Big Pharma Is Coming for Cannabis—and Schedule III Opened the Door

If cannabis reform were a roller coaster ride, Schedule III would be the sudden drop—thrilling for some, terrifying for others, and still nowhere near the exit. The only way off this ride isn’t REscheduling; it’s DEscheduling. But here we are, entering the new paradigm of Schedule III, and it will surely be a bumpy ride. I invite you to hold on tight as I walk though what just happened and why it matters.

Root for Hemp—and our products made with industrial hemp fibers—remains completely legal. But Root for Hemp's mission is to stand up for the whole plant and our community. We know our fates are intertwined. If one part of the plant is at risk, we are all at risk. While recent developments have explicitly protected industrial hemp, I feel a responsibility to stand with our counterparts in the consumable space, who are experiencing regulatory whiplash.

A Seismic Shift Puts Cannabis at a Crossroads

Congress recently moved CBD from the Farm Bill to the purview of Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. One month later, President Trump ordered both medical marijuana and CBD to be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III.

There are real upsides in Trump’s Executive Order—but the devil is in the details, and those details are not outlined in the Order itself. The law did not change with the President’s signature. The specifics will be determined by Congress and federal agencies in the months ahead.

The silver lining is that the drama is grabbing headlines, has momentum in Congress, and the public's attention right now. We are at a crossroads, and this moment demands public engagement to shape what comes next.

Rescheduling Exists in Context

On December 18, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order moving medical marijuana and CBD from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. He emphasized that the order "doesn’t legalize marijuana in any way, shape or form, and in no way sanctions its use as a recreational drug.”

Even without addressing adult-use cannabis, this represents a major shift in federal policy. In isolation, there is plenty to celebrate, and plenty of headlines praising the benefits.

But cannabis policy does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in context.

We exist in the shadow of the Racist War on Drugs, still enforced disproportionately against Black and brown communities and increasingly used as a pretext for mass deportation. We exist under the authority of the DEA, an agency with a vested interest in preserving its power, funding, and the criminalization paradigm. We exist within a presidential administration friendly to large corporations and dealmaking with Big Pharma. And we exist amid a defunded NIH and an ongoing war on academia, particularly university-led research.

Against that backdrop, the two most significant benefits of the Executive Order deserve both recognition and scrutiny: tax relief and research.

Tax Relief and Accelerated Consolidation

Section 280E of the tax code prevents marijuana businesses from deducting ordinary expenses like payroll and marketing. By removing cannabis from Schedule I, 280E will no longer apply. Excessive taxation has long undermined the industry, especially smaller operators, so this relief is welcome and long overdue.

However, the financial upside will disproportionately benefit the largest multi-state operators—the same companies already acquiring local and independent businesses. For the first time, it will also be profitable and legally safe for pharmaceutical companies to enter the market. With Big Pharma money flowing in, the industry will soon look very different.

Your local dispensaries will gain short-term breathing room–and that matters in this economy. But they will be forced to compete in an ecosystem where the largest players hold unprecedented capital, assets, influence, all bolstering their ability to thrive under FDA regulation.

Consolidation and acquisitions will accelerate.

Research Opens Up, Corporate Control Looms

Schedule I status declared cannabis to have no accepted medical use, effectively blocking meaningful university and pharmaceutical research. Schedule III acknowledges potential medical benefits and signals federal support for further study.

This shift could finally legitimize medical marijuana and CBD as treatments for conditions including nausea for cancer patients, anorexia, seizures, chronic pain, and PTSD. For the first time, the federal government is formally acknowledging therapeutic value.

There are valid reasons to cheer—and to be cautious.

It would be wonderful to have a new dawn of cannabis research at universities conducting studies that are academically rigorous, rooted in the community’s deep experience in patient access and care, while honoring sacred and indigenous practices that have helped humans safely use the plant for thousands of years. There is an incredibly deep well of academic interest that has remained untapped, and opening them up to explore here could lead to some truly revolutionary breakthroughs for public health.

Unfortunately, this new era of cannabis research exists within an administration and Congress that has defunded the NIH, open hostility to academia, shown enthusiasm for pharmaceutical dominance, and an affinity for moneyed backroom deals. For the next three years, at least, we will exist in a climate friendly to subsidizing Big Pharma’s medicalization of a plant in an approach that centers profit, not people.

The Long List of What Didn’t Change

Despite the headlines, many significant core issues remain untouched:

• State-legal recreational marijuana remains federally illegal.
• Interstate commerce remains federally illegal.
• Homegrown marijuana remains federally illegal.
• Non–FDA-approved medical marijuana remains federally illegal.
• Tax relief does not mean safe and equitable access to banking.
• State-legal programs and legacy operators receive no deference or protection.
• Approximately 40,000 cannabis prisoners remain incarcerated and arrests continue.

As pharmaceutical companies line up to profit, justice is left behind.

New Label, Same Handcuffs

The Executive Order reaffirms DEA enforcement authority over cannabis. Historically, the DEA has not exactly been a constructive partner as legalization has expanded across most U.S. States. Reinforcing its role—and likely increasing its budget—is the wrong direction.

Low-level cannabis possession remains illegal under federal law, with cascading consequences for housing, employment, and access to services. These harms continue to fall most heavily on communities targeted by the Racist War on Drugs. Possession charges also remain a tool for the mass deportation agenda.

As Dasheeda Dawson of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC) put it best: “Schedule III is just a new name with the same handcuffs. Rescheduling is still criminalization.”

CBD’s Sudden Fall from the Farm Bill

Congress recently passed a sweeping ban on consumable hemp products containing more than 0.4 mg of THC per container, effectively removing nearly all CBD products from store shelves in less than a year. This change replaced the 0.3% dry-weight standard established under the 2018 Farm Bill, and pushed CBD under the Controlled Substances Act.

Read my full breakdown on this development here.

Just one month later, Trump's Executive Order directed Congress to revisit this issue, calling for an updated statutory definition of hemp-derived cannabinoid products. The stated goal is to allow access to appropriate full-spectrum CBD products while restricting those deemed unsafe. This includes developing guidance on THC limits per serving, per container, and CBD-to-THC ratios.

This language signals that Congress may reopen negotiations on hemp-derived cannabinoids. That reopening creates a narrow but meaningful opportunity to influence the future of CBD, THC, and broader federal cannabinoid regulation. Multiple bipartisan bills have already been introduced.

The Revolution will not be Rescheduled

When the Biden administration previously opened public comment on Schedule III, more than 42,000 Americans responded. Roughly 70% said Rescheduling did not go far enough and favored Descheduling instead. There is broad agreement that the Nixon-era Controlled Substances Act is broken.

An overwhelming 88% of Americans say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use — one of the broadest majorities on any public policy issue today, according to Pew Research.

The People want legal weed–and we largely have 10 years of voter-led initiatives to thank for the existence of legal markets in 40 states. Progress was not given to us from above; The People fought for it.

Descheduling = Decriminalization

Removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act entirely is the only way to ensure justice for those imprisoned or harmed under the War on Drugs, protect the right to home grow, preserve the foundation laid by legacy and state-regulated markets, prevent pharmaceutical capture, and kick the DEA out from plant medicine for good.

That doesn’t mean it should be a completely unregulated market. There is growing consensus among advocates and the industry that we should have comprehensive legal reform that unifies the whole plant under one umbrella, with reasonable regulation guided by the 3-pillar approach – Testing, Labeling, and Age Verification.

It could be that simple, and instead we have this absolute mess.