by summer 2019 — and $10 million more each year for the next decade — for universities to study the impacts of marijuana legalization.

And a bill recently proposed in Congress would apply the new California research model across the country, allowing scientists to gather data and study the effects of cannabis legalization nationwide for a decade.

None of this changes a couple of basics about federal cannabis policy.

Two years after the Drug Enforcement Agency said it wanted to let more institutions grow cannabis for use in federal sanctioned scientific studies, one university still holds a monopoly on marijuana cultivation.

What’s more, cannabis remains listed on a federal registry as a top-tier dangerous drug with “no currently accepted medical use” and no review of that status underway, even though the Food and Drug Administration earlier this year approved the first medicine derived from cannabis.

Both postures are stifling research into how cannabis products on the market in dozens of states today might potentially help or harm people. So — while they keep pushing for federal policy changes that would encourage clinical trials involving marijuana — some local, state and federal leaders are also working to advance other types of cannabis research.

In a speech on the House floor last week introducing her Marijuana Data Collection Act, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii said “bad data and misinformation” have for decades fueled the failed war on drugs — and all “for a substance that’s proven to be far less harmful and dangerous than alcohol.”

“Our federal policies should be based on actual science and fact,” she said, “not misplaced stigma and outdated myths.”

Federal hurdles aren’t budging

Though 30 states have legalized marijuana as medicine and nine have legalized recreational consumption, cannabis remains illegal at the federal level.

Cannabis has been classified since 1970 alongside heroin and LSD as a Schedule I controlled substance. That designation is reserved for highly addictive drugs with no proven medical use, which ironically makes it very difficult to research potential medical benefits of marijuana.

The drug’s classification has been reviewed periodically over the years. The most recent update was in August 2016, when the DEA kept marijuana as a Schedule I drug because they said cannabis treatments hadn’t yet been proven effective by controlled clinical trials.

In late June, the FDA approved a medication called Epidiolex to treat two rare forms of epilepsy that begin in childhood. British drugmaker GW Pharmaceuticals makes the syrup using CBD, a chemical found in cannabis that’s now clinically proven to have medical benefits without making people high.

But no new petitions calling for a review of marijuana’s classification have been filed since the 2016 ruling, a DEA spokesman said Tuesday.

The DEA did make one concession in 2016, saying it would remove the government’s monopoly on growing marijuana for research purposes. The policy has meant that since 1968, only the University of Mississippi could supply marijuana for FDA-approved studies. And scientists have steadily complained that marijuana from that source is low quality and doesn’t reflect the range of products available on the market today.

A year after that announcement, the DEA had received applications from 25 institutions eager to grow cannabis for research. But in August 2017, the justice department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the DEA to suspend that program and direct all questions their way.

The Department of Justice didn’t respond to requests for comment on why that program was suspended or how long that suspension might last.

Meanwhile, researchers who want to study how marijuana works in the body have to do so without access to quality, diverse supplies of the plant. And they face so much red tape to do clinical trials with a Schedule I drug that most experts say it’s next-to impossible.

California steps up

California regulators and institutions aren’t waiting for federal laws to change.

The state is funding a rare clinical trial through UC San Diego’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research that looks at how marijuana consumption impacts driving and how law enforcement can reliably test for drivers impaired by cannabis.

Participants in the study smoke cannabis sourced from the University of Mississippi that has zero, 6.7 or 12.7 percent THC, the compound in marijuana that makes consumers high. They then complete driving simulations, iPad performance assessments and get blood, breath and saliva tests.

The university is in its third year of the three-year study, with around 100 people tested so far and another 80 paid volunteers being recruited now. Results are expected in perhaps another year.

UC San Diego’s cannabis research center also received $4.7 million from a private donor in April to conduct clinical trials on how synthetic CBD, made in a lab by Phoenix-based INSYS Therapeutics, might help children with severe autism. That study is expected to begin in 2019.

San Diego may have the oldest university research center devoted to cannabis in California, but it’s no longer the only such program.

Humboldt State University created its Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research six years ago. UC Davis now has a Cannabis Research Initiative. UCLA rolled out its Cannabis Research Initiative in 2017. And UC Irvine’s Center for the Study of Cannabis launched a couple months ago, quickly landing that $9 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

UC Irvine’s federally funded project won’t include human trials, relying instead on observational and data-driven studies carried out over the next four years.

All of those schools will be competing as California grants $10 million from marijuana tax revenues for state universities to research legalization impacts under rules laid out by Proposition 64. The ballot measure says research might include impacts on public health, public safety, marijuana use rates, the environment, the economy and more. And universities that receive funding will have to report their findings every two years.

That grant funding is supposed to start flowing this fiscal year and continue through at least 2029, with the Bureau of Cannabis Control in charge of administering the program. But agency spokesman Alex Traverso said the first $10 million won’t be doled out until the bureau can hire staff and establish an application process.

Federal bills would expand research

Some pending federal bills — such as the Marijuana Freedom and Information Act from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York — would open clinical research by removing cannabis from the controlled substances list altogether.

While calls for such sweeping changes have struggled to even land committee hearings, Rep. Gabbard and her supporters hope the proposed Marijuana Data Collection Act might have rosier prospects since it would prompt research without changing the federal status of marijuana.

“This is not a marijuana bill, it is an information bill,” said Justin Strekal, political director of the marijuana advocacy group NORML. “No member of Congress can intellectually justify opposition to this legislation.”

Gabbard’s act would require the Department of Health and Human Services to partner with the nonprofit National Academy of Sciences for a 10-year study on how the economy, public health, criminal justice and employment have been impacted in states that have legalized marijuana. First findings would be due 18 months after the bill passed, with updates every two years.

Strekal said he hopes the bill — which is cosponsored by Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Florida, and backed by a representatives including Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, and Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana — will provide unbiased information that will help shape future marijuana laws.

“This report will ensure that federal discussions and policies specific to this issue are based upon the best and most reliable evidence available.”