President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at reclassifying marijuana to be a schedule three, rather than a schedule one, controlled substance in order to create new research opportunities. Conservatives made clear that they were deeply concerned about the president’s decision, for fear that marijuana will now be more accessible to people who could abuse it. 

Many believed that President Biden would reschedule the drug in 2023 after a review by the Department of Health and Human Services found that marijuana should be more rigorously studied as a potential alternative medicine once it is removed from the schedule one list. Mr. Biden’s Justice Department did issue a proposed rule to reclassify drugs, though that has not yet been finalized. 

The executive order Mr. Trump signed relied on that 2023 HHS finding as a justification for fast-tracking classification. Attorney General Pam Bondi is now charged with finalizing a rule proposed by the DOJ last year, now that it has received more than 40,000 public comments. 

“The Federal Government’s long delay in recognizing the medical use of marijuana does not serve the Americans who report health benefits from the medical use of marijuana to ease chronic pain and other various medically recognized ailments. Americans who often seek alternative relief from chronic pain symptoms are particularly impacted,” Mr. Trump’s order states. 

During an event in the Oval Office on Thursday to sign the order, Mr. Trump pointed to the clear public desire to reschedule marijuana. 

Mr. Trump said it was imperative to speed up the reclassification “When you see polls of 82 percent of the people want this” and “when I have friends that are really, really sick” who need it.

“I think I probably have received more phone calls on this — on doing what we’re doing” than on any other issue, Mr. Trump said. “I don’t think I received any calls” in opposition, he added. 

Conservatives on Capitol Hill, however, tried to stop the president before he signed his order to expedite reclassification. On Wednesday, in a letter first reported by Punchbowl News, dozens of Republican senators urged the president to hold off on signing the order. Signatories to that letter included members of GOP leadership, including Senators John Barrass, Tom Cotton, and Shelley Moore Capito. 

“Rescheduling marijuana to a Schedule III drug will undermine your strong efforts to Make America Great Again and to usher in America’s next economic Golden Age. The only winners from rescheduling will be bad actors such as Communist China, while Americans will be left paying the bill,” the lawmakers wrote. 

Mr. Trump brushed off the warning from his fellow Republicans, however. When a reporter in the Oval Office asked about that letter sent to him last night, he turned to ask one of the many doctors in the room to respond on his behalf.

“When have had cannabis scheduled for how long?” one doctor who volunteered to respond asked rhetorically. “It has protected neither the adolescents nor the adults.”

“This is not legalizing it. It’s making it easier to do research,” the doctor, whose name was not given, said. 

The American Medical Association expressed similar concerns as conservative lawmakers about reclassification last year during the public comment section on the DOJ proposed rule, specifically around the possibility of those who do not suffer from chronic pain using marijuana. 

 “[T]he AMA maintains that there are significant public health and other concerns regarding cannabis use—particularly for vulnerable populations, youth and adolescents, and people who are pregnant or breastfeeding,” the group’s chief executive, James Madara, said in a letter to the Biden administration at the time. “[T]he AMA is concerned that rescheduling may send a mixed message to consumers that cannabis use is safe.”