Update May 16, 2024: President Joe Biden confirmed that his administration is pursuing rescheduling marijuana to a Schedule III controlled substance with a proposed rulemaking from the Justice Department.
It's all over the news: President Joe Biden's Drug Enforcement Administration intends to make history by rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I drug to Schedule III.
The move would act on a Department of Health and Human Services opinion, held since at least 1995, that the feds should reconsider marijuana. It would also line up with Biden's own statements that "no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana" and that federal and state marijuana convictions should be pardoned.
Marijuana isn't becoming "legal" on a federal level for quite some time. In the trucking industry... it's important to be clear that absolutely nothing will change with marijuana policy for a minimum of a few years.
In trucking, it seems that almost every time a state legalizes marijuana, or a cannabis-related product mislabels their goods, or a new type of cannabis product hits the shelves ... people make mistakes and careers get ruined. Hard-luck tales of CDL drivers abound. Often, it's a situation of mistakenly ingesting THC (the active, intoxicating and illegal ingredient in marijuana) thinking it was CBD -- a legal, non-psychoactive supplement that's helped many with pain and anxiety.
[Related: CBD horror story: The indignity of 'Return to Duty' and Substance Abuse Professional program]
Still, in the face of the rule change and plenty uncertainty, neither the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration nor the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance would comment on how potential marijuana rescheduling might impact regulatory compliance, safety and roadside inspections.
