The Trump administration on Thursday announced that it was loosening restrictions on marijuana to boost medical research, days after President Donald Trump appeared to express frustration with the pace of easing federal restrictions on illegal drugs.
The Justice Department said that it was immediately reclassifying marijuana products that had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as lower-risk drugs and establishing a new registration process for state medical marijuana licenses. Acting attorney general Todd Blanche also said that the administration would hold a new hearing to “fully” reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act.
“These actions will enable more targeted, rigorous research into marijuana’s safety and efficacy, expanding patients’ access to treatments and empowering doctors to make better-informed healthcare decisions,” Blanche wrote on social media.
Under the decisive leadership of @POTUS, this Department of Justice is delivering on his promise to improve American healthcare. This includes: • Immediately rescheduling FDA-approved marijuana and state-licensed marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule IIl • Ordering a new,… pic.twitter.com/DUtqKQgavl
— Acting AG Todd Blanche (@DAGToddBlanche) April 23, 2026
Marijuana has long had the same Schedule I classification as heroin, but administration officials have sought to reclassify the drug as Schedule III, similar to some common prescription painkillers. Medical marijuana is now reclassified as Schedule III under the Justice Department’s order, which does not decriminalize marijuana for recreational use.
Some health care advocates have spent years pressing for more access to marijuana as a potential treatment, warning that restrictions on the drug made it too hard to conduct research.
Other groups panned the administration’s announcement, with some citing last weekend’s move by Trump to ease access to psychedelics, too.
“With this move, we are now confronted with the most pro-drug administration in our history,” Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which opposes legalization, said in a statement. “Policy is now being dictated by marijuana CEOs, psychedelics investors, and podcasters in active addiction — it is a travesty and injustice to the American people of unprecedented proportions.”
Trump administration officials had deliberated on the best path to loosen restrictions on the drug. White House officials said Wednesday that the administration was working to “expeditiously” implement Trump’s December executive order to increase medical marijuana research.
Trump in December ordered federal agencies to quickly ease restrictions on marijuana and make CBD more available, framing the moves as efforts to improve medical research. He also stressed that he was not decriminalizing marijuana on a federal level, as many states have for recreational or medical use.
“Unless a drug is recommended by a doctor for medical reasons, just don’t do it,” the president said last year. “At the same time, the facts compel the federal government to recognize that marijuana can be legitimate in terms of medical applications when carefully administered.”
But until Thursday, there had been little public action to reschedule the drug since Trump’s order, frustrating advocates who have spent years urging the federal government to relax restrictions.
Trump over the weekend expressed his own frustrations as he prepared to sign an order loosening federal restrictions on psychedelics.
“Will you get the rescheduling done, please?” Trump said Saturday in the Oval Office, appearing to direct his comments toward White House policy officials. “Joe, they’re slow-walking me on rescheduling,” the president added, addressing podcaster Joe Rogan, a proponent of rescheduling marijuana and psychedelics. It was not clear which drug the president was referring to.
President Joe Biden’s Justice Department in 2024 formally recommended that marijuana be reclassified as Schedule III, but the move stalled amid legal disputes and a pending Drug Enforcement Administration hearing.
Drug policy experts said that federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services were required to undertake reviews related to public health and safety, even if the pace of that work agitated Trump.
“His frustration with government processes, particularly those that protect public health, is evident,” said Regina LaBelle, director of the Addiction and Public Policy Initiative at the Georgetown University Law Center and a former drug policy official in the Obama and Biden White Houses. “The executive order doesn’t negate the need for the analysis that HHS and DEA are obligated to follow.”
Most Americans support relaxing restriction on marijuana. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month found that 53 percent of adults supported legalizing the drug, including 35 percent of Republicans.
Some critics of the Trump administration’s plans noted that support for legalization has softened as the drug has become more available, with much of the shift coming from Republicans. An April 2022 YouGov poll found that 60 percent of adults supported legalizing marijuana, including 46 percent of Republicans.
“I think that people are seeing the effects of marijuana in their community as it’s become more ubiquitous,” Sabet said. He cited data on the effects of the drug, including studies that have linked youth use of marijuana and later schizophrenia, as well as quality-of-life concerns, such as the smell of the drug that has become familiar in major cities.
Advocates for legalization of marijuana have argued that federal restrictions are outdated and unnecessary.
“I feel like it should be like alcohol,” Rogan said on his podcast in December. “I think you should be of a certain age to be able to use it.”
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