President Donald Trump delivered a lengthy State of the Union address on Tuesday, touching on a wide range of policy issues he’s championed in the first year of his second term. But to the disappointment of advocates and stakeholders, the president did not take the primetime opportunity to promote his work around marijuana rescheduling.
Trump did bring up drugs in the context of militarized enforcement actions targeting alleged traffickers, preventing fentanyl smuggling across the border and the addressing pharmaceutical costs. Yet despite the bipartisan popularity of cannabis reform, he declined to mention a December executive order he issued directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to expeditiously complete the process of moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
That hasn’t happened yet, and the Justice Department has been largely silent on the issue in the weeks since Trump signed the order. Some hoped the president would use the high-profile speech before a joint session of Congress to reiterate his directive to finalize the rulemaking, but the issue was ignored altogether.
Adam Rosenberg, chairman of the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), said after the speech that the State of the Union represented a “missed an opportunity to highlight a major gap between federal policy and state law.”
“Nearly every state has legalized cannabis in some form, yet federal rules continue to create uncertainty for legitimate operators. The industry has heard promises before, including support for rescheduling. What’s missing is delivery,” he said. “Federal inaction continues to punish state-legal businesses with punitive tax treatment and banking barriers, while the illicit market operates without consequence. That imbalance is unsustainable.”
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