Cannabis is Medicine: Rescheduling Cannabis to Schedule III
On December 18, 2025 the United States government definitively declared “Cannabis IS Medicine”. Association of Cannabinoid Specialists (ACS) has been advocating that position since our physician-founder established our non-profit.
The Executive Order, and commentary during the signing ceremony, made it very clear that the benefits we know and the potential benefits of cannabinoid medicine we are yet to discover need appropriate regulations and research funding to ensure patient safety and advancement in understanding active ingredient efficacy and safety.
In the Oval Office, President Trump and Secretary Kennedy simultaneously hailed the known benefits of Cannabidiol (CBD) and cautioned that products containing CBD should be prescribed by a physician and should be sourced from manufacturers that meet requirements the appropriate U.S. agencies will establish.
ACS wholeheartedly agrees those are measures that need to be in place to properly service the public who currently and in the future will rely on these products to treat specific ailments and conditions. By definition, for one to be categorized as a “patient” there must be a health care provider relationship.
Secretary Kennedy also noted the need for deeper research regarding proper dosing and comparison of botanically derived ingredients vs. synthetically produced ingredients. ACS has been educating health care professionals for years about known dosing regimens from available studies as well as clinical practice. However, we do agree funded research to further our knowledge is important to understanding dosing, safety and efficacy for cannabinoids, especially those that are not as well known or studied as THC and CBD.
Furthermore, ACS maintains that we should not overlook decades of research that demonstrates the safety and efficacy of THC dominant treatment. ACS also understands that a natural, individual cannabinoid molecule synthesized within the plant or synthesized outside of the plant in a lab setting can be equivalent as long as they are molecularly the same. Funded research to prove this will be welcome because as we seek to consider products that are pharmaceutical grade, their ingredients need to be ultra-pure, free from unidentified components and free from known contaminants.
Rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III should lower the barrier for research institutions and drug discovery companies to not only conduct human trials more effectively but also search for formulations, combinations, and new derivatives that prove the natural cannabinoid value and enhance their effectiveness. To re-emphasize the earlier point, those early stage and later stage studies need funding.
As a next step, ACS would like to see HHS, the FDA, the NIH and other agencies significantly budget for grants in cannabinoid research to advance and accelerate findings that could truly make America healthy again.