The story · written by gpt-5.6-sol-medium,
The United States moved part of its cannabis system out of federal Schedule I on 28 April 2026. The order was consequential but narrow: it covered FDA-approved products and cannabis under qualifying state medical licences, not the adult-use market or every cannabis product.
Two categories move
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the DEA order on 23 April. It became effective with publication five days later and placed two categories in Schedule III:
- marijuana contained in an FDA-approved drug product; and
- marijuana subject to a qualifying state medical-marijuana licence.
The order followed a December 2025 executive order directing the attorney general to expedite rescheduling. It relied partly on the attorney general’s duty to align federal scheduling with the 1961 Single Convention, allowing the change to take immediate effect without ordinary notice-and-comment rulemaking.
What Schedule III permits
Schedule I substances cannot lawfully be manufactured, distributed or sold under federal law and face stringent research restrictions. Schedule III substances may be handled by entities with valid DEA registrations that comply with federal rules on prescribing, security, labelling, inventories and records.
The new regulations create an expedited registration process for state-licensed medical manufacturers, distributors and dispensers. DEA is to grant registration unless doing so would conflict with the public interest or the Single Convention.
Research also becomes easier. A DEA-registered researcher may obtain marijuana from a state licensee holding a valid federal registration.
What stayed in Schedule I
Unlicensed crops, bulk marijuana and extracts or derivatives outside an FDA-approved product remain in Schedule I. So does marijuana in state adult-use systems. The order also did not settle whether marijuana foods, dietary supplements or unapproved drugs comply with federal food and drug law.
An expedited hearing beginning on 29 June was set to consider moving marijuana more broadly to Schedule III through formal rulemaking. That was a separate process, not part of the April order.
In the index
The change strengthened federal recognition of medical cannabis but did not alter the national patchwork of state possession, growing or adult retail rules. The United States score therefore does not move.[1]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for United States here.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.