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A Tale of Two Plants

Writer's picture: Melissa Vonder HaarMelissa Vonder Haar

By Melissa Vonder Haar

First published in NACS Magazine August 2024




On April 30, 2024, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) formally submitted a recommendation to move marijuana from a Schedule I drug to Schedule III. This move, known as reclassification or rescheduling, would officially acknowledge that marijuana has medicinal benefits and a low potential for abuse.


The announcement came after President Biden called for a full federal review of marijuana laws in October 2022. “Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana,” Biden said in December. “It’s time that we right these wrongs.”


There will still be a review by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and of public commentary before the rescheduling could become official. But it would mark major reform for the cannabis industry—the first substantial change to marijuana’s federal legal status since the Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1971.


“Federal policy on marijuana has essentially been the same since the seventies and this would be a material change,” said Jonathan Havens, a partner and co-chair of cannabis law and food, beverage and agribusiness practices at Saul Ewing. “It is a great first step.”


Meanwhile, the long-overdue draft of the next Farm Bill included no material change to an area where convenience stores play: hemp-derived cannabinoids.


“There are certainly arguments to suggest that certain of these intoxicating hemp cannabinoid products are legal but it’s far from clear,” Havens said. “The legal status is murky.”


Here’s a deeper look at what is—and isn’t—happening with the federal legal statuses of marijuana and hemp, two plants in the cannabis species.


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