WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Tuesday that it’s moving to formally reclassify marijuana as a less restricted substance after President Biden requested the review as he seeks re-election — but critics decried the change as not going far enough.
Pot is set to be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, easing research into its medicinal qualities and opening the door to lawful prescriptions replacing a patchwork of state rules.
“Today, the Attorney General circulated a proposal to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III,” said Justice Department spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa.
“Once published by the Federal Register, it will initiate a formal rulemaking process as prescribed by Congress in the Controlled Substances Act.”
The law requires a 60-day review period, after which an administrative law judge will decide whether to hold a hearing or simply adopt the change.
But longtime pot legalization advocates said it was a half measure — noting that Schedule III includes substances such as ketamine and codeine cough syrup, for which illicit users and dealers still face penalties.
“Moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough,” the national group Students for Sensible Drug Policy said in a statement. “Make no mistake, Schedule III is not legalization and it is not decriminalization. It will not stop arrests, especially of young people.”
For more than half a century, marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug alongside heroin and LSD defined it as having a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical value.
Schedule II and III drugs still are heavily restricted, and it’s unclear what immediate practical effect the symbolic breakthrough will have.
Biden authored some of the nation’s harshest federal drug laws as a senator in the 1980s and ’90s and still opposes federal legalization of marijuana for recreational use — even though 24 states, three US territories and Washington, DC, allow it, in conflict with federal law.
National legalization is widely seen as inevitable due to overwhelming public support — with Gallup finding 70% backing for pot legalization in a poll released in November.
But major companies are still sitting on the sidelines of the industry, allowing for a proliferation of independent growers and distributors without major national consolidation of the market.
Senate Majority Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is sponsoring a federal legalization bill, though it’s not expected to pass anytime soon due to reticience from fellow lawmakers.
Activists previously decried Biden’s mass pardon for people convicted federally of simple marijuana possession — of whom none were actually in prison — as a stunt that failed to fulfill his campaign pledge to free “everyone” in prison for pot. The clemency was announced just before the 2022 midterm elections.
There are roughly 2,700 still in federal detention for dealing the drug.
Still, the rescheduling will give Biden a key point to tout during his campaign against former President Donald Trump, who also tolerated state-legal enterprise while he held office.
On his final day as president in 2021, Trump released from prison seven people with life sentences for marijuana, two of whom were sent away under Biden’s 1994 crime law.
The rescheduling is a long-sought policy victory for the reform movement — after activists staged smoke-ins outside the White House for decades demanding a review of the classification.
Pot campaigners failed to sway previous officeholders including former President Barack Obama, a member of a pot-smoking “Choom Gang” during his youth in Hawaii.
