John SchroyerAt least one of the major national marijuana trade organizations says it’s still hopeful that federal cannabis rescheduling will be completed under the new administration of President Donald Trump, but a spokesman said the timeline is completely up in the air for now, given the breadth of other political priorities the president has at the moment.
Despite the news this week that the Drug Enforcement Administration has no plans at the moment to proceed with the rescheduling that began under President Joe Biden, David Culver, senior vice president of public affairs for the U.S. Cannabis Roundtable, said the organization has been in talks with the White House and has been told that marijuana reform is still part of the president’s agenda.
The DEA, Culver said, “kicked the can down the road” this past week with rescheduling, but he added that was “expected.” He said the news is just a delay, rather than a death sentence for the rescheduling process as some industry members have worried.
“While the ball remains in the DEA’s court, I think that they’re going to need to get direction from the president in order for rescheduling to occur. And I’m still optimistic about the president acting on cannabis perform. He was very clear in October of last year about what he would like to do in the space, and we were told very clearly at the beginning of this year that we’re going to have to wait our turn,” Culver said, referring to a campaign pledge Trump made to support moving marijuana to Schedule III from Schedule I and to support the SAFE Banking Act.
“The big question is, when is this going to occur?” Culver said. “There’s a lot of hand wringing in the industry right now… I’m spending a lot of my time just talking to people on the phone that are key leaders in this space, trying to make sure that they’re remaining positive and optimistic because the businesses are struggling.”
Culver also said he’s not too worried about visceral anticannabis positions taken in the past by several Trump appointees, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and DEA chief Terrance Cole. He noted that Trump doesn’t tolerate disobedience in the ranks when it comes to his agenda, which means the industry just has to wait for the president to pick his time to put cannabis in the political spotlight. And CNN recently reported that members of the Trump team tried quietly to get a version of the SAFE Banking Act through Congress in December, a positive sign for cannabis industry stakeholders, though the attempt was unsuccessful.
“There are an equal number of key administration officials that are very, very procannabis reform,” Culver said. “And of course, we know that the president has evolved on this issue considerably since he was in office last time around, largely because he’s seen the medical benefit of cannabis with his friends and colleagues on the golf course. And that was a big driver of this.”
The central political hurdle facing the cannabis industry in Washington, D.C., these days is simply competing for attention amid the turmoil over international tariffs, immigration and other top priorities in the Trump administration, Culver said.
“The transition team … they brought out their whiteboard, they put their top 10 priorities together for the first 100 days, and then they made a list of the next 90, and we’re in there,” Culver said. “But again, it’s like, when are they going to get to the second tier of issues that they want to work on? And we’re going to have to be patient. And being patient is especially difficult when you’re facing a very tough business environment.”
