“If Trump makes the move to reschedule cannabis…he will be bringing Washington in line with the American people.”
By Roger Stone
In America today, no issue better demonstrates the yawning gulf between the will of the people and the paralysis of their government than cannabis policy. Overwhelming majorities of Americans believe cannabis should be legal in some form.
Yet at the federal level, Washington has dithered, stumbled and flat-out failed—save for one notable exception.
That exception is Donald J. Trump.
The federal government’s dereliction has forced states to go it alone. Some have bravely enacted medical or adult-use cannabis laws, seeking to serve their citizens where Washington will not.
But these state reforms collide head-on with federal policy, leaving consumers, patients and businesses in legal limbo. Imagine driving across state lines and discovering that what you bought legally at a dispensary—or even a 7-Eleven in some places—could earn you a felony in the next jurisdiction.
That is not liberty. That is not fairness. And it is certainly not certainty.
When Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill, he unleashed the hemp economy—creating jobs, investment and innovation nationwide.
Trump’s action didn’t just expand access to benign hemp products; it jump-started an entire industry. Hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in investment now hang in the balance. Yet the industry remains shackled by uncertainty, because Washington refuses to reconcile federal law with reality.
Now the question looms: what will Trump do next?
The chattering class insists this is an “either/or” debate. Either Trump “reschedules” cannabis—moving it from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (where heroin sits, absurdly) to a lower schedule—or he “deschedules” it entirely, removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act altogether and leaving states to decide.
That framing is false. This is not about either/or. This is about progress. What must be done next.
Rescheduling cannabis is not the end game, but it is the critical next step. The move would do more than signal a new direction—it would unlock immediate, measurable relief for patients, entrepreneurs and state programs.
By moving cannabis to Schedule III, businesses would finally escape the crushing burden of IRS Code 280E, which currently denies them ordinary tax deductions. That single change would level the playing field, allowing dispensaries and cultivators to be taxed like normal businesses rather than penalized like criminals.
Rescheduling would also open the door to banking. Today, cannabis companies are forced to operate largely in cash because banks fear federal money-laundering penalties. Schedule III would not solve every obstacle, but it would reduce the risk profile enough that many regional banks and credit unions could finally provide accounts, loans and payment processing. With that one action, Trump could dramatically reduce the public safety risks of cash-heavy businesses, increase tax compliance and unlock billions in private investment.
Research, too, would flourish. Universities and pharmaceutical firms could study cannabis without jumping through near-impossible DEA hoops. Evidence would accumulate quickly, proving what millions already know: hemp is safe and useful, CBD is benign and medically valuable and THC deserves fair study as both medicine and a regulated product.
Some parts of cannabis—like hemp as a building material or pulp source—should already be descheduled. CBD is another obvious candidate. THC, the psychoactive element, should remain under the microscope until research makes its case. But only through rescheduling can the studies happen, the myths be demolished, the banking bottleneck be relieved and the path to eventual descheduling be built on rock-solid evidence rather than political spin.
The people are ready. The states are ready. The industry is desperate for certainty. And the only man who has shown the will to act is Donald Trump.
If Trump makes the move to reschedule cannabis, he won’t just be adjusting federal drug policy—he will be correcting one of the greatest disconnects in American political life. He will be bringing Washington in line with the American people. And he will once again prove what his critics hate most: that Donald J. Trump gets things done.
Roger Stone is a Republican political operative who has served as a senior campaign aide to three Republican presidents: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
