While medical marijuana enjoys legal status in the majority of states, in the eyes of the federal government, it has long been considered a highly-addictive and risky drug with no medical benefit. Since 1970, the U.S. has deemed it a Schedule I drug, a status it shares alongside substances such as heroin, MDMA, GHB, and LSD. Despite its proven medicinal properties, especially for mental health, in the eyes of Uncle Sam, it has been — for decades — wholly unsafe. 

However, on April 23, that changed when acting attorney general Todd Blanche reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug. Its new classification puts it in the middle of the five-tier system, at the same level of anabolic steroids, ketamine, and Tylenol with codeine: substances with a low, but present, risk of addiction and potential for medical use. 

For Peter Grinspoon, MD, a primary care physician and addiction specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, this change in marijuana’s classification represents a “big, historic step in the right direction.” 

“Patients have used cannabis for the last 50 years — the last 5000 years — with good benefit,” he said. “Tens of millions of Americans use cannabis for pain and insomnia, and this is just going to help them use it more safely and more effectively.” 

President Richard Nixon created the five schedules into which most drugs in the United States are classified when he signed the Controlled Substances Act into law in October 1970. The most dangerous substances are in the aforementioned Schedule I, all the way down to prescription antidiarrheals and antitussives, which are housed in Schedule V. 

When the law was signed, marijuana was classified as Schedule I not because solid evidence showed it to be highly addictive, but because of a gap in any knowledge about marijuana’s chemical properties. 

“Since there is still a considerable void in our knowledge of the plant and effects of the active drug contained in it, our recommendation is that marihuana [sic] be retained within schedule I at least until the completion of certain studies now underway to resolve the issue,” Dr. Roger O. Egerberg, who was Assistant Secretary of Health at the time, wrote in a letter to Congress. Just a few months later, Nixon would declare the “war on drugs” in an address to Congress, in which he would describe drug abuse as “public enemy number one.”  

With its Schedule I status and Nixon’s rhetoric labeling drugs an enemy of the people, marijuana was substance non grata among the medical community for decades to come, an attitude that Grinspoon has called a “hangover” from the 1970s.  

“The U.S. government said cannabis is basically ‘the Satanic lettuce,’ dangerous and has no medical benefits,” Grinspoon said. “Unfortunately, the medical community has largely gone along with that.” 

Its Schedule I status made it exceedingly difficult for scientists to access marijuana for scientific purposes. Handling it — even for analytic purposes — requires disentangling enormous amounts of red tape, including special permits and protocols, which slow the process and adds dollar signs. All of this had hamstrung quality research on marijuana and erected an unnecessary series of blockades to better data. 

The Trump administration’s recent move eliminates these regulatory hurdles, easing the financial and administrative burden on researchers who want to study cannabis. Ultimately, their work will give consumers a better look at the drug’s benefits and uses. 

“We have a legal pathway for purchasing and analyzing these products,” Ryan Vandrey, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Johns Hopkins University, told Playboy. 

“Anything that’s sold in a state-regulated dispensary is now available to us,” Vandrey said. “It’s everything. It’s the gummies, it’s the oils, it’s the tinctures, it’s the beverages.” The number of DEA-licensed producers has now, he said, increased exponentially.

With all of these different types of cannabis-containing items now under researchers’ purview, they will be able to evaluate the various claims made on stocked wares at your local dispensary. Currently, most items containing CBD are not evaluated or tested by the Food and Drug Administration; in fact, the agency has approved only one product containing CBD, a prescription drug used to treat seizures. 

Given that this administration has been described by Congress as “determined to attack science itself,” researchers noting Trump’s efforts to “undermine science,” and DOGE threatening scientific advancements by canceling grants with abandon, the rescheduling is a rare W for the field. 

“At a bare minimum, this is a win for science and for patients,” Vandrey said. “We can now go in and test whether these products are well characterized and is what they say on the label what’s actually in the product.”  

While moving marijuana into Schedule III does acknowledge that the drug has potential therapeutic benefit, that doesn’t mean that it’s been approved by the FDA, or sanctioned by the government. Rather, it provides an easier avenue for pharmaceutical companies, or just companies that make cannabis products, to do the types of research needed to be done to prove that their product, at a specific dose, has a medicinal quality. 

But what does that mean for the average cannabis consumer, and for people who use marijuana recreationally? 

Well, for the standard medicinal marijuana consumer or the person who buys their products legally from a dispensary, little will change. The rescheduling is the opening of a door for science to do necessary research and, eventually, human trials. But those effects won’t be felt for some time. 

“This is going to take years; not much is going to change immediately,” Grinspoon said. “Research takes time, but it’s much easier to research a Schedule III drug than a Schedule I drug.” 

Not only will there not be immediate benefits for consumers, whether medicinal or recreational users, experts who spoke to Playboy emphasized that marijuana will continue to live in a legal grey area. While cannabis used by researchers has moved to Schedule III, recreational marijuana — even though it’s the same drug, with the same molecular structure — remains Schedule I. 

“Even though this helps,” Vandrey said, “it doesn’t solve all the problems that we have. We still have a quagmire, in that cannabis is going to continue to exist in a really weird legal space.” 

The rescheduling announcement is also a positive financial boon to dispensaries, ultimately aiding consumers. The Treasury Department wrote in a press release issued Thursday that the announcement will have “significant positive tax consequences” for businesses in the medical marijuana industry. Part of the tax code prohibits businesses that carry controlled substances labelled as Schedule I or II from claiming certain expenses as deductions. This change will ultimately benefit smaller mom-and-pop shops and non-conglomerate dispensaries financially, which will give consumers more options and, hopefully, drive down prices. 

Matthew Bernardo, the president of Housing Works — who also launched Housing Works Cannabis Co, New York City’s first licensed dispensary — said that this change could be the difference between some people staying in business or not. “It could be the difference between people surviving and people thriving,” he said. “If you have cannabis dispensaries that can survive in rural or suburban cities,” he said, “you’re going to give people more access.” 

Whether or not marijuana, including for recreational use, becomes legal is a question that will be taken up in a hearing scheduled for June 29, per the Justice Department. Last year, a coterie of 22 Republican senators came together to sign a letter urging the president to continue treating marijuana as a schedule I drug. 

But while the White House might be slow to change, the doctor’s office is where meaningful shifts are happening every day, according to Grinspoon. 

“Now that the U.S. government is saying, ‘Yes, this is medicine,’ it’s going to make it easier for doctors and patients to communicate,” he said. “Patients will feel like they can talk about it without getting in trouble and without judgment.”