US President Legalizes Marijuana

US President Donald Trump has approved a major shift in American drug policy by ordering marijuana to be moved into a lower-risk category under federal law, a step that could dramatically reshape the country’s booming cannabis industry.

Through a new executive order, Trump has directed that cannabis be reclassified as a Schedule III drug under US federal regulations. This is the same bracket that includes substances like codeine-based painkillers, certain hormone treatments, and anabolic steroids.

Until now, marijuana has sat in Schedule I, the strictest category, alongside drugs such as heroin, LSD, and ecstasy, officially defined as having a high potential for abuse and “no accepted medical use.”

Under a Schedule III label, marijuana is treated as a substance with “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence,” which opens the door for wider medical use, formal recognition in healthcare, and, crucially, much easier access to the US financial system.

While recreational or medical cannabis is already legal in most US states in one form or another, it has remained technically illegal at the federal level. That contradiction has created serious problems for the industry, which is worth tens of billions of dollars annually but has long operated in a legal grey zone.

Not everyone is thrilled about taking marijuana further into the mainstream. Critics point out that modern cannabis products, from concentrated oils and vapes to high-THC edibles, are often far stronger than the versions common a few decades ago.

Public health and safety advocates in the US have raised questions about the long-term impact of increasingly potent products, especially if more people use them while driving, working, or combining them with other substances like alcohol.

They also argue that regulation will need to be tight to prevent underage access and to track how the market evolves once federal rules soften.

Supporters of the move counter that keeping marijuana in the same legal category as heroin was never realistic and only fuelled the black market.

Some investors and campaigners who pushed for the change say that bringing cannabis fully into the “legal, banked economy” will weaken drug cartels, provide new tax revenue for the US government, and give doctors more tools for patients dealing with chronic pain or trying to move away from highly addictive opioids.