June 29, 2026
The DEA opens its hearing on marijuana rescheduling this morning, June 29, in Arlington. This isn't the start of the debate. It's the part that decides how far an already-issued order gets to reach.
Here's the cannabis rescheduling update that matters if you sell to dispensaries: the federal government has already split the industry into two tax brackets, and the hearing that begins today will decide whether the rest of it gets to cross over.
On April 23, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order moving two narrow categories of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III: FDA-approved drug products containing marijuana, and marijuana sold under a qualifying state medical license (DOJ). That order is in effect now. It was not a proposal.
Everything else stayed put. Adult-use marijuana, and any product not tied to an FDA approval or a state medical license, remains in Schedule I (Federal Register). So a medical dispensary in Florida and a recreational shop in Michigan now sit on opposite sides of the Controlled Substances Act, even when they stock similar products.
The reason this is a business story and not just a legal one comes down to a tax code section. Schedule I and II operators cannot deduct ordinary business expenses under IRS Section 280E. Schedule III operators can.
For the medical-licensed dispensaries swept into Schedule III, that change is the difference between an effective tax rate north of 70% and something a normal retailer would recognize (Foley Hoag). A prospect who was cash-starved in March may have real budget by Q4. That's not legal advice, and operators should confirm their own status with counsel, but it changes who on your list can actually buy.
Today's hearing covers the bigger question the April order left open: whether marijuana broadly, including adult-use, should move to Schedule III through formal rulemaking (Gibson Dunn). It was expedited after President Trump's December 18, 2025 executive order telling the Attorney General to finish rescheduling "in the most expeditious manner."
The schedule itself is tight:
A witness list weighted that way tells you where the agency expects to land. It's not a guarantee.
Until the broader rule is final, your dispensary list is really two lists. State-medical-licensed operators may have new margin and a cleaner banking story. Adult-use-only shops are still operating under Schedule I economics. Segmenting your outreach by license type is no longer optional. It's the difference between pitching a buyer with budget and one still losing most of their revenue to 280E.
That's exactly the field our records carry: license status and type, pulled from state regulators and refreshed weekly, so you're not guessing which side of the line a prospect is on.
Is marijuana now Schedule III? Partly. Since April 23, 2026, FDA-approved marijuana products and state-medical-licensed marijuana are Schedule III. Adult-use marijuana is still Schedule I (DOJ).
When will full rescheduling be decided? The hearing runs June 29 to July 15, 2026, after which the DEA proceeds toward a final rule. No statutory deadline guarantees a date (DEA).
Does Schedule III make marijuana federally legal? No. It eases research access and lifts the 280E tax penalty for covered operators, but state-licensed sales remain federally controlled.
Knowing which of your dispensary prospects just crossed into Schedule III starts with knowing their license. See verified, license-checked dispensary contacts across six states. Free preview here.
Holden Leads
Holden Leads tracks every licensed dispensary across California, Michigan, Illinois, and Massachusetts — cross-referenced weekly against official state regulatory databases and enriched with phone numbers, emails, websites, and social profiles. Stop manually hunting for contact info. Get the full list today.