Rescheduling Doesn’t Free Anyone. Advocates Are Calling on Trump to Add Clemency.
On April 23, 2026, the Trump administration moved medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III — the biggest federal cannabis policy shift in decades. It was historic. It was also incomplete. Tens of thousands of Americans remain incarcerated for cannabis offenses that are now legal in most of the country. Advocates say rescheduling without clemency and full descheduling is a half measure.
What rescheduling does not do
The Schedule III order is explicit on this point. It does not decriminalize cannabis. It does not expunge records. It does not affect the sentences of people currently incarcerated for cannabis offenses. Those outcomes require separate legislative or executive action — either an act of Congress or a presidential clemency order.
NORML’s Deputy Director put the gap in historical context. “It wasn’t long ago that federal officials were denying that cannabis possessed any legitimate medical utility, threatening to seize doctors’ medical licenses for discussing medical cannabis with their patients, and shutting down state-licensed marijuana dispensaries,” he said, welcoming the rescheduling while noting its limits. “While today’s move is a historic step forward, it still falls well short of the comprehensive changes necessary to bring federal marijuana policy into the 21st century.”
What would clemency actually look like?
Presidential clemency for cannabis convictions is not unprecedented. President Biden issued pardons for federal simple possession convictions in 2022, though the number of people directly released was limited because few people are incarcerated at the federal level solely for possession. The larger population — people serving sentences for distribution, cultivation or other cannabis offenses — would require a broader and more politically complex clemency action.
The broader critique: why advocates want more than Schedule III
The Drug Policy Alliance, one of the country’s most prominent drug policy reform organizations, went further than most in its response — calling the administration’s action inadequate and urging Congress to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely.
DPA noted that federal marijuana enforcement costs the government an estimated $3 billion annually, while states with legal markets have generated nearly $25 billion in combined tax revenue since 2014. The organization also flagged a concern that often gets lost in the business-focused coverage of rescheduling: the Trump administration has used federal marijuana laws as a basis for immigration enforcement and local crackdowns — a dynamic that Schedule III does not address.
The limits of the order
Betty Aldworth, Co-Executive Director of MAPS and Chair of the Marijuana Policy Project, acknowledged the significance of the rescheduling while cataloguing what it leaves untouched. The order does not resolve the state/federal conflict for adult-use operators. It does not protect people from cannabis-related consequences in housing, immigration, employment or family law. It does not create a pathway for patients to access cannabis through insurance coverage.
