Marijuana Reform Advocates Slam ‘Misleading’ Rescheduling Poll From Prohibitionist Group

Marijuana reform advocates are forcefully pushing back against a new poll
commissioned by a prohibitionist group that purports to demonstrate that a
majority of Americans oppose a pending marijuana rescheduling
proposal—when, in reality, the survey is based on two leading questions
that play into hypotheticals about potential consequences related to youth
and foreign cartels.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) promoted the survey responses on
Thursday, asserting definitively that the poll “shows that most Americans
OPPOSE rescheduling marijuana.”

That on its own would raise eyebrows given consistent national polling
that’s found growing majority and, in many cases bipartisan, support for
legalizing marijuana altogether. The more incremental rescheduling plan
pending before President Donald Trump—which would move cannabis from
Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) wouldn’t
even end criminalization.

But what a Schedule III reclassification *would* do is allow cannabis
businesses to take federal tax deductions they’ve long been barred from,
while loosening certain research restrictions that apply to Schedule I
drugs.

SAM, through poll conducted by the firm On Message Inc., zeroed in on the
tax relief element of the reform and crafted two questions that posed
hypotheticals about the impact of allowing the industry to take federal
deductions.

One question asked respondents the following: “If you knew the following
were true about rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3
federal classification, which would reduce some federal restrictions on
marijuana, would you be more or less likely to support rescheduling
marijuana to a lower classification: Rescheduling marijuana would give
marijuana companies a financial incentive to advertise more to children.”

It’s unclear how it’s reasoned that rescheduling would create an
“incentive” to unlawfully market to children. But asked to respond to that
scenario, 63 percent of respondents said they’d be “less likely” to back
rescheduling, compared to 18 percent who said they’d be “more likely” and
19 percent who said it would change their perspective.

🚨 BREAKING: New poll shows that most Americans OPPOSE rescheduling
marijuana. ⬇️

Overall, 63% of respondents said they’d be less likely to support
rescheduling if it gave companies a greater financial incentive to
advertise to their children. pic.twitter.com/urMDE5j1VF

— Smart Approaches to Marijuana (@learnaboutsam) September 25, 2025

Adam Smith, executive director of the pro-legalization group Marijuana
Policy Project (MPP), told Marijuana Moment on Thursday that SAM is
“spewing misinformation to confuse lawmakers and the public.”

“Here are the facts: It is already a crime for cannabis businesses to
advertise to children, one that can result in serious penalties,” he said.
“Moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, or even removing it from
the schedule entirely, would not change that.”

“Unlike prohibition, cannabis regulation universally includes age-gating,
which does more to keep cannabis out of the hands of kids than prohibition
ever did. And it includes strict limits on advertising,” he said.

“Don’t be fooled by prohibitionists’ fear tactics,” Smith said. “Project
SAM’s goal is not to protect kids, it is to drag us back to the dark days
of hundreds of thousands of annual arrests, ruining the lives of otherwise
law abiding people and packing prisons with people whose only ‘crime’ is
possession of a plant that humans have been using safely for thousands of
years.”

The next question from the SAM poll presents a similarly questionable
hypothetical consequence of rescheduling. It asks: “If you knew the
following were true about rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a
Schedule 3 federal classification, which would reduce some federal
restrictions on marijuana, would you be more or less likely to support
rescheduling marijuana to a lower classification: Rescheduling marijuana
would mean that Chinese and Mexican drug cartels that own marijuana farms
in America will get a tax break.”

Of the 1,000 likely voters involved in the survey—which took place from
September 9-12 and has a +/-3.1 percentage point margin of error—58 percent
of respondents said the idea that rescheduling could benefit cartels would
make them less likely to back the reform, compared to 19 percent who said
they’d be more likely and 23 percent with no opinion.

These poll results clearly show that when Americans—and especially Trump’s
political base—understand the real-world effects of marijuana rescheduling,
they oppose the change strongly.

— Smart Approaches to Marijuana (@learnaboutsam) September 25, 2025

There are bipartisan concerns about illicit drug trafficking, with media
and government officials identifying certain illegal grow operations
associated with cartels, and a House committee held a hearing on the issue
last week. But the premise of SAM’s question assumes that transnational
drug organizations pay taxes in the first place and also accurately
disclose their sources of income.

Kevin Sabet, president of SAM, said in a press release that “Americans
don’t want Washington to hand Big Weed a massive tax break so addiction
profiteers can spend more to push ads at our kids and hook the next
generation of addicts.”

“Rescheduling means more marketing pressure on children; voters across the
spectrum say: no thanks,” he said.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Sabet added. “Everyone who cares about the
safety of their community and making sure foreign drug dealers don’t
benefit from strategic policy errors is speaking up and letting their
voices be heard. We hope that the president, as he faces a pivotal choice
on marijuana, listens to the voters and not a big-money influence campaign.”

President Donald Trump did endorse the rescheduling proposal, which was
initiated under the Biden administration, during his run for a second term.
And he said last month that he’d make a decision within weeks, without
clearly indicating one way or another whether he continues to support the
policy change. Competing voices in Trump’s inner circle, in Congress and in
the private sector have all been working to influence the final outcome.

MPP’s Smith said what SAM is doing, however, is “spewing this
misinformation and hiding behind a hypothetical.”

“So I will not give them the satisfaction of calling them liars in
print—but I will say very strongly that they and their funders should be
ashamed of misleading the public in an effort to drag us back to the dark
days of millions of arrests and ruined lives.”

Morgan Fox, political director of NORML, told Marijuana Moment that
prohibitionists “have long relied on creative interpretations of data to
cast doubt on public support for cannabis policy reform.”

“It is not surprising that they double down on this strategy when they are
the ones writing the questions,” he said. “When they can’t win the hearts
and minds of the public, they attempt to make it seem as if they have, or
they attempt to take voters out of the equation entirely by working to
overturn key portions of citizen initiatives or restricting the process
entirely.”

Michael Bronstein, president of the American Trade Association of Cannabis
and Hemp (ATACH), told Marijuana Moment that the “questions in this poll
are clearly misleading.”

“Independent polling consistently shows that Americans of all political
stripes support cannabis reform, including rescheduling,” he said.

To that point, about two in three American voters said legalizing marijuana
nationwide would be a “good” idea, according to a recent poll from Emerson
College.

Another recent survey from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education,
and Regulation (CPEAR), which was conducted by the firm Forbes Tate
Partners, showed that seven in 10 American voters want to see the end of
federal marijuana prohibition—and nearly half say they’d view the Trump
administration more favorably if it took action on the issue.

A poll released in June that Marijuana Moment partnered on with the
cannabis telehealth platform NuggMD showed that a majority of marijuana
consumers disapprove of the Trump administration’s actions on cannabis
policy to date, but there’s also a significant willingness among users to
shift their position if the federal government opts to reschedule or
legalize marijuana.

Earlier this year, meanwhile, a firm associated with Trump—Fabrizio, Lee &
Associates—also polled Americans on a series of broader marijuana policy
issues. Notably, it found that a majority of Republicans back cannabis
rescheduling—and, notably, they’re even more supportive of allowing states
to legalize marijuana without federal interference compared to the average
voter.

*Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.*

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From Prohibitionist Group appeared first on Marijuana Moment.