The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 placed cannabis in Schedule I — the most restrictive category, reserved for substances with “no currently accepted medical use” and “a high potential for abuse.” Heroin is Schedule I. Fentanyl, which kills over 70,000 Americans annually, is Schedule II. This classification has defined cannabis policy for over five decades, and the story of how it got there — and the agonizingly slow effort to move it — is a story about politics overriding science at every turn.
The Nixon Classification (1970-1972)
When President Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act in October 1970, cannabis was temporarily placed in Schedule I pending a comprehensive review. Nixon appointed former Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer to lead a National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse. The Shafer Commission spent two years conducting the most thorough federal study of cannabis ever undertaken.
Their conclusion: cannabis should be decriminalized. The 1972 report recommended that possession for personal use no longer be a criminal offense.
Nixon rejected the commission’s findings entirely. He had privately told advisors that he saw cannabis prohibition as a tool to target anti-war protesters and Black communities — a strategy later confirmed by Nixon domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichman in a 2016 interview. Cannabis remained Schedule I.
Explore the interactive rescheduling timeline below to trace every major federal action on cannabis classification from 1970 to the present day.
The Petition Era (1972-2001)
The first formal petition to reschedule cannabis was filed by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in 1972 — the same year the Shafer Commission recommended decriminalization. The DEA did not issue a final ruling on this petition until 1994. Twenty-two years for a single administrative decision.
During that period, DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young ruled in 1988 that cannabis should be reclassified to Schedule II, calling it “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.” The DEA administrator overruled his own judge.
A second rescheduling petition was filed in 1995 by Jon Gettman, a cannabis policy researcher. It was denied in 2001 on the grounds that cannabis had no accepted medical use — despite the fact that the federal government had been supplying cannabis to a small group of patients through the Investigational New Drug program since 1978.
The State Divergence (1996-2020)
While the federal government maintained Schedule I status, states began dismantling cannabis prohibition one by one. California legalized medical cannabis in 1996. By 2020, 36 states had medical cannabis programs and 15 had legalized adult recreational use. This created an unprecedented legal contradiction: substances that state-licensed businesses sold to millions of Americans remained federally classified alongside heroin.
The Cole Memorandum in 2013 provided temporary relief, establishing a federal policy of non-interference with state cannabis programs. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded this guidance in 2018, creating renewed uncertainty before his successor effectively reinstated the hands-off approach.
The Biden Review (2022-2025)
In October 2022, President Biden directed the Department of Health and Human Services to review cannabis scheduling. HHS completed its scientific review in August 2023 and recommended reclassifying cannabis to Schedule III — a category that includes testosterone, ketamine, and Tylenol with codeine.
The DEA published a proposed rule to move cannabis to Schedule III in May 2024, triggering a public comment period that generated over 40,000 submissions. Administrative law hearings followed in early 2025.
Schedule III classification would not legalize cannabis. It would not create a federal regulatory framework for the existing state-legal market. What it would do: eliminate the Section 280E tax penalty that prevents cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary business expenses, enable more clinical research, and reduce the federal-state conflict from “actively illegal” to “technically unregulated.”
What Rescheduling Does and Doesn’t Do
The confusion around rescheduling reflects how poorly the Controlled Substances Act maps onto the reality of cannabis policy. Moving cannabis to Schedule III means the federal government acknowledges that cannabis has accepted medical use and a moderate potential for abuse. It does not mean cannabis becomes legal for recreational use. It does not create a federal licensing framework. It does not resolve banking access issues, which are governed by separate financial regulations.
The most immediate practical impact of Schedule III classification would be tax relief. Under Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code, businesses trafficking in Schedule I or II substances cannot deduct most business expenses. Cannabis companies currently pay effective tax rates of 40% to 80% because of this provision. Rescheduling to Schedule III removes the 280E burden overnight.
The deeper impact is symbolic and scientific. Schedule III status opens the door for FDA-regulated cannabis pharmaceuticals, federally funded clinical trials without DEA Schedule I researcher licenses, and a potential pathway toward the comprehensive federal regulation that the existing state-legal market desperately needs.
The Path Forward
Federal cannabis policy remains a patchwork of contradictions. An estimated 54 million Americans used cannabis in the past year. The legal cannabis market exceeds $30 billion in annual sales. And yet the federal government still classifies the plant alongside heroin.
The rescheduling process — however inadequate — represents the first substantive federal movement on cannabis classification in 54 years. Whether it leads to comprehensive reform or merely a tax code adjustment depends on what Congress and the administration do after the scheduling change takes effect.