Reports suggest President Donald Trump may direct the Justice Department to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under federal law. While proponents frame this as progress, the move raises serious questions about what message we’re sending to young people, families and communities still grappling with substance abuse and marijuana public health risks.

This isn’t just bureaucratic reshuffling. It’s a fundamental shift in how federal authorities acknowledge marijuana’s risks, and the timing couldn’t be worse.

The Biden Administration’s Unfinished Business

The current discussion didn’t emerge from nowhere. President Biden ordered a formal review of marijuana’s classification in 2022. By 2023, Health and Human Services concluded that marijuana has “accepted medical use” and recommended Schedule III placement.

The DEA process stalled. Hearings dragged on. Legal challenges mounted. Nothing was finalised.

Now the Trump administration appears ready to finish what Biden started. But finishing this particular project may create more problems than it solves.

What Marijuana Rescheduling Actually Means

Schedule I drugs are defined as having no accepted medical use. That’s where marijuana currently sits, alongside heroin: a classification that reflects its potential for abuse and lack of approved medical applications through proper clinical trials.

Schedule III drugs are recognised as having medical value but remain controlled. This category includes ketamine, anabolic steroids and certain prescription painkillers. All substances with documented risks.

Moving marijuana to Schedule III would represent a federal acknowledgement of medical use. But here’s what it wouldn’t do: it wouldn’t legalise marijuana. It wouldn’t resolve the contradiction between state and federal law. And it certainly wouldn’t address the marijuana public health risks of normalising a psychoactive substance that affects developing brains.

The Marijuana Public Health Risks of Rescheduling

The science is clear: marijuana affects adolescent brain development. Research links regular use during formative years to impaired memory, reduced educational attainment, and a higher risk of mental health disorders. Experts have well documented these cannabis health dangers.

What makes today’s situation even more concerning is the dramatic increase in marijuana potency. Research from Harvard Medical School shows that THC concentrations have risen from typical rates of 1-2% in the 1960s and 1970s to 20-25% today, with certain cannabis concentrates now reaching as high as 76% THC. This isn’t your parents’ marijuana—it’s exponentially more potent and potentially more harmful.

Yet marijuana rescheduling sends a message that contradicts these facts. When the federal government moves a substance to a less restrictive category, young people interpret that as a safety signal. Parents become less vigilant. Communities let their guard down.

We’ve seen this pattern before with other substances. Perception of risk drops, and use increases. It’s not speculation; it’s documented public health reality. Research shows that decreased perception of harm—currently at its lowest point in 40 years—often precedes increases in use. When societies signal that a drug is less dangerous, young people take notice and act accordingly.

The pharmaceutical industry’s potential involvement adds another layer of concern. While rescheduling wouldn’t automatically hand control to pharmaceutical companies, it would make FDA-approved cannabinoid medicines easier to develop and market. That’s not inherently problematic, but it does raise questions about commercial interests influencing public health policy.

The Documented Brain Damage We’re Ignoring

Longitudinal brain imaging studies have revealed disturbing evidence about what marijuana does to developing brains. Research published in JAMA Psychiatry examined brain scans of 799 adolescents over five years and found that cannabis use was associated with accelerated thinning of the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, planning and impulse control.

Studies from the National Institutes of Health show that regular heavy marijuana use during adolescence is associated with more severe and persistent negative outcomes than use during adulthood, suggesting the adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable. The neurotoxic effects can alter white matter and grey matter structures, affecting myelin, axons and synapses with widespread implications for cognitive functioning.

Perhaps most concerning: research indicates that chronic marijuana use during adolescence leads to IQ loss that isn’t recoverable. Adolescents who use marijuana regularly are two to three-and-a-half times more likely to have lower grade point averages and face a fourfold increase in psychosis diagnoses in adulthood.

These aren’t theoretical risks. These are measurable, documented changes to brain structure and function that can derail young lives.

What Won’t Change (And Why That Matters)

Marijuana rescheduling wouldn’t legalise cannabis federally. State-legal markets would continue operating in a legal grey zone. Interstate commerce would remain prohibited. Federal criminal laws would still apply.

In other words, the contradictions remain. But the message changes.

Dispensaries won’t shut down. Licences won’t disappear. Home cultivation laws won’t shift. Drug testing policies at employers (including federal and Department of Transport-regulated positions) would stay in place.

The practical reality for most people? Very little changes day-to-day.

But perception changes everything. And that’s precisely the problem.

Ignoring Marijuana Public Health Risks for Industry Benefit

One tangible outcome of marijuana rescheduling involves IRS rule 280E. Currently, because marijuana sits in Schedule I or II, cannabis businesses cannot deduct normal business expenses like rent, payroll or utilities. This has devastated smaller operators while larger, better-capitalised companies weather the storm.

Moving marijuana to Schedule III would eliminate 280E restrictions. Independent dispensaries and growers would gain financial breathing room.

This is often framed as a win for small businesses and local economies. But it’s also a win for an industry built around a psychoactive substance with documented health risks—particularly for young people.

Should we really be celebrating tax relief that helps an industry expand, when expansion means greater access and availability to a drug that impairs cognitive development?

Where Criminal Justice Reform Isn’t Happening

Despite the headlines, marijuana rescheduling does nothing for criminal justice reform.

It doesn’t decriminalise possession. It doesn’t erase criminal records. It doesn’t stop arrests. Those outcomes require actual legislation, not administrative reclassification.

People currently serving sentences for marijuana-related offences? Their situations don’t change. Communities disproportionately affected by enforcement? Still waiting for meaningful policy reform.

Rescheduling offers the appearance of progress without addressing the underlying issues that matter most to affected communities.

The Hidden Crisis: Rising Addiction, Declining Treatment

Here’s a troubling paradox that marijuana rescheduling will only worsen: as marijuana becomes more normalised, addiction rates are climbing whilst treatment-seeking plummets.

Research published in various peer-reviewed journals shows that following recreational legalisation, Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) among adolescents aged 12-17 increased from 2.18% to 2.72%. More alarmingly, among past-year cannabis users, CUD rates jumped from 22.8% to 27.2%. Young people are getting addicted at higher rates precisely as society signals the drug is safe.

Meanwhile, treatment admissions tell a darker story. National data shows a 48% decrease in cannabis-related treatment admissions for adolescents between 2005 and 2015. Fewer than one in ten adolescents who meet criteria for substance use disorder receive treatment. This treatment gap is widening during the era of marijuana legalisation.

Why? Because normalisation creates a perception that treatment isn’t needed. When marijuana moves to Schedule III, that perception intensifies. Young people struggling with addiction will be even less likely to seek help, and parents will be even less likely to recognise the problem.

We’re creating an unmet need crisis, and marijuana rescheduling accelerates it.

The Bigger Picture on Marijuana Rescheduling

Substance abuse doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When we normalise one psychoactive drug, we shift cultural attitudes towards intoxication generally. We make it harder for parents to have clear conversations with their children about risk. We muddy the waters for educators, healthcare providers and community leaders working to prevent substance abuse before it starts.

Marijuana rescheduling may be framed as administrative housekeeping, but it’s a signal. And signals matter.

Young people are watching. They’re listening. And when they hear that marijuana is being moved to the same category as certain prescription medicines, they’re not thinking about the nuances of federal drug policy. They’re thinking: “It must be safe.”

That’s the message we cannot afford to send.

Prevention Over Politics

This isn’t about partisan politics. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have entertained marijuana rescheduling. This is about public health priorities and whether we’re willing to protect the most vulnerable members of our society: children and adolescents whose brains are still developing and who face the greatest cannabis health dangers.

We’ve spent decades building evidence-based prevention programmes. We’ve worked with schools, families and communities to reduce youth substance abuse. We’ve seen progress.

Marijuana rescheduling threatens to undermine that progress by sending a mixed message precisely when clarity matters most.

Movement isn’t always progress. Sometimes it’s just motion in the wrong direction.