Rescheduling is a lot more complicated than that. The president can not just wave a wand and make it legal. Congress could pass a law doing so, but they are not going to do that. The other way is via the Controlled Substances Act which is, to put it mildly, is a cluster fuck.
In a nutshell, administrative rescheduling begins when an actor—the Secretary of Health and Human Services or an outside interested party—files a petition with the Attorney General or he initiates the process himself. The Attorney General forwards the request to the HHS Secretary asking for a scientific and medical evaluation and recommendation, as specified by 23 USC 811(b-c). HHS, via the Food and Drug Administration conducts an assessment and returns a recommendation to the Attorney General “in a timely manner.” The Attorney General, often through the Drug Enforcement Administration, conducts its own concurrent and independent review of the evidence in order to determine whether a drug should be scheduled, rescheduled, or removed from control entirely—depending on the initial request in the petition.
If the Attorney General finds sufficient evidence that a change in scheduling is warranted he then initiates the first stages of a standard rulemaking process, consistent with the Administrative Procedures Act. During rulemaking and consistent with Executive Order 12866, if the White House—through the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of information and Regulatory Affairs—determines the rule to be “significant,” it will conduct a regulatory review of the proposed rule—a very likely outcome given the criteria in the EO.
FYI, Biden already initiated this process to reschedule marijuana in 2022. At this point, it has been reviewed and the Attorney General has submitted a rule change to the DEA. They will have a public comment period which they will no doubt drag out as long as possible. If approved, marijuana will be reclassified at the same level as steroids (schedule III). It is disappointing that Biden only requested changing the schedule rather than descheduling it all together. Not ideal, but a hell of a lot better than now.
So technically, the president could order the people he is in charge of to deschedule the drug and to do it immediately by everyone agreeing that the change is not significant.
If they refuse he could just keep firing people until someone agrees.
The law requires certain time frames for comment periods and he cannot just ignore those. He also cannot just fire anyone he wants. That is one of the things Project 2025 includes. Giving the president to fire any federal employee at will is a bad idea.
The only immediate thing he might do is issue an executive order making Marijuana a very low priority offense and telling DoJ to direct limited enforcement and prosecution resources elswhere.
Nope, the president doesn’t have the legal authority to give that order. He has the legal authority to order them to consider the question, which is the process that’s going on.
It is disappointing that Biden only requested changing the schedule rather than descheduling it all together. Not ideal, but a hell of a lot better than now.
Which is actually the reasonable thing to do here. Marijuana is not something that doesn’t have brain-altering side effects. It has pretty clear effects which could impair driving, etc - It doesn’t need to be descheduled completely; that would be asinine.
Is alcohol scheduled? Is it regulated? I feel like morons are making excuses for control because it’s got stigma. You know the real reason weed is a schedule 1?
I’d love for alcohol to be scheduled too. Make 'em all Schedule V. I’m tired of seeing “First DUI” cases get slaps on the wrist and a driving course.
