High Stakes: Marijuana & Federal Developments

President Trump closed out 2025 with yet another Executive Order – this time addressing marijuana – leading to confusion particularly in regulated industries.

The Executive Order addresses two areas:

• Expanding medical marijuana and CBD research and;
• Rescheduling medical marijuana and improving access to cannabidiol products.

For the purposes of this update, we’re going to focus on the rescheduling of medical marijuana.

The Executive Order directs the Attorney General to take necessary steps to complete rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act “in the most expeditious manner." Further, the Executive Order directs work to begin with Congress to update the statutory definition of final hemp-derived products to allow use of “appropriate full-spectrum CBD products," while developing a regulatory framework for those products and the upper limit on THC milligrams per serving.

This Executive Order does not automatically move marijuana from being classified as a Schedule I to Schedule III drug. However, it has caused enough inquiries into the Department of Transportation (DOT) that the DOT issued a “notice on testing for marijuana” on December 19, 2025. The notice reminds regulated employers that marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, and that the DOT’s drug testing process and regulations will not change until rescheduling is complete. Thus, “transportation employees in safety-sensitive positions will still be subject to testing for marijuana.”

Interestingly, the Department of Justice still has not published comments or updates on the marijuana rescheduling process as of the date of this post.

In short, employers who have a regulatory requirement to test for marijuana should continue to do so.