Trump’s Marijuana Rescheduling Order Could Let Washington, D.C. Finally Legalize Recreational Sales

If federal officials follow through on President Donald Trump’s recent
executive order directing the reclassification of marijuana, it could free
up Washington, D.C. to finally legalize recreational cannabis sales after a
years-long congressional blockade.

Moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled
Substances Act (CSA) would not federally legalize marijuana, but it would
have significant policy implications. While much of the industry and public
attention has focused on how the reform would affect tax and research
issues, the move could have an outsized impact on local policy in the
nation’s capital.

According to congressional analysts and other experts, a Schedule III
reclassification would mean that D.C.—which for over a decade has been
barred from using its appropriated funds to allow marijuana sales, despite
voter approval of of a noncommercial legalization initiative and local
elected officials’ support for adding retail sales—could finally create a
regulated adult-use market.

In a report published in 2024, the Congressional Research Service (CRS)
said that while federal cannabis prohibition would still be the law of the
land, it “would permit the District government, as a matter of local law,
to authorize the commercial sale of recreational marijuana, establish
market regulations, and levy marijuana taxes, among other policy options.”

The reason that D.C. is restricted from enacting that regulatory
reform—even as nearly half of the states in the U.S. have established
adult-use cannabis markets—is because of a congressional spending bill
rider championed by prohibitionist Rep. Andy Harris (D-MD) that deprives
the District of the ability to expend its appropriated dollars to set up
such a system.

The rider specifically states that D.C. can’t use its own local funds to
“legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession,
use, or distribution of any schedule I substance.” Moving marijuana to
Schedule III would mean that part of the rider would no longer be
applicable to cannabis.

There is a complication, however, because the congressional provision
that’s been annually renewed since 2014 also stipulates that the District
of Columbia can’t use funds to legalize or reduce penalties for “any
tetrahydrocannabinols derivative.”

But that term isn’t clearly defined in the rider or anywhere else in
federal law.

“The continued prohibition on legalization of tetrahydrocannabinols
derivatives by the District could lead to interpretive questions about
whether a particular substance is legally marijuana, hemp, a
tetrahydrocannabinols derivative, or something else,” the 2024 CRS
report says.

“Certain synthetic tetrahydrocannabinols remain illegal for recreational
use under D.C. law, but it is not clear whether these synthetic substances
would constitute derivatives,” it says. “In addition, although federal law
defines marijuana and hemp to be exclusive of each other, a substance could
conceivably be both a tetrahydrocannabinols derivative and marijuana or
hemp as a matter of law.”

One of the nation’s top cannabis advocacy groups, NORML, also posted an
analysis in 2024 arguing that rescheduling could “open a door” for D.C. to
finally legalize adult-use marijuana sales. The group suggested that the
term tetrahydrocannabinols derivative “is unlikely to be interpreted by a
court as inclusive of marijuana generally.”

In 2021, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) separately responded to
a congressional inquiry and affirmed that, even with the D.C. marijuana
sales ban in place, local lawmakers there can still take steps to prepare
for the potential creational of a regulated recreational marijuana market.

Medical cannabis sales are already legal in D.C.

Last March, the White House claimed that marijuana reform in Washington,
D.C. is an example of a “failed” policy that “opened the door to disorder.”

The Trump administration last year asked a federal court to dismiss a
lawsuit from a D.C. hemp business challenging the federal government over
the congressional budget restriction preventing cannabis sales.

About three months after Capitol Hemp filed the suit in U.S. District Court
for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department in September submitted
a motion requesting dismissal of the case, largely on procedural grounds.
The court agreed the next month.

The post Trump’s Marijuana Rescheduling Order Could Let Washington, D.C.
Finally Legalize Recreational Sales appeared first on Marijuana Moment.