Letter to the Editor — December 2025

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To the Edi­tor:

Rick Waga­man’s Guest Opin­ion (Des Moines Reg­is­ter, 12/28/25), “Iowa should be ready for reset on cannabis,” leaves out an impor­tant step Iowa should be tak­ing right now, a fed­er­al waiv­er for Iowa’s med­ical cannabis pro­gram.

The board that reg­u­lates the pro­gram has been rec­om­mend­ing a fed­er­al waiv­er since 2019, short­ly after over-the-counter sales began in Decem­ber of 2018.

What Pres­i­dent Trump’s exec­u­tive order does is instruct the Attor­ney Gen­er­al to com­plete the process for the rule pro­posed by the Biden Admin­is­tra­tion to move cannabis from Sched­ule 1 to Sched­ule 3, a less restric­tive cat­e­go­ry. As Mr. Waga­man points out, it does not resolve the con­flict between state and fed­er­al law, but a waiv­er does exact­ly that.

Sched­ul­ing is an admin­is­tra­tive process autho­rized by Con­gress in 1970, 21 U.S.C. § 811(a). A waiv­er is anoth­er process autho­rized by Con­gress in 1970, 21 U.S.C. § 822(d). The Attor­ney Gen­er­al can waive reg­is­tra­tion require­ments if “con­sis­tent with the pub­lic health and safe­ty.” There is no doubt the state con­sid­ers “med­ical” cannabis to be con­sis­tent with pub­lic health and safe­ty. And, indeed, that is exact­ly why it is being trans­ferred from Sched­ule 1 (no med­ical use) to Sched­ule 3 (accept­ed med­ical use).

A waiv­er resolves the incon­sis­ten­cy. Iowa needs to be sure that both 21 U.S.C. § 811(a) and 21 U.S.C. § 822(d) are used to com­ple­ment each oth­er and resolve the awk­ward sit­u­a­tion of con­tin­u­ing to oper­ate Iowa’s pro­gram as a fed­er­al rack­e­teer­ing scheme. Patients are giv­en a Hob­son’s choice of vio­lat­ing fed­er­al drug or going with­out med­ical treat­ment.

It may not have seemed pos­si­ble that the Attor­ney Gen­er­al would grant Iowa an exemp­tion with cannabis remain­ing in Sched­ule 1, but now that it is being trans­ferred to Sched­ule 3 that pos­si­bil­i­ty has become real­i­ty. The only rea­son cannabis is being trans­ferred to Sched­ule 3 is because all but a cou­ple states have enact­ed laws rec­og­niz­ing it’s med­ical use.

It’s time to bring state and fed­er­al law into har­mo­ny.

Carl Olsen
Iowans for Med­ical Mar­i­jua­na
https://iowamedicalmarijuana.org