President Donald Trump says his administration is “looking at” a proposal to reschedule marijuana and will “make a determination over the next few weeks.”
Asked about recent reporting that the administration is considering the Biden administration-initiated plan to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Trump said during a White House press conference on Monday that we’re “only looking at that” and it’s too “early” to say how the issue will be decided, adding that “it’s a very complicated subject.”
“Some people like it. Some people hate it—people hate the whole concept of marijuana, because it does bad for the children [and] it does bad for people that are older than children,” the president said. “But we’re looking at reclassification, and we’ll make a determination over the next few weeks—and that determination, hopefully, will be the right one.”
Trump endorsed rescheduling during last year’s presidential campaign, but he appeared less willing to embrace the reform from the podium during the press conference on Monday, which focused on federal intervention to address crime in Washington, D.C.
“I’ve heard great things having to do with medical [cannabis], and I’ve heard bad things having to do with just about everything else,” Trump said. “But medical, for pain and various things, I’ve heard some pretty good things—but for other things, I’ve heard some pretty bad things.”
While Trump back rescheduling—as well as industry banking access and a Florida marijuana legalization ballot initiative—on the campaign trail, Monday’s presser marks the first time he’s spoken publicly about the issue since taking office.
CNN and The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that the president told donors at a recent event that “we need to look at” rescheduling.
Kim Rivers, CEO of the major marijuana company Trulieve, was in attendance at the dinner where Trump briefly discussed marijuana this month, the Journal reported.
According to CNN, there is dissent within the administration when it comes to cannabis, with some advisors urging the president to take action on the popular campaign pledge and others “cautioning that the moral and legal ramifications of loosening marijuana restrictions could outweigh the potential gains and even backfire politically.”
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has requested key agencies to submit their positions on cannabis rescheduling, with CNN citing two sources who said those responses “now sit in a report on her desk” after having been compiled by the Domestic Policy Council.
Meanwhile, a new political committee that shares the same treasurer as Trump’s own super PAC is pushing the president to follow through on rescheduling marijuana, releasing an ad that highlights his previous endorsement of the reform on the campaign trail.
The treasurer of the PAC, Charles Gantt, is the same person named as treasurer of Trump’s political committee, MAGA Inc., which recently reported receiving $1 million from a marijuana industry PAC that’s supported by multiple major cannabis companies.
That committee, the American Rights and Reform PAC, separately released ads in May that attacked former President Joe Biden’s marijuana policy record in an apparent attempt to push Trump to go further on the issue.
Separately, a post that recently circulated on social media appears to show that MAGA Inc., which is also referred to as also called Make America Great Again Inc., itself created an ad that touts Trump’s support for “commonsense reform” such as removing cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and letting states set their own policies.
The ad ends with the narrator saying “Donald Trump for president,” however, indicating that it may have been prepared prior to the 2024 election.
The owner of the major gardening supply company Scotts Miracle-Gro recently said Trump has told him directly “multiple times” since taking office that he intends to see through the marijuana rescheduling process.
Trump’s former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also recently predicted that the administration will soon “dig in” to the state-federal marijuana policy conflict, emphasizing the need to “eliminate confusion, not create it” amid the rescheduling push.
Meanwhile, Terrence Cole, who was sworn in last month as the new administrator of the DEA, declined to include rescheduling on a list of “strategic priorities” the agency that instead focused on anti-trafficking enforcement, Mexican cartels, the fentanyl supply chain, drug-fueled violence, cryptocurrency, the dark web and a host of other matters.
That’s despite the fact that Cole said during a confirmation hearing in April that examining the government’s pending marijuana rescheduling proposal would be “one of my first priorities” after taking office.
Last week, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer predicted that Trump would not legalize marijuana, though that is a separate issue from the current rescheduling proposal under consideration.
Meanwhile, a strategic consulting and research firm associated with Trump—Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, LLC—conducted a survey of registered voters that showed a majority of Republicans back a variety of cannabis reforms.
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