Biden administration reportedly plans to reclassify cannabis as Schedule III drug

The Biden administration plans to reclassify cannabis as a Schedule III drug, paving the way for pharmaceutical companies to sell and distribute medical cannabis, NBC News reported this week.

The move would be the first reclassification of cannabis since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, per NBC News. Downgrading cannabis to Schedule III from Schedule I (which is the strictest classification and includes drugs like heroin and methamphetamines) means the federal government acknowledges that cannabis has potential medical benefits.

The rescheduling would “open up the ability to actually test [cannabis] and put it in a laboratory without all of the restrictive measures” that a Schedule I drug faces, James Cole, who served as President Obama’s deputy attorney general and now sits on the National Cannabis Roundtable, told NBC News.

Schedule III drugs are those with a “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence” and include things like testosterone and anabolic steroids, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

In October 2022, President Biden asked the US Department of Health and Human Services to review the Schedule I classification for cannabis—a classification that means the drug has “high potential for abuse” and lacks “currently accepted medical use,” according to the DEA.

US Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine sent a letter to the DEA last August saying the FDA recommends the reclassification of cannabis as a Schedule III drug, writing that cannabis has “a potential for abuse less than the drugs or other substances in Schedules I and II.”