Final Decision on Potential Marijuana Reclassification Unlikely Until After Presidential Election

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has indicated that it will not make a final decision on the possible reclassification of marijuana — a move that is expected to decrease the dangerousness associated with the drug — until after the presidential election this November.

Last week, it was announced that the DEA will be conducting a hearing on December 2 to solicit public comments regarding the proposed changes to federal drug policy.

As a result of this, the agency may not finalize their decision on the rule change until after the next presidential administration has taken charge.

This proposal was first publicized in April of this year when the Associated Press reported that the agency was considering a shift in federal policy that would treat marijuana as a less dangerous substance.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) recommended in August of 2023 that marijuana be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III, dramatically reducing the severity of its classification.

Schedule I drugs are described as those which have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse” and include substances such as heroin and LSD.

Because this proposal remains an open question going into November, it may cause some to look more closely at the candidates’ stances on marijuana and federal drug policies.

Both presidential candidates, however, appear to have recently expressed support for a loosening of drug laws — particularly with respect to marijuana — in some respect.

Vice President Kamala Harris (D) has backed the decriminalization of the substance and called its current Schedule I classification “absurd.”

According to the Associated Press, however, the vice president opposed legalized recreational cannabis use by adults in California when she was running for attorney general in 2010.

“Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed,” she wrote in a Facebook post earlier this year. “We must continue to change our nation’s approach to marijuana while reforming the justice system so it finally lives up to its name.”

Former President Donald Trump (R) has indicated on Truth Social that he will be voting in support of a Florida ballot measure that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the state, saying that “we do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arrests adults with personal amounts of it on them.”

Despite this, the former president also said that the State Legislature needs to “responsibly create laws that prohibit the use of it in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities.”

“Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly,” he wrote.

During the 2016 election, former President Trump publicly backed the use of medical marijuana and suggested that regulation of the drug ought to be left up to the states.

A 2023 Gallup poll showed that 70 percent of Americans support the legalization of cannabis, including 87 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of Independents, and 55 percent of Republicans.