Justice Department Moves State-Legal Medical Marijuana to Schedule III and Sets an Expedited Hearing

On April 23, 2026, the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration issued an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana and related products from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, and set an expedited administrative hearing to consider broader rescheduling. Treasury and DEA followed with implementation guidance in the weeks after. The Congressional Research Service published an analysis describing the action as easing federal control of medical marijuana.

Schedule I status has been the legal foundation for federal prohibition, blocking research, banking access and ordinary business tax deductions for state-licensed operators; moving a subset of products to Schedule III alters those consequences without repealing federal prohibition. Doing it by order rather than through the full notice-and-comment rescheduling process compresses a proceeding that had run for years, and the narrow carve-out for state-legal medical products creates a two-tier federal treatment that had not previously existed.

The order took effect in April 2026, with an expedited DEA hearing on broader rescheduling scheduled and legal challenges anticipated by practitioners as of mid-2026.