Walk into a few downtown bodegas or corner stores in a moderately sized American town, and you’ll likely find at least one selling some kind of cannabis product. Whether it’s CBD, Delta-8, HHC, or another synthetic derived from the cannabis plant, the simple truth is that these products are now openly bought, traded, and sold in states, whether it’s legal or illegal.
The latter comes with minimal safeguards and consumer confusion.
Nearly 90 percent of the country has moved on from prohibition when it comes to cannabis, favoring legalization or medical availability, but the highly bureaucratic federal government is stuck in limbo. It still considers cannabis a Schedule 1 narcotic on par with heroin and treated more severely than opioids or cocaine. The clash between federal agencies and the nearly 40 states plus the District of Columbia, which have legal avenues for cannabis, makes the so-called law of the land into a punchline.
The feds consider cannabis to have no medical use and a high potential for abuse, and attach criminal offenses to possession or use. This continues despite administration hires, such as RFK Jr. at HHS, signaling a new federal approach. Even when reformers secure top jobs to address this issue, they are stymied.
A proposed rule by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to change the scheduling of cannabis was issued in May 2024 and garnered over 43,000 comments, with the majority being overwhelmingly supportive. It signaled a vibe shift toward reclassifying cannabis as a Schedule 3 drug and ending the decades-long drug war that has created too many victims to count.
However, the Biden-era rule has yet to be taken up by the Trump Administration, as the judge overseeing the rule’s implementation opted to retire. DEA Administrator Terrance Cole, who was just confirmed to the role and began on July 23, stated in his hearings that he’d review the rule change without endorsing a specific policy. Many suspect the delays are by design.
DEA is openly advocating for the status quo in the form of vague comments about marijuana and increased suicidality. The agency is acting like an independent player, rather than what it is, which is an arm of the Department of Justice accountable to the President.
While the DEA drags its feet, black market cannabis sales are ballooning coast to coast, empowering a shady trade that poses genuine threats to consumers of these products. Arizona and California researchers found that 16% of cannabis samples they studied were contaminated with soil fungus that can cause infection or worse for immunocompromised users.
Even in states where the product is legal to grow, package, and sell, criminal networks are taking over distribution channels and flooding the market with products far from regulatory scrutiny. The black market cannabis is also ending up on shelves in legal dispensaries. Although there is a legitimate medical demand and need for these products, illicit markets have the upper hand.
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The DEA is granting an unfair edge to criminals who will never follow the law, leaving entrepreneurs in this sector, as well as customers, in a state of perpetual confusion and unease.
Without Schedule 3 status and a federal regulatory regime, the legal establishments that can sell cannabis in legal states are even barred from establishing legitimate bank accounts or taking out loans. These firms also can’t take their company public. Then there are the myriad issues that force dispensaries to deal in cash for transactions, pay taxes, and procure equipment.
We’re allowing the feds to treat legal business in most of the country like second-class citizens. This is an untenable situation that makes us a nation of scofflaws while the illicit cannabis market runs wild.
It’s far past time for the Trump Administration to extirpate the failed war on drugs and deliver on his promises to craft smart rules for cannabis markets. Rescheduling cannabis won’t solve all of our problems overnight, but it will at least signal that American institutions are capable of keeping pace with the people.
Yaël Ossowski is deputy director at the Consumer Choice Center