The Justice Department said that it was immediately reclassifying marijuana products that had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as lower-risk drugs and establishing a new registration process for state medical marijuana licenses. Acting attorney general Todd Blanche also said that the administration would hold a new hearing to “fully” reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act.

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Marijuana has long had the same Schedule I classification as heroin, but administration officials have sought to reclassify the drug as Schedule III, similar to some common prescription painkillers. Medical marijuana is now reclassified as Schedule III under the Justice Department’s order, which does not decriminalize marijuana for recreational use.

Some health care advocates have spent years pressing for more access to marijuana as a potential treatment, warning that restrictions on the drug made it too hard to conduct research. The administration’s moves also bring national policy closer to legitimizing state laws that have authorized medical marijuana businesses, after years of stalemates over whether states should be in compliance with federal law.

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President Joe Biden’s Justice Department in 2024 formally recommended that marijuana be reclassified as Schedule III, but the move stalled amid legal disputes and a pending Drug Enforcement Administration hearing.

Drug policy experts said that federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services were required to undertake reviews related to public health and safety, even if the pace of that work agitated Trump.