Americans support cannabis rescheduling, study finds. Findings, which come as the Trump administration last week reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a less dangerous Schedule III, suggest the public would like to see even more reform.
https://hub.jhu.edu/2026/04/29/americans-support-cannabis-rescheduling-study-finds/
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AMERICANS SUPPORT CANNABIS RESCHEDULING, STUDY FINDS
Most people strongly support the federal government’s reclassification of cannabis, according to a new study that used artificial intelligence to analyze more than 40,000 comments in the public record.
The findings by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California San Diego, which come as the Trump administration last week reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a less dangerous Schedule III, suggest the public would like to see even more reform.
The work is newly published in the journal Addiction.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.70410
This isn’t so much about medicine or science generally, but politics. The Schedule I classification was never substantiated; I have my doubts about the actual safety of cannabis, but it seems to be much safer than drugs such as alcohol which are widely accepted.
At this point, marijuana in particular is a drug that the populace has deep experience with, and research on its risks, costs, and benefits is easy to access. The drug has very limited potential for weaponized use (as opposed to things like roofies which people are motivated to drug others with), so there’s really no reason not to make it as legal as alcohol or nicotine.
Of course, there have been and are constant pressure to make both alcohol and nicotine illegal, including the infamous Constitutional ban, so this argument can cut both ways. There is a presumption of rational thought in discussing politics that is often unrealistic.
The actual headline from the research, *Characterizing public comments via* [*Regulations.gov*](http://Regulations.gov) *in response to proposed cannabis rescheduling in the United States*.
And the actual conclusion, “Public sentiment on [Regulations.gov](https://regulations.gov) supports the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s proposal for cannabis rescheduling, though the majority views the proposed Schedule III classification as inadequate and supports further rescheduling or complete de-scheduling of cannabis.”
The LLM/AI, was also used to perform sentiment analysis of written submissions, and there it just agreed with the human analyst who did the same.
Perhaps consider deleting and reposing the actual research per the rules of the sub.
Edit, apologies OP, hadn’t realise you are mod of this sub, still would be great if you followed the rules.
This rescheduling was a vie for favor amongst voters, but is largely just hype. Research is great, but I don’t think for a second that the struggling alcohol industry hasn’t lobbied to keep it criminal.
So this study shows the same result that every study ever made on this subject? Huh
If they made cannabis legal federally, wouldn’t people just grow their own. Gutting the tax revenue. And don’t tell me they will legalize it but not let you grow it. That does not make sense
Just because there is no new news and people aren’t searching as much doesn’t mean there isn’t an interest
Dude will say anything.
Only Congress can change laws.