The legal use of cannabis has been widely debated in the United States for decades. From the 1970s war on drugs government movement to the present day, multiple states have implemented legislation.
Now, a new peer-reviewed study finds that Americans overwhelmingly support moving cannabis out of the federal government’s most restrictive Schedule I category.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, San Diego, analyzed more than 40,000 public comments submitted in response to a 2024 proposal from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reschedule cannabis under federal law.
Using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, the team also verified whether the comments were human or generated by AI. The research comprises the largest dataset collection ever created on federal cannabis policy.
The study comes on the heels of a recent policy shift in which the federal government reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, which acknowledges accepted medical use.
The War on Drugs
The war on drugs government campaign started in 1971, when President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one” and increased federal drug control efforts. The result, according to some estimates, left as many as 20,000–40,000 people in U.S. prisons or jails for cannabis-related offenses overall, including state and federal systems to date.
Since the 1970s, cannabis culture and policy reform have been actively worked to help those imprisoned for cannabis-related charges, as countries around the world have legalized the drug, including several U.S. states.
“The public isn’t just supporting reform; they’ve moved past the federal framework entirely,” says Avis Bulbulyan, CEO of SIVA Enterprises, a national cannabis holding company, in an email to The Debrief.
“When overwhelming support shows up in a public comment process that typically skews negative, it’s a strong indicator that the War on Drugs approach to cannabis has lost public credibility,” Bulbulyan said. “If this level of support showed up in any other regulatory context, the policy would already be overhauled.Cannabis is only different because it’s still tied to a legacy drug war framework.”
Bulbulyan says the public response to cannabis rescheduling in the U.S. reflects not only changing attitudes toward the war on drugs, but also an increasing amount of data that supports its medical use, economic significance, and a range of other factors.
“What’s reflected in this dataset is a legitimacy gap.Federal policy is still operating under a classification system that the public, the states, and the markets have already rejected in practice,” Bulbulyan says. “This isn’t driven by ideology, it’s being driven by firsthand experience with medical use, economic participation, and inconsistent enforcement. At the same time, platforms that amplify public voice, be it formal comment processes or broader digital discourse, have made it much harder for outdated policy narratives to hold.”
“When you have this level of alignment across different stakeholders, the issue is no longer whether reform should happen, but how long federal policy can remain out of sync before it’s forced to fully recalibrate,” he adds.
Public Support for Removing Cannabis from Schedule I
According to public comments reviewed in the recent research, 92.4% of people supported removing cannabis from Schedule I entirely. More specifically, 63.5% of respondents supported going beyond the DEA’s proposals, calling for full descheduling, while 28.9% supported the proposed Schedule III reclassification. Only 6.7% opposed any change.
“Americans showed up with their personal stories about therapy that helped them, businesses they built, consequences of cannabis use, and more,” said first author Vijay M. Tiyyala, a Johns Hopkins research assistant, in a statement.
More than half (56.7%) noted therapeutic benefits, with many describing personal experiences using cannabis for pain relief, mental health conditions, or chronic illness. Other comments focused on the growth of the economy within the industry, with 27.8% pointing to the growth of legal cannabis industries and state tax revenue. Meanwhile, 24.4% said there was a need for clearer federal regulation to improve safety.
Supporters included patients, healthcare professionals, and business owners. Many framed cannabis as already functioning like a legitimate medicine in 24 states where it is legal. One person wrote that cannabis “has saved my life,” reflecting a broader pattern of personal testimony in the public record.
“Rescheduling is a meaningful first step, but the public record shows Americans want federal policy to go even further,” said senior author John W. Ayers, vice chief of innovation at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Among respondents calling for full descheduling, the arguments extended beyond medical use. They highlighted criminal justice reform, with concerns about past incarceration for cannabis offenses, as well as broader economic and regulatory freedom. About one in five comments in this group referenced racial and social justice impacts tied to cannabis enforcement.
On the opposing side of the debate, the smaller group opposing any change focused heavily on public health concerns. All opponents cited potential health risks, while 71.4% emphasized addictiveness and 57.1% raised concerns about youth access. Some argued that rescheduling could potentially send misleading signals about safety.
Cannabis Schedule III classification
Reclassifying cannabis to Schedule III changes federal research policy, criminal justice outcomes, and state-federal legal conflicts “Schedule III is a meaningful step, but on its own, it’s incomplete.Without broader reforms around banking, adult-use legality, and criminal justice, it risks becoming a softer version of prohibition rather than a true resolution,” Bulbulyan said.
“Rescheduling improves conditions at the margins, research becomes more accessible, and operators will see relief from punitive tax treatment, but it doesn’t address the structural issues,” he added. “You still have a federally controlled substance operating inside state-legal markets without access to normal banking, without clear interstate commerce rules, and without alignment on adult-use policy.At the same time, prior criminal exposure tied to cannabis remains largely untouched.”
Bulbulyan also mentions that cannabis doesn’t fit neatly into a single-drug model because it contains multiple active compounds that may work together. Fundamentally, Schedule III is a step forward, but it doesn’t fully fix the gap between federal rules, state systems, and how people actually use it medically.
Researchers say the findings show both the scale of public engagement and the usefulness of AI tools in analyzing large volumes of civic thoughts.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.
Massive Study Shows Overwhelming Support for Federal Cannabis Reform Amid Culture Shift
The legal use of cannabis has been widely debated in the United States for decades. From the 1970s war on drugs government movement to the present day, multiple states have implemented legislation.
Now, a new peer-reviewed study finds that Americans overwhelmingly support moving cannabis out of the federal government’s most restrictive Schedule I category.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, San Diego, analyzed more than 40,000 public comments submitted in response to a 2024 proposal from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reschedule cannabis under federal law.
Using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, the team also verified whether the comments were human or generated by AI. The research comprises the largest dataset collection ever created on federal cannabis policy.
The study comes on the heels of a recent policy shift in which the federal government reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, which acknowledges accepted medical use.
The War on Drugs
The war on drugs government campaign started in 1971, when President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one” and increased federal drug control efforts. The result, according to some estimates, left as many as 20,000–40,000 people in U.S. prisons or jails for cannabis-related offenses overall, including state and federal systems to date.
Since the 1970s, cannabis culture and policy reform have been actively worked to help those imprisoned for cannabis-related charges, as countries around the world have legalized the drug, including several U.S. states.
“The public isn’t just supporting reform; they’ve moved past the federal framework entirely,” says Avis Bulbulyan, CEO of SIVA Enterprises, a national cannabis holding company, in an email to The Debrief.
“When overwhelming support shows up in a public comment process that typically skews negative, it’s a strong indicator that the War on Drugs approach to cannabis has lost public credibility,” Bulbulyan said. “If this level of support showed up in any other regulatory context, the policy would already be overhauled. Cannabis is only different because it’s still tied to a legacy drug war framework.”
Bulbulyan says the public response to cannabis rescheduling in the U.S. reflects not only changing attitudes toward the war on drugs, but also an increasing amount of data that supports its medical use, economic significance, and a range of other factors.
“What’s reflected in this dataset is a legitimacy gap. Federal policy is still operating under a classification system that the public, the states, and the markets have already rejected in practice,” Bulbulyan says. “This isn’t driven by ideology, it’s being driven by firsthand experience with medical use, economic participation, and inconsistent enforcement. At the same time, platforms that amplify public voice, be it formal comment processes or broader digital discourse, have made it much harder for outdated policy narratives to hold.”
“When you have this level of alignment across different stakeholders, the issue is no longer whether reform should happen, but how long federal policy can remain out of sync before it’s forced to fully recalibrate,” he adds.
Public Support for Removing Cannabis from Schedule I
According to public comments reviewed in the recent research, 92.4% of people supported removing cannabis from Schedule I entirely. More specifically, 63.5% of respondents supported going beyond the DEA’s proposals, calling for full descheduling, while 28.9% supported the proposed Schedule III reclassification. Only 6.7% opposed any change.
“Americans showed up with their personal stories about therapy that helped them, businesses they built, consequences of cannabis use, and more,” said first author Vijay M. Tiyyala, a Johns Hopkins research assistant, in a statement.
More than half (56.7%) noted therapeutic benefits, with many describing personal experiences using cannabis for pain relief, mental health conditions, or chronic illness. Other comments focused on the growth of the economy within the industry, with 27.8% pointing to the growth of legal cannabis industries and state tax revenue. Meanwhile, 24.4% said there was a need for clearer federal regulation to improve safety.
Supporters included patients, healthcare professionals, and business owners. Many framed cannabis as already functioning like a legitimate medicine in 24 states where it is legal. One person wrote that cannabis “has saved my life,” reflecting a broader pattern of personal testimony in the public record.
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“Rescheduling is a meaningful first step, but the public record shows Americans want federal policy to go even further,” said senior author John W. Ayers, vice chief of innovation at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Among respondents calling for full descheduling, the arguments extended beyond medical use. They highlighted criminal justice reform, with concerns about past incarceration for cannabis offenses, as well as broader economic and regulatory freedom. About one in five comments in this group referenced racial and social justice impacts tied to cannabis enforcement.
On the opposing side of the debate, the smaller group opposing any change focused heavily on public health concerns. All opponents cited potential health risks, while 71.4% emphasized addictiveness and 57.1% raised concerns about youth access. Some argued that rescheduling could potentially send misleading signals about safety.
Cannabis Schedule III classification
Reclassifying cannabis to Schedule III changes federal research policy, criminal justice outcomes, and state-federal legal conflicts “Schedule III is a meaningful step, but on its own, it’s incomplete. Without broader reforms around banking, adult-use legality, and criminal justice, it risks becoming a softer version of prohibition rather than a true resolution,” Bulbulyan said.
“Rescheduling improves conditions at the margins, research becomes more accessible, and operators will see relief from punitive tax treatment, but it doesn’t address the structural issues,” he added. “You still have a federally controlled substance operating inside state-legal markets without access to normal banking, without clear interstate commerce rules, and without alignment on adult-use policy. At the same time, prior criminal exposure tied to cannabis remains largely untouched.”
Bulbulyan also mentions that cannabis doesn’t fit neatly into a single-drug model because it contains multiple active compounds that may work together. Fundamentally, Schedule III is a step forward, but it doesn’t fully fix the gap between federal rules, state systems, and how people actually use it medically.
Researchers say the findings show both the scale of public engagement and the usefulness of AI tools in analyzing large volumes of civic thoughts.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.