The acting US Attorney General, Todd Blanche, fulfilled this Thursday the promise made by President Donald Trump when he signed an executive order in December to initiate the reclassification of marijuana. Blanche’s announcement means moving cannabis from Schedule I, where it coexists with the most “dangerous” drugs, such as heroin or MDMA, to Schedule III, which includes steroids, ketamine, or paracetamol, according to the classification of the Controlled Substances Act.
Whether a drug is considered to have no accepted medical use and be highly addictive is up to the FDA, the English acronym for the US drug agency, to decide. The new regime does not mean the federal legalization of marijuana, nor does it introduce changes in its recreational use, given that it only applies in the nearly 40 states where it is legal for medical purposes. The change represents a recognition by the White House of something that has been taken for granted in large parts of the country for more than a decade: that marijuana has therapeutic value.
The Department of Justice is also studying, in addition, “a fast-track analysis” that could bring about a broader reclassification of marijuana, according to a statement.
This decision is one of the most significant changes in decades regarding this substance, as, among other things, it removes barriers to research into its possible applications.
In December, US President Donald Trump signed a presidential decree to remove marijuana from the group where authorities had placed it alongside other “dangerous drugs due to their potential for abuse.” That decision was celebrated by groups advocating for the legalization of the substance because it accelerates the process for researching more medical uses of the plant, until now illegal at the federal level, according to the White House.
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Trump made the announcement in the Oval Office surrounded by patients, a uniformed retired military officer, doctors in white coats, and also entrepreneurs from the cannabis industry. The president justified his decree by saying that “many people” were begging him to make that change: “People who have been suffering great pain for decades,” he argued.
Trump promised that the measure will benefit patients with “incurable ailments, aggressive cancers, seizures, neurological disorders and other types of diseases, as well as veterans with service-related injuries and elderly people living with chronic medical problems that have severely deteriorated their quality of life.”
This measure can transform the cannabis industry because by reducing its dangerousness, the tax burden on the substance and derived products is also reduced. In some states of the country, marijuana and its derivatives can be purchased in specialized stores. In addition, it makes it easier for companies in the sector to obtain financing, which can benefit companies such as Canopy Growth, Tilray Brands, or Trulieve Cannabis. In fact, the shares of cannabis companies listed in the United States saw their shares rise after the announcement of the new framework for marijuana.
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