Trump's Cannabis Plays, Explained

Last week, President Trump told reporters that his administration was considering rescheduling marijuana, and would make a determination over "the next few weeks." It was good to hear an update on the issue, because things had stalled out since Trump took office in January. The cannabis industry is accustomed to operating in limbo, of course; but losing momentum is hard.

I won't prognosticate as to whether marijuana will be reoriented toward Schedule III, in keeping with HHS recommendations and the Biden plan, or whether we'll get some worse or better outcome. Instead, I'm going to explain how this should work. There are four primary paths:

1. resume the stalled rulemaking process, to adopt last year's proposal placing marijuana in Schedule III;