At the start of every incoming presidential administration in the United States in recent decades, the cannabis community speculates whether the new president will take meaningful steps to reform federal cannabis policy. Now that U.S. President Donald Trump is well into his second term, it is a logical time to evaluate how he is doing when it comes to cannabis. Objectively considering many of the relevant factors and historical context, President Trump has done more for federal cannabis reform than any of his predecessors.
Cannabis was first prohibited in the United States at the federal level in the 1930s after the adoption of the Marihuana Tax Act. It wasn’t until decades later that the federal law was updated in 1970, and even then, it was only to replace the old federal cannabis prohibition policy with a new one. The Controlled Substances Act remains in place to this day, with cannabis being historically classified as a Schedule I substance in the United States.
Several presidential administrations have come and gone since 1970, and for the most part, all of them were seemingly passionate about maintaining federal cannabis prohibition. Their support for cannabis prohibition came despite an ever-increasing level of public support for cannabis reform.
Gallup conducts an annual poll asking voters about their views on cannabis legalization, going all the way back to 1969, when only 12% of participants expressed support for legalization. The level of support steadily ticked upward, culminating in a record 70% in 2023. Meanwhile, several other countries have adopted national adult-use cannabis legalization measures since 2013, and dozens more have adopted national medical cannabis legalization measures.
Federal Policy Lags Global Momentum
United States cannabis policy is always a very hot topic at the International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin every year. In some ways, members of the emerging United States cannabis industry are seen as being ‘from the future’, given that medical cannabis started to become legal at a state level in the 1990s, and state-level adult-use legalization started to spread in 2012.
However, when it comes to federal policy, the U.S. is stuck in the past compared to many of its global peers. The only meaningful federal measure to get to the finish line in the modern era in the United States for many years was the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment, which was championed by my good friend, former Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. It was a federal spending rider first passed in 2014 that prohibited the U.S. Department of Justice from using funds to prevent states from implementing their own medical cannabis laws.
The Rescheduling Breakthrough
Thankfully, things are now changing. On April 23rd, 2026, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had officially issued an order moving cannabis from its status as a Schedule I substance to Schedule III in some instances. The announcement marked a major change in United States federal cannabis policy.
The April 23rd order by the DOJ is a furtherance of an official Trump administration push to reschedule cannabis that began when President Trump signed an executive order in December 2025, calling for, among other things, expediting the process to reschedule cannabis. Rescheduling cannabis was a campaign promise that President Trump made during his 2024 campaign, and he kept that promise.
As part of the April 2026 rescheduling order, both FDA-approved cannabis products and products regulated by a state medical cannabis license are immediately moved to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. The order also initiates an expedited administrative hearing process to consider the broader rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III.
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Immediate Impact on Operators
For state-level medical cannabis businesses that meet the qualifying criteria, arguably the most notable and immediate benefit is that they will no longer be subject to 280E. Many state-legal medical cannabis businesses in the U.S. pay a considerably higher tax rate compared to businesses in other industries due to the 280E provision in the federal tax code, with cannabis businesses paying as much as a 70% higher rate in some cases. Whitney Economics estimates that in 2025 alone, state legal cannabis businesses paid a combined $2.24 billion in excess cannabis-related federal taxes due to 280E.
Another major component of the Trump administration’s medical cannabis policy modernization model involves the launch of a Medicare CBD pilot program. Eligible Medicare participants can access up to $500 worth of approved hemp-derived CBD products a year. National healthcare medical cannabis reimbursements are a hallmark of other nations’ medical cannabis models, most notably Germany, and Medicare patients can now benefit from a similar healthcare concept thanks to the Trump administration’s historic shift.
Opening the Global Door
The likely impact of the Trump administration’s rescheduling order is not limited to the domestic United States medical cannabis industry. Qualifying state medical cannabis businesses now have a path to enter the international import/export sector, which has become increasingly lucrative in recent years, particularly in Europe. The United States cannabis industry is finally set to enter the international cannabis scene, which is long overdue and sure to have huge implications globally.
What Still Needs Work
To be fair, the need to comprehensively modernize the United States’ federal cannabis laws and regulations is still present. President Trump must continue to build on the recent rescheduling effort and ensure that the administrative process to achieve broader rescheduling is favorable and complete. Cannabis industry banking issues also must be properly addressed, and interstate cannabis commerce needs to be allowed between willing states. The U.S. cannabis industry will never reach its full potential until those and other issues are sufficiently addressed.
With that being said, what President Trump and his administration have already done is clearly more than previous presidential administrations in the United States have done. Others may have pondered making changes or taken varying degrees of minor actions that yielded no permanent, tangible results, but President Trump and his administration have actually done the work to yield meaningful change and put in motion efforts to yield even more change before he leaves office. If U.S. presidents were graded on a curve for federal cannabis policy reform efforts, then President Trump has clearly set that curve.
