Overwhelming Majority of Americans Support Changing Marijuana’s Legal Status

Data provided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans support changing the legal status of cannabis.

Legalization of Cannabis Is a Popular Measure

This year, the DEA leadership agreed to follow the advice of the Department of Health and Human Services and move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of controlled substances, thereby recognizing the plant’s medicinal properties. The DEA then invited the public to share their opinions on the upcoming drug policy reform and received over 42,000 responses.

After analyzing the comments submitted by Americans, experts found that:

• 57% of respondents to the DEA support the legalization of marijuana;
• 35% support reclassifying cannabis;
• 8% do not want to change the current legislation.

In other words, 92% of Americans are in favor of easing regulations on cannabis, while only 8% want to keep its current legal status. Given the incredible support for drug policy liberalization, it’s clear that U.S. authorities are likely to reform federal cannabis laws in the future.

Marijuana Reclassification Won’t Happen Soon

After the announcement in May 2024 that cannabis would be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III, there was a surge of activity on the stock market, with investors rushing to buy shares of cannabis companies. As a result, the stock prices of some companies jumped by dozens of percent in a single day. The fastest-growing was Canopy Growth, whose shares rose by 80%.

However, it turned out that traders celebrated too soon. The process of reclassifying a controlled substance in the U.S. can take up to nine years and involves many steps, such as public discussions and review by the presidential administration. The fastest reclassification was for the drug Marinol, which contains THC from cannabis; moving it from Schedule II to Schedule III took 237 days. Therefore, it’s unlikely that cannabis will be reclassified before January 2025.

Legalizing cannabis would benefit both citizens and business owners, while moving cannabis to Schedule III would mainly help entrepreneurs by reducing their tax burden. Cannabis companies would be able to claim tax deductions, saving about $2.1 billion per year. This would make it easier for the cannabis industry to grow, and more businesses would become profitable.