For decades, the issue of cannabis reform was firmly viewed as a leftist pipe dream. To most conservatives, particularly US Republicans, legalising weed was as realistic as nuclear disarmament, or abolishing national borders.
Think of the phrase “war on drugs” and the first people that probably come to mind are Republican presidents Nixon, Reagan and George HW and George W Bush. Although the clampdown reached its harshest levels during the presidency of Mr “I didn’t inhale” Bill Clinton, it always seemed as if the GOP owned the position of being “tough on drugs”. As recently as 2023, Mitch McConnell, then Senate Republican leader, reaffirmed this reputation by stating that: “Democrats are struggling with the basics. This should not be this hard. Drugs belong off our streets.”
Yet it now seems that the biggest change to US federal drug policy for more than 50 years will happen through a Republican president. On Monday, Donald Trump confirmed the rumours that he is “very strongly” considering rescheduling cannabis (or marijuana, as it is still called in US state documents, due to an early-20th-century drive to emphasise the plant’s foreignness) from Schedule I in the Controlled Substances Act – where its currently sits alongside heroin – to Schedule III, next to drugs such as codeine.
This change has been a long time coming. The Department of Health and Human Services recommended rescheduling back in 2023, and speculation that action was imminent had been building since August, when Trump said he was “looking into” this issue. But it is still a bold move, and one that could help Trump’s floundering popularity ahead of the midterms.
Despite the controversy that still surrounds this drug, cannabis rescheduling is well-supported by the US population. When public comment was invited on the proposed rescheduling, nearly 43,000 people submitted comments, with almost 70% calling for rescheduling – a record. Having cannabis classified as a Schedule I drug – ie a substance with no acceptable medical use and high potential for abuse – looks like an increasingly absurd position in a country where 40 out of 50 states have active medical cannabis programmes and 24 states have even legalised cannabis for recreational use.
Yet Trump’s actions are seemingly mired in contradiction. Just this month, Trump was re-energising the “war on drugs” by threatening to escalate his recent bombing raids on Venezuelan and Colombian shipping vessels he accuses of trafficking drugs. He has described the presidents of these countries as narcotics traffickers and, in September, he used his address to the UN to send a message: “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence.” Why is Donald Trump softening drug laws at home while ramping up the drug war abroad?
These stances aren’t as contradictory as they first appear. Trump rescheduling cannabis doesn’t necessarily mean he has been convinced by social-justice arguments around the devastation the drug war caused to minority communities and producer countries. His stated reason for pushing this change is because it “leads to tremendous amounts of research” as it would make it easier for scientists to study the drug. Trump has also likely been influenced by the multi-billion-dollar cannabis industry emerging across the US over the last decade, thanks to state-level reform. This growth will be accelerated by rescheduling, as it will allow the new cannabis megacorporations access to standard business tax deductions. Moving to Schedule III removes cannabis from longstanding restrictions under IRS Code section 280E that have proved burdensome for the fledgling cannabis industry. Cannabis stocks jumped by as much as 54% when news of rescheduling first began to leak.
However, it is important to remember that rescheduling does not legalise or even decriminalise cannabis; it does not dismantle the architecture of arrests, deportations, mandatory drug tests and exclusion from public housing, student loans and travel visas that were designed over the past few decades to enforce the criminalisation of cannabis. People will still be in prison on cannabis-trafficking charges while Cannabis Inc is flooded with investor cash.
With a number of the Silicon Valley tech titans who have surrounded Trump 2.0 having invested in commercialised cannabis (and psychedelics), the expected economic boost that will accompany rescheduling provides a clear financial incentive for Trump to liberalise drug policies at home. The same does not apply internationally however, where Trump impinges on the sovereignty of Latin American countries. But a reshaping of the “war on drugs” perfectly coheres with Trump’s “America First” worldview: hyper-commercialisation at home, aggressive mercantilism abroad.
For real progress to happen, cannabis would need to be taken out of the Controlled Substances Act entirely. And to really help the communities that have been devastated by the “war on drugs”, decriminalisation would need to be combined with policies that ensure a substantial portion of the profits made from selling legal cannabis are taxed and reinvested in disenfranchised communities. That includes those in Latin America who have borne the brunt of the violence of the drug war for more than half a century. Trump’s rescheduling, while moving away from the “Reefer Madness” of yesteryear, is still a long way off from a policy that prioritises people over profits.
