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President Donald Trump had to be begged not to spill the beans about a seismic change to U.S. drug policy made this month, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal published on Saturday.
After extensive lobbying and some generous donations from major players in the marijuana industry, the president was convinced to follow through with his campaign promise to shift cannabis from a Schedule I to Schedule III substance during a meeting with Kim Rivers, the CEO of Florida-based cannabis company Trulieve, Trump confidante Howard Kessler and Florida Sheriff Gordon Smith in early December.
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Eager to share the news immediately, Trump told the people in the room he planned to announce the decision on Truth Social before an executive order was even drafted.
Smith remembered things getting heated as Oval Office insiders tried to stop their boss from blabbing, according to the Journal.
President Donald Trump pictured after signing an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a schedule III drug on December 18, 2025.Anna Moneymaker via Getty ImagesAdvertisement
“The lawyers and his staff, they started yelling, ’No sir, you can’t yet; there’s a 30-day period, it’s gotta go through this and that,” Smith recalled.“They had to stop him from
Trump May Finally Reschedule Pot, And Cannabis Insiders Have Concerns
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Donald Trump is reportedly considering easing federal restrictions on marijuana as early as Monday, and cannabis industry insiders hope he’s not just blowing smoke.
The federal government currently classifies pot as a Schedule I drug, which means it’s considered highly addictive and has no FDA-approved medical use.
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If the rumblings near the White House are true, Trump could issue an executive order that changes the wacky weed’s classification to Schedule III, a distinction given to drugs like steroids that can be accessed with a prescription.
It’s been a long time coming for the bud biz, according to Jason DeLand, co-founder and chair of Dosist, a California-based cannabis wellness brand.
“Look, this is overdue,” DeLand told HuffPost.“Schedule I is supposed to be for substances with high abuse potential and no accepted medical use. Cannabis never fit cleanly in that box, and the medical evidence base — especially around chronic pain as a potential non-opioid tool — has only grown.”
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DeLand stressed that Schedule III “is not federal legalization,” but an important step toward that possibility. “But it’s the biggest near-term lever Washington can pull to strengthen the regulated market and accelerate serious research.”
Sasha Nutgent of the New York-based Housing Works Cannabis
Those Hemp-Based THC Drinks Are On The Verge Of Getting Banned
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WASHINGTON ― The government funding bill set to pass the Senate this week, likely ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, would outlaw certain synthetic cannabinoid products derived from hemp.
Congress legalized hemp in 2018, and entrepreneurs soon found a way to make intoxicating products from hemp by extracting or synthesizing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component of the cannabis plant.
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Top law enforcement officials in several dozen states last month asked Congress to crack down, saying “hemp-derived THC products ― often more potent than marijuana ― have flooded the market due to a misinterpretation” of the 2018 law.
The crackdown could be coming. The government funding bill that the Senate started moving on Sunday would ban “hemp-derived cannabinoid products” and “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are marketed to have similar effects) on humans” as a regular THC product.
The ban, which would not take effect for a year, is tucked into broader legislation that would end a seven-week government shutdown, which has disrupted air travel, threatened food assistance for millions and forced hundreds of thousands of government workers to work without pay. The hemp provision of the bill has not been a
Supreme Court To Consider Whether Regular Weed Smokers Can Legally Own Guns
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said on Monday that it will consider whether people who regularly smoke marijuana can legally own guns, the latest firearm case to come before the court since its 2022 decision expanding gun rights.
President Donald Trump’s administration asked the justices to revive a case against a Texas man charged with a felony because he allegedly had a gun in his home and acknowledged being a regular pot user. The Justice Department appealed after a lower court largely struck down a law that bars people who use any illegal drugs from having guns.
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The Republican administration favors Second Amendment rights, but government attorneys argued that this ban is a justifiable restriction.
They asked the court to reinstate a case against Ali Danial Hemani. His lawyers got the felony charge tossed out after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the blanket ban is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s expanded view of gun rights. The appellate judges found it could still be used against people accused of being high and armed at the same time, though.
Hemani’s attorneys argue the broadly written law puts millions of people at risk of technical violations since at
She Used Marijuana To Help With Morning Sickness. The State Labeled Her A Child Abuser.
Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty
Keeva Rossow had no idea when she arrived at an Idaho hospital to give birth in December 2021 that she may not leave with her daughter.
Shortly after Rossow gave birth, a social worker stopped by her hospital room and asked a series of questions, including if she had used controlled substances while pregnant. She told the social worker that she had used THC, or marijuana, for pregnancy-related nausea. Her morning sickness was so severe she had started losing weight, which she knew wasn’t healthy for her or her pregnancy, and the anti-nausea medication her doctor prescribed hadn’t helped.
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Rossow didn’t think much of it at the time. The questions felt routine, and she assumed her answers were protected under medical privacy laws, according to Rossow’s attorney, Rick Hearn, whom HuffPost interviewed for this story.
She had given birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl.
Later, as she was recovering, a worker from Child Protective Services and a uniformed police officer came to Rossow’s hospital room. They told her that because she had admitted to prenatal drug use she would be placed on the Idaho Child Protection Central Registry ― the state government’s list of people substantiated for
Marijuana Insiders Hope Trump Isn’t Blowing Smoke About Reclassifying Weed
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Donald Trump’s remark on Monday that his administration is “looking at” reclassifying marijuana so that it’s on a schedule for less-dangerous drugs had some cannabis insiders blooming with optimism.
During a Monday press conference, the president said his administration would determine over the next few weeks whether to move cannabis from Schedule I classification, which the federal government defines as drugs that are highly addictive and without FDA-approved medical use, to Schedule III, which includes drugs like steroids that can be accessed with a prescription.
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“We’ll make a determination over the next few weeks,” Trump said.
Cannabis insiders hope the president isn’t just blowing smoke about a possible schedule change because, frankly, Trump has been of two minds about weed.
On one hand, he upheld the federal prohibition of cannabis during his first term in office, but didn’t go after states with legal cannabis laws.
Trump also has suggested that drug dealers get the death penalty, but supported a 2024 ballot measure in Florida to legalize recreational marijuana.
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John Mueller of Greenlight, a chain of dispensaries with locations in multiple states, thinks reclassification is something that should have happened years ago.
“It’s encouraging to see signs of renewed political will as we
Have Your Weed and Eat It Too: Sask. Experts Talk Soon-Legal Cannabis Edibles
Saskatchewan experts and retailers weigh in on what to expect as cannabis edibles, extracts and topicals become legal on Oct. 17, 2019.
Patti Wood is no stranger to cannabis edibles.
Although the products only become legal for sale in Canada on Thursday, Wood has been making her own at home for a while: She began using medicinal cannabis in 2009, for pain management as a breast cancer patient.
Using legal cannabis — including the harvest from her own legally grown plants — Wood uses a Magical Butter machine to extract oil from dry cannabis.
– Read the entire article at Regina Leader-Post.
If Cannabis Is Having Any Dire Health Effects, Canadian Hospitals Haven’t Seen Them
More than half a year in, Canada’s relaxed cannabis laws appear to be earning a clean bill of health from major medical organizations.
While many hard numbers on health shifts are not yet available, some of the country’s largest mental health and emergency centres say the new laws have dumped no discernible increase in cannabis-related cases on their doorsteps.
“It’s certainly something that we’re very concerned about and want to be watching for,” says Robert Mann, a senior scientist and impairment expert at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. “But I’ve heard nothing — no indication that there’s all of a sudden a large increase.”
– Read the entire article at The Star.
How to Invest in Cannabis as the Industry Matures
Although the legal marijuana industry is still very much an emerging niche for stock market participants, the market for investing in cannabis is maturing.
In a recent sign of how far the legal cannabis sector has come, BlackRock Funds has made substantial investments in dispensary operator Curaleaf Holdings, the same company that also announced it will sell products infused with a non-psychoactive hemp component in CVS Health Corp (NYSE: CVS) stores.
Institutional Investment, Industrialized Processes
The CVS deal indicates that cannabis products are becoming more mainstream. The BlackRock investment is a high-profile example of institutional money entering a space that has been called the Wild West of investing. “We expect to see a floodgate [open]of more institutional investment,” said Matt Karnes, founder and managing partner with GreenWave Advisors.
– Read the entire article at YahooNews.
Cannabis Advocates Drop Off Donations at Windsor Food Banks
Rain this past weekend kept the EPIC 420 Cannabis Festival from getting the attendance organizers were hoping for, but still they were able to support Windsor area food banks.
Event organizer Leo Lucier dropped off a truck and trailer full of groceries at Street Help on Monday.
Lucier later went to the Welcome Centre Shelter for Women and helped fill their shelves with food and other necessities.
– Read the entire article at CTV News.