Marijuana Rescheduling: A Partial Prescription for Policy Change
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Marijuana Rescheduling:
A Partial Prescription for Policy Change
Grace Wallack* & John Hudak**
As mariyuana policy reform in the US. has evolved over the past
twenty years, one proposal keeps gaining attention: drug rescheduling.'
State officials, members of Congress, the media, scholars, and the
advocacy community have-to varying degrees-held up rescheduling as
a solution to some of the challenges current federal law imposes on
marijuana policy. Despite the near-celebrity status of rescheduling as a
reform, it is among the most misunderstood proposals-both in terms of
the process and its consequences.
This article seeks to clarify this conversation. Section I will
describe precisely how rescheduling works, through legislative and
administrative processes. The section will go on to detail the history of
marijuana rescheduling in the US., including formal rescheduling
petitions filed with the US. and some of the legislative proposals to do
the same. Section II will detail both the consequences and limits of
marijuana rescheduling. Section III will describe some alternative,
additional proposals that could have more meaningful impacts on
marijuana policy. Section IV will briefly conclude.
I. How RESCHEDULING WORKS
The Controlled Substances Act [CSA] designates different schedules for
substances the federal government seeks to regulate. The federal government
designates a schedule for each substance based on its medical value, abuse
potential, and safety. The highest level of control-Schedule I-is reserved for
substances the government determines have a high potential for abuse . . . no
* Grace Wallack is a former Senior Research Assistant at the Brookings Institution and
current student at Harvard Law School.
John Hudak, Ph.D., is a senior fellow and deputy director at the Center for Effective Public
Management at the Brookings Institution.
I This article is based on a longer report we authored in October 2015 titled Ending the U.S.
government's war on medical marijuana research. See JOHN HUDAK & GRACE WALLACK, CTR. FOR
EFFECTIVE PUB. MGMT. AT BROOKINGS INST., ENDING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S WAR ON MEDICAL
MARIJUANA RESEARCH (2015), https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Ending-the-
US-governments-war-on-medical-marijuana-research.pdf.
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Marijuana Rescheduling: A Partial Prescription for Policy Change
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