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President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order downgrading cannabis from a Schedule I substance — a category reserved for drugs deemed to have no acceptable medical use, such as heroin, LSD and ecstasy — to a Schedule III, opening new avenues for medical research into its potential benefits.

Speaking from the Oval Office this morning, Trump, who referred to himself as the “president of common sense,” said the reclassification will allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to research medical cannabis and cannabidiol (CBD) as potential alternatives to opioid painkillers.

“This reclassification order will make it far easier to conduct marijuana-related medical research, allowing us to study benefits, potential dangers and future treatments,” Trump said during a press briefing at the Oval Office. “In other words, you now have a much larger sample, and you’ll be able to see if it’s as good as many people say. I mean, people say it is beyond good. And you’ll be able to find that out.”

The executive order, Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research, directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to finalize the rescheduling process, which began under the Biden administration in December 2024. The order removes decades-old regulatory hurdles that have prevented the FDA from researching both cannabis and CBD, the non-psychoactive compound derived from hemp.

“The reschedule opens the door to actually be able to accelerate the rate at which we can do research and discovery,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), said at today’s press briefing. “Yes, cannabis can be addictive … but we cannot close our eyes to research and the opportunity that we are hearing from patients that, for some of them, cannabis can solve their problem.”

Trump emphasized that the federal order “doesn’t legalize marijuana in any way, shape or form,” nor does it “sanction use as a recreational drug.”

You can watch this morning’s press briefing in the video up top and read the full text of the executive order here.

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