54 years of "no": the DEA's war on cannabis, from Nixon's political gambit to Trump's executive order

Cannabis has been a Schedule I controlled substance for over half a century. In the eyes of the federal government, it remains legally classified alongside heroin, LSD, and ecstasy — substances the Controlled Substances Act defines as having "a high potential for abuse," "no currently accepted medical use," and "a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision."

This classification has persisted through five decades of rescheduling petitions, court challenges, and scientific findings that contradict the very premise of its scheduling. Every challenge has run into the same wall: the Drug Enforcement Administration.

This is the story of how cannabis ended up in Schedule I, why it stayed there, and what it would take to finally move it.

Before the DEA: cannabis prohibition's political origins

The federal government's relationship with cannabis prohibition predates the DEA by decades. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 — championed by Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger — didn't criminalize the plant outright but imposed taxes and regulatory burdens so severe that possession without compliance became a federal offense. Anslinger built the case for prohibition on a foundation of racial fear-mongering, openly associating cannabis with Mexican immigrants and Black jazz musicians in congressional testimony.

The Tax Act stood for 32 years before the Supreme Court dismantled it. In Leary v. United States (1969), the Court ruled that purchasing a marijuana tax stamp amounted to self-incrimination, since doing so required admitting possession of an illegal substance. Timothy Leary's successful challenge left federal marijuana law in limbo.

President Richard Nixon saw an opportunity. In 1969, he announced that Attorney General John Mitchell would prepare comprehensive new legislation to address drug policy at the federal level. The result was the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 — the single most consequential piece of drug legislation in American history.

1970: a "temporary" scheduling that became permanent

The CSA replaced the patchwork of existing federal drug laws with a unified framework, classifying all regulated substances into five schedules based on abuse potential, accepted medical use, and safety profile. Cannabis was placed in Schedule I — the most restrictive category.

But this placement was explicitly intended to be temporary.

Assistant General Roger Egeberg wrote to the House Committee acknowledging the thin evidence base, stating that because there was "a considerable void in our knowledge of the plant," cannabis should remain in Schedule I only until a commission could study it properly and recommend its permanent classification.

That commission — the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, known as the Shafer Commission after its chairman, Raymond Shafer — was created by the CSA itself. Nixon had handpicked Shafer, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, expecting a politically favorable result.

He didn't get one.

1972: the Shafer Commission says decriminalize. Nixon says no.

The Shafer Commission spent two years conducting the most comprehensive federal study of cannabis ever undertaken. Its 1972 report, "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding," concluded that cannabis was essentially as safe as alcohol and recommended decriminalizing personal possession and private use.

The commission found no evidence that cannabis posed the dangers attributed to it, and explicitly stated that criminal penalties for personal use were doing more harm than the drug itself.

Nixon was furious. White House tapes from 1971 captured him demanding "a goddamn strong statement on marijuana... one that just tears the ass out of" cannabis supporters. When Shafer delivered findings that contradicted Nixon's political objectives, the president rejected the commission's recommendations entirely and reportedly denied Shafer a promised federal judgeship as punishment.

Years later, former Nixon domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichman provided the most candid explanation of the administration's motives. In a 1994 interview published by Harper's Magazine in 2016, Ehrlichman stated:

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities."

The "temporary" Schedule I placement, made without scientific evidence and against the advice of Nixon's own commission, became the foundation for everything that followed.

1973: the DEA is born

In 1973, Nixon consolidated the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, and several other federal agencies into a single entity: the Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA's explicit mandate was to enforce the Controlled Substances Act.

With the creation of the DEA, cannabis prohibition gained an institutional defender — an agency whose budget, staffing, and political relevance were directly tied to the enforcement of drug schedules. Over the following decades, the DEA's budget would grow to over $3 billion annually, making it one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the world.

The structural incentive was clear: rescheduling cannabis would reduce the DEA's enforcement authority, its budget justification, and its institutional relevance. This dynamic would shape every rescheduling attempt for the next 50 years.

The 50-year petition: NORML vs. the DEA (1972–1994)

Even before the DEA formally existed, the first rescheduling petition was already filed. In 1972, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) petitioned the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule II, which would have allowed it to be prescribed by physicians.

The BNDD refused to even accept the petition, claiming international treaty obligations prevented them from acting. NORML sued, and in 1974 the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the government to process the petition.

The government stalled. In 1977, the Court again ordered the agency to act. In 1980, the Court ordered it a third time. It took 14 years from the original filing — until 1986 — for the DEA to finally hold public hearings on the petition.

What happened at those hearings was remarkable.

1988: the DEA's own judge says reschedule

After two years of hearings, cross-examinations, and expert testimony, DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis Young issued his ruling on September 6, 1988. His conclusion was unambiguous:

"Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

Judge Young found that cannabis had accepted medical uses — particularly for nausea in cancer chemotherapy — and that it met the criteria for rescheduling. He recommended transferring cannabis to Schedule II.

"It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record," Young wrote.

The DEA overruled its own judge.

In 1989, DEA Administrator John Lawn rejected Young's recommendation, maintaining that cannabis had "no currently accepted medical use." Lawn's rationale relied on a five-part test that the DEA itself had created — criteria that were not in the original statute and that effectively made rescheduling impossible by requiring the kind of large-scale clinical trials that Schedule I classification made illegal to conduct.

This became the defining paradox of cannabis scheduling: the DEA used the absence of FDA-approved research to justify keeping cannabis in Schedule I, while Schedule I classification was itself the primary barrier preventing that research from being conducted.

NORML appealed Lawn's decision. In 1994, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the reversal to stand. The petition that began in 1972 was finally dead — 22 years later.

The research bottleneck: how Schedule I became self-reinforcing

Schedule I classification created a research environment so restrictive that it virtually guaranteed the "lack of evidence" the DEA cited to deny rescheduling.

Scientists seeking to study cannabis had to obtain DEA approval, navigate an FDA Investigational New Drug application, and — uniquely among all controlled substances — could only use cannabis grown at a single federally authorized facility at the University of Mississippi. This monopoly, maintained by the DEA through a contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), meant that researchers couldn't access the diverse strains and potencies that patients were actually using in state-legal programs.

The approval process could take years. Many researchers simply gave up. Those who persisted often received cannabis from the Mississippi facility that bore little resemblance to commercially available products in terms of potency, terpene profile, or cannabinoid composition.

The result was a self-reinforcing cycle: no approved research meant no FDA-approved uses, which meant the DEA could continue to claim "no accepted medical use," which meant cannabis stayed in Schedule I, which meant no approved research.

Meanwhile, other countries — Israel, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom — were conducting cannabis research with far fewer barriers, publishing findings in peer-reviewed journals that the DEA largely disregarded.

1995–2016: three more petitions, three more denials

The pattern established in the first petition repeated itself with grinding regularity.

In 1995, former NORML Director Jon Gettman and High Times magazine filed a second petition, this time arguing that cannabis did not meet the "high potential for abuse" standard based on new research into the brain's endocannabinoid system. Studies conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health between 1988 and 1994 showed that cannabis acted through different neurological pathways than addictive drugs like cocaine, heroin, and amphetamines. The DEA denied the petition in 2001.

In 2002, Americans for Safe Access and the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis filed a third petition. For nine years, the DEA failed to respond — forcing the petitioners to sue in federal court just to compel the agency to issue a decision. The DEA finally denied the petition in 2011. An appeal was denied in 2013.

In 2016, the DEA denied two more petitions simultaneously, reaffirming cannabis's Schedule I status. However, in a modest concession, the agency announced it would end the University of Mississippi's monopoly on research-grade cannabis production, allowing additional institutions to apply for DEA licenses to grow cannabis for research.

Across all five petitions spanning 44 years, the DEA's position never changed: no accepted medical use, high potential for abuse, not safe even under medical supervision. The agency rejected the conclusions of its own administrative law judge, dismissed the findings of international researchers, and maintained its stance even as state after state legalized medical cannabis.

The states move without the feds

While the DEA held the line, the states stopped waiting.

California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis in 1996 with Proposition 215. Colorado and Washington legalized recreational use in 2012. By 2026, 25 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use recreational cannabis, and 38 states have legalized medical use in some form. Seventy percent of Americans support legalization.

This created an extraordinary legal contradiction: in the majority of U.S. states, a substance that the federal government classified as having "no accepted medical use" was being prescribed by physicians, dispensed by licensed pharmacies, tested in state-certified laboratories, and taxed by state revenue agencies.

The gap between federal classification and lived reality became impossible to ignore.

2022–2024: the dam begins to crack

On October 6, 2022, President Biden issued an executive order directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to review cannabis scheduling under the CSA. This was the first time a sitting president had directed the executive branch to examine rescheduling.

In August 2023, after conducting a comprehensive scientific and medical evaluation, HHS recommended that the DEA reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III. This was historic — the first time HHS had concluded that cannabis has a "currently accepted medical use," directly contradicting the DEA's position for over 50 years.

In May 2024, the Department of Justice issued a formal Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to move cannabis to Schedule III. The proposal received over 43,000 public comments. The DEA scheduled an administrative hearing to begin in January 2025.

But then the hearing was postponed. On January 13, 2025 — one week before Trump's second inauguration — DEA Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney granted an interlocutory appeal, suspended proceedings, and effectively put rescheduling on ice. When Mulrooney retired in August 2025, he left the DEA with zero administrative law judges on staff. There was literally no one at the agency authorized to oversee the hearing.

December 2025: Trump's executive order

On December 18, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14370, directing the Attorney General to "take all necessary steps to complete the rulemaking process related to rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III of the CSA in the most expeditious manner."

The order also directed HHS, the FDA, CMS, and NIH to develop research methods for evaluating medical marijuana and hemp-derived cannabinoids, with particular attention to seniors and adolescents. A related CMS policy shift would allow Medicare to cover up to $500 annually for physician-supervised CBD products beginning April 2026.

Trump framed the order as common sense, telling reporters he had "never been inundated by so many people" asking for reclassification.

The reaction was immediate — and divided. Cannabis industry leaders celebrated the order as a potential end to Section 280E, the tax provision that prevents cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary business expenses. A coalition of Republican state attorneys general criticized the decision, arguing cannabis was "properly" classified in Schedule I. A leading prohibitionist group announced it had retained former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr to sue to block rescheduling.

April 2026: where things stand

As of this writing, cannabis remains a Schedule I controlled substance. Despite the executive order, the DEA has not appointed a new administrative law judge. The hearing process remains suspended. DEA Administrator Terrance Cole, confirmed by the Senate in July 2025, has agreed to "review the process" of rescheduling but has not committed to completing it.

In late March 2026, Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee sent a letter to Attorney General Bondi and Administrator Cole demanding specific answers about the rescheduling timeline — 99 days after the executive order was signed. The letter pointedly asked how the DEA planned to reschedule without an ALJ to oversee the hearing.

Multiple sources, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz, have reported that the DEA is actively drafting a rescheduling rule. But no official timeline has been provided, and the administrative hearing that was supposed to provide public debate on the merits of rescheduling has not been restarted.

The 54-year pattern continues: science says reschedule, the public says reschedule, even the president says reschedule. The DEA says it's working on it.

What rescheduling would — and wouldn't — change

If cannabis moves to Schedule III, it would formally acknowledge what 38 states and 70% of Americans already recognize: cannabis has accepted medical uses. The most immediate impacts would include:

Tax relief. Cannabis businesses could deduct ordinary business expenses under federal tax law, ending the Section 280E burden that some operators estimate costs them 70% effective tax rates. One analysis found that retailers in higher-volume states like Maryland would save an average of $805,000 annually per store.

Research access. Schedule III substances face fewer research restrictions than Schedule I. Scientists would no longer need DEA approval to study cannabis, though FDA oversight would continue.

Banking. Financial institutions would face reduced legal risk in serving cannabis businesses, potentially opening the door to credit card processing, traditional banking relationships, and access to bankruptcy courts.

But rescheduling would not legalize cannabis. It would not create a federal regulatory framework for the existing state-legal industry. Cannabis businesses would still need DEA registration and FDA approval to operate lawfully under federal law. Interstate commerce would remain prohibited. And the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs — the international treaty that predates the CSA — would continue to require some level of federal control.

Full legalization would require Congress to deschedule cannabis entirely, removing it from the Controlled Substances Act altogether. That remains a legislative question, not an administrative one.

The lesson of 54 years

The history of cannabis and the DEA is ultimately a story about institutional inertia. A drug was placed in the most restrictive federal category as a political maneuver, without scientific evidence, against the recommendation of the government's own experts. An agency was then created whose institutional interests aligned with maintaining that classification. And for 54 years, that agency rejected every petition, overruled its own judges, restricted the research that could have justified rescheduling, and cited the absence of that research as grounds for maintaining the status quo.

The question today is whether a presidential executive order — the most powerful directive any petitioner has ever had — is enough to finally break the cycle. The science is settled. The public is settled. The states are settled. The only thing left is whether the DEA will, after 54 years of saying no, finally say yes.