"You're going to get the rescheduling done, right, please?" — Trump publicly calls out his own DOJ for slow-walking cannabis

Four months after signing the executive order directing his Attorney General to expeditiously reschedule marijuana, President Donald Trump stood in the Oval Office on Saturday and — on camera, at a signing ceremony for a different drug policy — publicly asked his own Justice Department when they planned to do what he told them to do.

"You're going to get the rescheduling done, right, please?"

The quote landed in the middle of Trump's remarks on the psychedelics executive order he signed Saturday. It wasn't in the script. He wrote the cannabis EO. His own DOJ isn't moving.

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The timeline of inaction

• December 18, 2025 — Trump signs an executive order directing the Attorney General to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III "in the most expeditious manner."
• January–March 2026 — The DEA's administrative hearing on the proposed rescheduling rule remains suspended. Chief Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney halted proceedings in late 2024 pending an interlocutory appeal on procedural questions. No new ALJ has been appointed to take over.
• April 7, 2026 — Congressional testimony highlights industry frustration with the stalled process.
• April 10, 2026 — The DEA confirms in a federal court filing that the marijuana rescheduling appeal process "remains pending." No procedural movement since Trump's order.
• April 10, 2026 — A Trump advisor tells Marijuana Moment that someone in the administration is "holding up" cannabis rescheduling.
• April 18, 2026 — At the psychedelics EO signing, Trump publicly asks his DOJ to finish the job on cannabis.

Four months. Zero movement. One on-camera complaint from the president who wrote the order.

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The Bondi problem

Attorney General Pam Bondi has been silent on cannabis rescheduling since taking office. As Florida's Attorney General from 2011 to 2019, she was one of the country's most vocal opponents of marijuana legalization. She campaigned against Florida's 2014 medical marijuana amendment — which lost narrowly — and was a consistent critic of state-level legalization efforts.

That history is not secret. It was well known when Trump nominated her. And it is, by all available evidence, the reason rescheduling has not moved.

Executive orders cannot override the Administrative Procedure Act. The rescheduling process requires an administrative law judge, a hearing, a final rule, and a Federal Register publication. Each of those steps requires the Department of Justice — through the DEA — to actually take action. Nothing in Trump's December order forced those steps to happen on a timeline.

The president appears to now be discovering this in public.

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The contrast that makes it worse

Saturday's psychedelics executive order was not a status update. It shipped with:

• $50 million in ARPA-H matching funds for state programs
• Three FDA Priority Vouchers to be issued to Breakthrough-designated psychedelics within one week
• The first U.S. ibogaine Investigational New Drug clearance — announced on the spot
• A Right to Try pathway expansion for Schedule I substances
• Rescheduling review automatically triggered by Phase 3 completion

Trump's cannabis EO shipped with none of those mechanisms. It was a directive. Psychedelics got a machine.

| | Cannabis EO (Dec 2025) | Psychedelics EO (Apr 2026) | |---|---|---| | Days since signing | 121 | 0 | | Funding attached | None | $50M | | FDA tooling | None | Priority Vouchers | | Operational announcement at signing | None | Ibogaine IND | | Confirmed next step within one week | None | 3 vouchers issued | | Public movement to date | None | Ongoing |

The industry noticed. Cannabis stocks — including the AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF ($MSOS) — have traded sideways through the entire four-month window as the promise of 280E relief and improved capital access remains frozen behind DOJ inaction.

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What Trump can actually do

The options for accelerating cannabis rescheduling from the executive branch are narrower than most people assume:

1. Appoint a new ALJ. The fastest procedural move is DOJ naming a replacement administrative law judge and resuming the suspended hearing. That single action has not happened in four months under an order demanding expedience.

2. Instruct DEA to bypass the hearing. The DEA could theoretically move to final rulemaking without completing the hearing. Legal experts consider this high-risk — any final rule issued without a proper hearing would almost certainly face immediate litigation and could be vacated.

3. Replace or reassign personnel. The president could signal his displeasure through staffing changes at DOJ or DEA. He has not done so. On Saturday, he asked.

4. Issue a more forceful EO. A second executive order with specific deadlines, funding directives, and procedural instructions (along the lines of the psychedelics order) would put on-record pressure on the agencies. The administration has not indicated this is planned.

The path of least resistance — the one the industry has been hoping for since December — is option one. Four months in, it still hasn't happened.

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What Schedule III would actually change

For businesses currently operating in state-legal cannabis markets, rescheduling to Schedule III would:

• Eliminate Section 280E — the tax code provision preventing cannabis businesses from deducting normal business expenses. Industry analysts estimate this alone would unlock billions in cash flow annually.
• Ease clinical research restrictions on cannabis and cannabinoids, lowering barriers to FDA-supervised drug development.
• Formally recognize cannabis's accepted medical use — a federal acknowledgment that would have downstream effects in healthcare, employment, and insurance contexts.

What it would not change:

• Interstate commerce remains prohibited
• Full banking access still requires separate legislation (the SAFER Banking Act or equivalent)
• State program structures remain untouched
• Recreational cannabis remains entirely state-governed

Schedule III is not legalization. It's a tax and research fix, with real dollars attached.

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The bottom line

The president wrote the executive order. His own Department of Justice is not moving. And on Saturday, in front of cameras, Trump did the only thing he appears able to do about it: he asked them to please finish.

The psychedelics executive order that shared Saturday's signing ceremony was, among other things, a demonstration of what a functioning drug policy EO looks like — funding, tooling, operational announcements, coordinated agency action on day one.

Cannabis got a directive in December. In April, it has the same directive and nothing else.

The next procedural step — a new ALJ, a resumed hearing, or a signal that the DOJ actually intends to execute — remains the single most consequential unknown in federal cannabis policy.