In the United States, the removal of cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the category reserved for drugs that have "no currently accepted medical use", is a legal and administrative change in cannabis-related law at the federal level. After being proposed repeatedly since 1972, the U.S. Department of Justice initiated 2024 rulemaking to reschedule cannabis to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, which was subject to a December 2025 executive order directing that process be completed. The acting U.S. Attorney General reclassified state-regulated medical cannabis to Schedule III in April 2026.
Background
Schedule I is the only category of controlled substances not allowed to be prescribed by a physician. Under , drugs must meet three criteria in order to be placed in Schedule I: The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. There is a lack of accepted safety for the use of the drug or other substances under medical supervision.
In 1970, Congress placed cannabis into Schedule I on the advice of Assistant Secretary of Health Roger O. Egeberg. His letter to Harley O. Staggers, Chairman of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, indicates that the classification was intended to be provisional:
<blockquote> Dear Mr. Chairman: In a prior communication, comments requested by your committee on the scientific aspects of the drug classification scheme incorporated in H.R. 18583 were provided. This communication is concerned with the proposed classification of marijuana. </p> It is presently classed in schedule I(C) along with its active constituents, the tetrahydrocannibinols and other psychotropic drugs. </p> Some question has been raised whether the use of the plant itself produces "severe psychological or physical dependence" as required by a schedule I or even schedule II criterion. Since there is still a considerable void in our knowledge of the plant and the effects of the active drug contained in it, our recommendation is that marijuana be retained within schedule I at least until the completion of certain studies now underway to resolve the issue. </blockquote>
In 1972, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse released a report favoring decriminalization of cannabis. Congress and the Nixon administration took no action to implement the recommendation, however.
Rescheduling proponents argue that cannabis does not meet the Controlled Substances Act's strict criteria for placement in Schedule I and so the government is required by law to permit medical use or to remove the drug from federal control altogether. The US government, on the other hand, until the August 2023 HHS determination to the contrary, maintained that cannabis is dangerous enough to merit Schedule I status. The dispute was based on differing views on both how the Act should be interpreted and what kinds of scientific evidence are most relevant to the rescheduling decision.
The Act provides a process for rescheduling controlled substances by petitioning the Drug Enforcement Administration. The first petition under this process was filed in 1972 to allow cannabis to be legally prescribed by physicians. The petition was ultimately denied after 22 years of court challenges, but a synthetic pill form of cannabis's psychoactive ingredient, THC, was rescheduled in 1986 to allow prescription under schedule II. In 1999, it was again rescheduled to allow prescription under schedule III.
At the time of federal rescheduling in April 2026, according to the Department of Justice, 40 U.S. states had legalized the use of medical marijuana.
Advocates of marijuana legalization argued that the budgetary impact of removing cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act and legalizing its use in the United States would save billions by reducing government spending for prohibition enforcement in the criminal justice system. Additionally, they argued that billions in annual tax revenues could be generated through proposed taxation and regulation.Miron, Jeffrey A., Waldock, Katherine. (2010). "The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition ". Cato Institute. For the original paper, see Miron, Jeffrey A. (2005). "The Budgetary Implications of Drug Prohibition". Marijuana Policy Project; see also Caputo, M. R., & Ostrom, B. J. (1994). "Potential tax revenue from a regulated marijuana market: A meaningful revenue source". American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 53, 475–490.
Arguments for and against For rescheduling Jon Gettman, former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has argued that cannabis does not fit each of the three statutory criteria for Schedule I. Gettman believes that "high potential for abuse" means that a drug has a potential for abuse similar to that of heroin or cocaine. Gettman argues further that since laboratory animals do not self-administer cannabis, and because cannabis' toxicity is virtually non-existent compared to that of heroin or cocaine, cannabis lacks the high abuse potential required for inclusion in Schedule I or II.
Gettman also states: "The acceptance of cannabis' medical use by eight states since 1996 and the experiences of patients, doctors, and state officials in these states establish marijuana's accepted medical use in the United States."Accepted Medical Use of Cannabis: State Laws. The 2002 Petition to Reschedule Cannabis (Marijuana). DrugScience.org. Retrieved 2007-04-18. Specifically, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington DC, and West Virginia, have enacted legislation allowing the medical use of cannabis by their citizens. A minimum of 4 million patients are currently using medical cannabis legally in these states.
In his petition, Gettman also argues that cannabis is an acceptably safe medication. He notes that a 1999 Institute of Medicine report found that "except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications." He points out that there are a number of delivery routes that were not considered by the institute, such as transdermal, sublingual, and rectal administration, in addition to vaporizers, which release cannabis' active ingredients into the air without burning the plant matter.Accepted Medical Use: Route of Administration. The 2002 Petition to Reschedule Cannabis (Marijuana). DrugScience.org. Retrieved 2007-04-18.
A study published in the March 1, 1990 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences stated that "there are virtually no reports of fatal cannabis overdose in humans" and attributed this safety to the low density of cannabinoid receptors in areas of the brain controlling breathing and the heart. Free full text Gettman claims that the discovery of the cannabinoid receptor system in the late 1980s revolutionized scientific understanding of cannabis' effects and provided further evidence that it does not belong in Schedule I.
In 2003, the United States government patented cannabinoids, including those in marijuana that cause users to get "high" (such as THC) based on these chemicals' prevention of trauma- and age-related brain damage.
In January 2008, the American College of Physicians called for a review of cannabis's Schedule I classification in its position paper titled "Supporting Research into the Therapeutic Role of Marijuana" It stated therein: "Position 4: ACP urges an evidence-based review of marijuana's status as a Schedule I controlled substance to determine whether it should be reclassified to a different schedule. This review should consider the scientific findings regarding marijuana's safety and efficacy in some clinical conditions as well as evidence on the health risks associated with marijuana consumption, particularly in its crude smoked form."
From 2008 to 2012, the American Patients Rights Association, in cooperation with Medical Marijuana expert Kim Quiggle, lobbied the federal government over what is now known as the "Mary Lou Eimer Criteria" based on a medical study performed by Quiggle on over 10,000 chronically ill and terminally ill patients' use of medical marijuana in Southern California. This study provided conclusive evidence that medical marijuana provided a safer and alternative application to many current pharmaceutical products available for patients, especially those with cancer and HIV/AIDS. The "Mary Lou Eimer Criteria" were instrumental in the issuance of the Cole Memorandum, which has set federal guidelines over states with medical marijuana laws and has urged the federal government to reschedule marijuana to a Class IV or Class V controlled substance based on the results of the Quiggle Study.
Against rescheduling In 1992, DEA Administrator Robert Bonner promulgated five criteria, based somewhat on the Controlled Substances Act's legislative history, for determining whether a drug has an accepted medical use. The DEA claims that cannabis has no accepted medical use because it does not meet all of these criteria: The drug's chemistry is known and reproducible; There are adequate safety studies; There are adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy; The drug is accepted by qualified experts; and The scientific evidence is widely available.
These criteria are not binding; they were created by DEA and may be altered at any time. Judicial deference to agency decisions is what has kept them in effect, despite the difference between these and the statutory criteria. Cannabis is one of several plants with unproven abuse potential and toxicity that Congress placed in Schedule I. The DEA interprets the Controlled Substances Act to mean that if a drug with even a low potential for abuse — say, equivalent to a Schedule V drug — has no accepted medical use, then it must remain in Schedule I:
When it comes to a drug that is currently listed in Schedule I, if it is undisputed that such drug has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and it is further undisputed that the drug has at least some potential for abuse sufficient to warrant control under the CSA, the drug must remain in schedule I. In such circumstances, placement of the drug in schedules II through V would conflict with the CSA since such drug would not meet the criterion of "a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." 21 USC 812(b).
Therefore, even if one were to assume, theoretically, that your assertions about marijuana's potential for abuse were correct (i.e., that marijuana had some potential for abuse but less than the "high potential for abuse" commensurate with schedules I and II), marijuana would not meet the criteria for placement in schedules III through V since it has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States—a determination that is reaffirmed by HHS in the attached medical and scientific evaluation.
The Department of Health and Human Services rejects the argument that laboratory animals' failure to self-administer cannabis is conclusive proof of its low potential for abuse: