As of Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s administration will reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III substance. The rescheduling does not legalize weed, but the Department of Justice hasn’t shown much interest in enforcing its prohibition on marijuana sale and possession since at least 2013. Still, the reclassification is a huge boon for the still-illicit cannabis industry, which operates with a wink and a nod from the federal government.
But the rescheduling of marijuana is little more than political theater. Democrats have unsuccessfully attempted to reschedule the drug several times. At long last, they have found a sympathetic audience — one willing to ignore science for political gain — in the Biden administration.
Marijuana has been a Schedule I drug since 1970, when the Controlled Substances Act was passed, but the Biden administration will reclassify it as a Schedule III drug. Schedule I drugs are “illegal to manufacture, distribute, or possess for any reason because they have no accepted medical use and are dangerous,” explains the Heritage Foundation. By comparison, Schedule III drugs can be prescribed by physicians and sold by pharmaceutical companies, though they are still restricted due to a moderate potential for abuse.
Weed advocates have long decried marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I drug alongside heroin, LSD, and ecstasy. And at first glance, they seem to have a point. Marijuana might not be the healthiest, per se, but most parents would be more concerned if their teen started using heroin or other obviously destructive Schedule I drugs. What’s more, 38 states have legalized “medical marijuana” programs, giving cannabis an air of legitimacy in the minds of voters. But comparative danger is a metric for classifying drugs on Schedules II–V, and marijuana most definitely does not have a legitimate medical use — despite the weed industry’s best efforts to convince voters otherwise.
Marijuana is a Schedule I drug because it has no accepted medical use. And it has no accepted medical use because cannabis cannot meet the FDA’s criteria for approval: safe, effective, and uniform. This last standard in particular is an insurmountable obstacle for cannabis. When the FDA approves a drug, it scrutinizes the manufacturing process to ensure that the drug can be produced uniformly without discrepancies in strength, quality, and purity.
The Heritage Foundation’s drug policy scholar Paul Larkin explains that, unlike ordinary pharmaceuticals, marijuana “is not a ‘standardized good’” — “[t]hat is, cannabis is not a single chemical compound or a product with precise and uniform ingredients, formulations, and potency.” Instead, the potency of raw botanical cannabis is impacted by dozens of factors throughout the cultivation and harvesting processes.
Scientists Brian F. Thomas and Mahmoud A. ElSohly explain as much in their book The Analytical Chemistry of Cannabis:
At every step, from planting through consumption, myriad influences can alter dose, absorption rate, interactions among constituents, exposure to toxins, and a host of other factors that can result in underdosing, overdosing and various types and levels of acute and chronic poisoning.
Based on the strain or breeding of the cannabis plant, its growing environment, the time of harvesting, and other agricultural factors — not to mention the varying potencies of marijuana products and the contaminants found in commercially sold marijuana — it is impossible to guarantee the uniform production needed for FDA approval, without which doctors cannot legitimately prescribe weed.
“Reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug sends the message that marijuana is less addictive and dangerous now than ever before,” said Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana and former White House drug policy adviser to Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. “In reality, today’s highly potent, super strength marijuana is more addictive and linked with psychosis and other mental illnesses, IQ loss and other problems.”
None of these facts have changed in recent years. In fact, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) refused to reschedule weed in 2016. In April 2022, a Biden administration official reaffirmed “HHS’s determination that cannabis has not been proven in scientific studies to be a safe and effective treatment for any disease or condition.” And the current recommendation to reschedule marijuana, the New York Times reports, comes “despite concerns” from Anne Milgrim, the Biden-nominated administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency. The science hasn’t changed — but the politics have.
Biden’s team hopes that the reclassification of marijuana will earn the president points with younger voters, though the rescheduling neither legalizes weed nor addresses advocates’ oft-cited concerns about cannabis and criminal justice. As drug policy expert Charles Fain Lehman writes in City Journal:
The Biden administration is trying to sell its marijuana policy as part of a broader racial and social justice agenda, but what rescheduling really means is more money in the pockets of drug peddlers.
Rescheduling marijuana will eliminate numerous obstacles to the still-illicit cannabis industry, and it’s already reaping the rewards. Mere hours after the news broke, the Wall Street Journal reported a steep increase in cannabis industry market values. Tilray Brands, America’s largest cannabis-related firm, rose 40 percent after the rescheduling was announced, and Canada’s Canopy Growth increased 79 percent. And with weed reclassified, licensed cannabis businesses will be eligible for up to $2 billion in tax breaks.
In rescheduling marijuana, the Biden administration has erred gravely. Whether the rescheduling boosts Biden in November remains to be seen — for now, only Big Weed is benefiting from the change in policy.
Mary Frances Myler is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.
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