Marijuana rescheduling is not a part of President Donald Trump’s drug policy priorities for the first year of his second term, according to the White House.
Instead, the initial six priorities will largely focus on combating drug trafficking and mitigating the opioid crisis, a statement from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) says.
With the rescheduling process that was initiated under the Biden administration stalled amid complications with Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hearings, advocates and stakeholders have held out hope that Trump would proactively push for its completion, given his endorsement of the reform on the campaign trail ahead of last year’s election.
But so far, the president has been publicly silent on the issue, and the administration evidently plans to center its drug policy efforts on enforcement, prevention and treatment, particularly as it concerns opioids like fentanyl.
While the White House doesn’t include cannabis reform in its priorities list, it also doesn’t preview any plans to take hostile actions related to marijuana alongside other drugs like fentanyl, methamphetamines, xylazine, cocaine and heroin that are named in the new document. That will likely be something of a relief for advocates, especially given the strong emphasis on enhancing enforcement against other currently illicit substances.
Also, there are components of the plan that reformers would welcome, including expanding access to the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone and encouraging states to make drug testing strips more widely available.
“Terrorists, cartels, and other drug traffickers are taking hundreds of thousands of American lives by poisoning them for profit,” Jon Rice, a senior ONDCP official performing the duties of the director, said in a press release. “To meet the urgent need of this moment, the Trump Administration is launching an unprecedented whole-of-government effort to stop these drugs from entering our communities and hold drug traffickers accountable.”
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