Cannabis Rescheduling Confusion

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Young Cannabis Plant

On April 28, 2026, the Attor­ney Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed States, rely­ing on inter­na­tion­al treaties, autho­rized med­ical use of cannabis, but only for state licensed med­ical mar­i­jua­na busi­ness­es that apply for a new fed­er­al reg­is­tra­tion, Final rule, 91 FR 22714.  Hear­ings will be held begin­ning on June 29, 2026 and con­clud­ing not lat­er than July 15, 2026 on whether to reclas­si­fy cannabis for both autho­rized and unau­tho­rized use, the same way pre­scrip­tion drugs are clas­si­fied, Notice of hear­ing on pro­posed rule­mak­ing, 91 FR 22777.  For now, and unlike any­thing else, cannabis is split into two dif­fer­ent sched­ules, Sched­ule 3 for autho­rized use and Sched­ule 1 for unau­tho­rized use:

  1. Cannabis will be in Sched­ule 3 for state licensed med­ical mar­i­jua­na busi­ness­es that obtain a new fed­er­al reg­is­tra­tion under 21 C.F.R. § 1301.13(k).  State reg­is­tered med­ical users will be in com­pli­ance with fed­er­al law if they buy cannabis prod­ucts from one of these busi­ness­es.
     
  2. Cannabis will remain in Sched­ule 1 for state licensed med­ical mar­i­jua­na busi­ness­es that do not obtain this new fed­er­al reg­is­tra­tion, and state reg­is­tered med­ical users will con­tin­ue to be in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al law, Sched­ule 1, if they buy cannabis prod­ucts from one of these busi­ness­es.
     
  3. Cannabis will remain in Sched­ule 1 for all non-med­ical mar­i­jua­na busi­ness­es and they will not be able to obtain this new fed­er­al reg­is­tra­tion.  Adults who buy these cannabis prod­ucts will con­tin­ue to be in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al law, Sched­ule 1.
     
  4. Cannabis will remain in Sched­ule 1 for per­son­al cul­ti­va­tion in the states that cur­rent­ly autho­rize home­grown.

The Attor­ney Gen­er­al has applied a nar­row inter­pre­ta­tion of the inter­na­tion­al treaties under 21 U.S.C. § 811(d)(1) to lim­it pro­duc­tion and man­u­fac­ture to med­ical and sci­en­tif­ic pur­pos­es.  The inter­na­tion­al treaties have much broad­er excep­tions in them for con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­i­ta­tions and domes­tic law, which includes state autho­rized per­son­al use of cannabis, not just med­ical or sci­en­tif­ic use.

When the fed­er­al drug law was enact­ed, the Com­mis­sion on Mar­i­hua­na and Drug Abuse was cre­at­ed to review the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of cannabis, Pub­lic law: 91–513, § 601, 84 Stat. 1236, 1280–1281. The com­mis­sion reviewed the inter­na­tion­al treaties and found that inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions do not require main­te­nance of a pos­ses­sion penal­ty.  Mar­i­jua­na: A Sig­nal of Mis­un­der­stand­ing, First Report of the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Mar­i­hua­na and Drug Abuse, March 1972, at page 165:

Nowhere in the Con­ven­tion are its Par­ties express­ly required to impose crim­i­nal sanc­tions on pos­ses­sion for per­son­al use.

The Attor­ney Gen­er­al cit­ed oblig­a­tions under 21 U.S.C. § 811(d)(1) (Sin­gle Con­ven­tion on Nar­cot­ic Drugs, 1961, and Con­ven­tion on Psy­chotrop­ic Sub­stances, 1971) to cre­ate a fed­er­al reg­is­tra­tion for state autho­rized busi­ness­es and to bypass the sched­ul­ing pro­ce­dures in 21 U.S.C. § 811(a) and 21 U.S.C. § 811(b).  But those treaties pro­vide greater pro­tec­tion.

The Attor­ney Gen­er­al ignored Arti­cle 36 of the Sin­gle Con­ven­tion and Arti­cle 22 of the Psy­chotrop­ic Con­ven­tion which are excep­tions for “con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­i­ta­tions” and “domes­tic law.”  Domes­tic laws are state laws that give peo­ple the right to grow cannabis, and con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­i­ta­tions are why the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment does not have the pow­er under the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion to stop the states from autho­riz­ing the per­son­al cul­ti­va­tion of cannabis.

While fed­er­al law is the supreme law of the land, fed­er­al law includes an express recog­ni­tion of state sov­er­eign­ty, 21 U.S.C. § 903, and an explict process for mak­ing excep­tions, 21 U.S.C. § 822(d).  It is well set­tled that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment can­not force states to enact or enforce laws crim­i­nal­iz­ing the same con­duct those states have cho­sen to autho­rize.  See New York v. Unit­ed States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), and Printz v. Unit­ed States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997).

The Attor­ney General’s final rule lacks respect for state sov­er­eign­ty and indi­vid­ual lib­er­ty that fed­er­al­ism requires.  The Attor­ney Gen­er­al has the pow­er to waive reg­is­tra­tion require­ments under 21 U.S.C. § 822(d) (“con­sis­tent with the pub­lic health and safe­ty”) and 21 U.S.C. § 903 (“appli­ca­tion of state law”).  The Attor­ney Gen­er­al can­not deny such a request with­out per­sist­ing a pos­i­tive con­flict between state and fed­er­al law that would not oth­er­wise exist if the Attor­ney Gen­er­al grant­ed the request.

A solu­tion exists in 21 U.S.C. § 811(a).  Any inter­est­ed par­ty can ask for a new rule.  I request­ed a new rule to make an excep­tion for state autho­rized cul­ti­va­tion of cannabis for per­son­al med­ical use, to be insert­ed imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the cur­rent rule that says church mem­bers con­sum­ing pey­ote are exempt, 21 C.F.R. § 1307.31.

States began autho­riz­ing per­son­al cul­ti­va­tion of cannabis in 1996.  The fed­er­al admin­is­tra­tion expressed a pref­er­ence for a state reg­u­lat­ed busi­ness mod­el in 2013.  See U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice Mem­o­ran­dum, Guid­ance Regard­ing Mar­i­jua­na Enforce­ment, August 29, 2013.  But twen­ty-five states con­tin­ue to autho­rize per­son­al cul­ti­va­tion of cannabis.  See Mar­i­jua­na Pol­i­cy Project, Map of States Allow­ing Home Cul­ti­va­tion of Cannabis, July 2025.  Per­son­al cul­ti­va­tion should be fed­er­al­ly exempt because state laws autho­rize it.  State law is suf­fi­cient to deter­mine legal­i­ty.  While the fed­er­al admin­is­tra­tion is cur­rent­ly ini­ti­at­ing these new changes top down, now is the right time to seek pro­tec­tion for per­son­al cul­ti­va­tion autho­rized by state law.

Con­gress has been sus­pend­ing crim­i­nal enforce­ment against state autho­rized med­ical use of cannabis con­tin­u­ous­ly since 2015.  Con­gres­sion­al Research Ser­vice, Fund­ing lim­its on Fed­er­al Pros­e­cu­tions of State-Legal Med­ical Mar­i­jua­na, Decem­ber 5, 2024.  The Attor­ney Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed States is cur­rent­ly reclas­si­fy­ing cannabis to a less restric­tive cat­e­go­ry direct­ly in response to these state laws.  Drug Enforce­ment Admin­is­tra­tion, Resched­ul­ing of Mar­i­jua­na, Dock­et ID: DEA-2024–0059.  Con­gress could eas­i­ly stop sus­pend­ing crim­i­nal enforce­ment now that com­mer­cial use is autho­rized, leav­ing state autho­rized per­son­al cul­ti­va­tion of cannabis com­plete­ly unpro­tect­ed.

The Com­mis­sion on Mar­i­hua­na and Drug Abuse rec­om­mend­ed remov­ing the crim­i­nal penal­ties for pos­ses­son and shar­ing of cannabis in 1972.  Mar­i­jua­na: A Sig­nal of Mis­un­der­stand­ing, First Report of the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Mar­i­hua­na and Drug Abuse, March 1972, pp. 152, 154.  It is time to take that rec­om­men­da­tion seri­ous­ly.