There’s speculation that the Trump Administration might reschedule cannabis into Schedule II rather than the predicted Schedule III. That sounds doubtful. To exhaust the possibilities, here’s another doubtful option — a little light-hearted speculation.
President Trump has said the following about cannabis—
“I’ve heard great things having to do with medical, and I’ve had bad things having to do with just about everything else. But medical, and, you know, for pain and various things.”
What if he wanted rescheduling for only medical cannabis into Schedule III, while leaving adult-use in Schedule I? It sounds crazy, but anything can happen these days, and President Trump calls the shots.
How might that possibly work? There would be more problems that I can imagine. For one thing, “medical” status would probably hinge on each state’s definition.
A federal definition could happen in a hurry, maybe, but in the tax parts of federal legalization bills we’ve seen, “medical” generally means FDA-approved, which, for cannabis, is almost nothing.
Now if state-defined medical marijuana only became exempt from 280E selling expense taxes, industry would push states to broaden their definitions of what’s medical. Some states might even try to get away with allowing self-certification of medical status, as D.C. currently does. If they wanted, states could make virtually all cannabis “medical.”
On the flip side, that would create a significant state revenue problem. Many states exempt, or at least favor, medical cannabis for tax purposes—so if everything shifted into that category, would states then move to tax medical at the same rate as adult use?
Chaos! But then again… probably not a realistic possibility, right?
The Center for New Revenue 