May 2026
May 2026
Medical Marijuana Re-Scheduling Announced
The Dept of Justice’ has announced its plans to reschedule Marijuana in certain circumstances and purposes. It appears to relate primarily to marijuana used in medical research and similar purposes. This has been pursued for several years by those seeking increased use of the substance for medical objectives. In 2024, when DOJ and the Drug Enforcement Agency proposed a similar rescheduling, NAPT offered official comments to the Federal Register docket. While we didn’ t opine on the wisdom or benefits of the move, we urged the agencies to create a carve-out of sorts to ensure that FMCSA-required drug and alcohol testing regimens were not affected. This was due to our understanding that our drug testing screens for Schedule I substances that have included marijuana and that reducing it to Schedule III would take the drug out of the screening process.
We are hopeful that DOJ and FMCSA will come to a resolution on this and, in fact, Molly Mcgee Hewitt and Peter Mannella discussed this with FMCSA officials recently in our nation’ s capital. In light of this news, we have reached out to our colleagues at FMCSA to try to ascertain the extent to which they think this impact drug testing rules and practices. NAPT has reached out to other stakeholders subject to drug and alcohol testing and we will stay on top of this issue and keep you, our members, informed.
Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Places FDA-Approved Marijuana Products and Products Containing Marijuana Subject to a Qualifying State-issued License in Schedule III, Strengthening Medical Research While Maintaining Strict Federal Controls | United States Department of Justice
14 | SCHOOL-BUSRIDE. COM | MAY 2026