White House Drug Czar Clarifies That Marijuana Is ‘Still Illegal’ Following Trump Administration’s Rescheduling Move

The Trump administration’s drug czar is clarifying that move to federally reschedule marijuana doesn’t make cannabis broadly legal.

“It’s still illegal,” Sara Carter Bailey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), said in an interview with Newsmax this week. “Executive-level Schedule III allows for doctors and research and for medicine, for medicinal purposes.”

She was answering a reporter’s question about the potency of marijuana products during an interview about the administration’s new National Drug Control Strategy.

That document, released this week, raises alarm about “high-potency” marijuana and expresses concerns that international cartels and crime groups “exploit” state cannabis legalization laws. It also discusses the forthcoming federal recriminalization of hemp THC products that is scheduled for later this year under a law signed by President Donald Trump.

In the Newsmax interview, Carter went on to say that “we also have a problem out there with illicit marijuana grows.”

“These are grows that are connected directly to the [Chinese Communist Party], grows connected directly to Sinaloa cartel and [Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación], and we’ve seen the potency go as high as 90 percent in some products,” she said. “So we are watching that. We’re monitoring that, and our law enforcement community is on board. They are targeting these illicit growth and getting them out of our country.”

“This is what’s most important. We should not allow adversarial states or adversaries to be purchasing farmland in the United States, even through straw men, to grow illicit marijuana and to not only poison our people, but poison our soil,” Carter said. “Our greatest resource is our nation’s people. That is the greatest resource, and we are here to protect them, and President Trump is at the forefront of that fight.”

Under an order signed last month by U.S. Acting Attorney General Blanche, marijuana products regulated by a state medical cannabis license immediately moved to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), as did any marijuana products that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Congressional Research Service published a report on marijuana rescheduling last week explaining that while certified patients who possess medical cannabis from state-licensed dispensaries now have certain protections under Schedule III, the industry as a whole isn’t “immediately” considered to be in “full compliance” with federal law.

“Thus, the order appears to authorize end users to possess marijuana for medical use without a CSA-compliant prescription,” the congressional report said. As it concerns non-end users participating in the state-legal cannabis industry, however, “the final order may make it possible for them to comply with the CSA, but may not bring them into full compliance with federal law.”

Prior to being confirmed as drug czar, Carter voiced support for medical cannabis, while stating that she doesn’t have a “problem” with legalization, even if she might not personally agree with the policy.

“I don’t have any problem if it’s legalized and it’s monitored,” she said in 2024. “I mean, I may have my own issues of how I feel about that, but I do believe that cannabis for medicinal purposes and medical reasons is a fantastic way of handling—especially for people with cancer and other illnesses, you know—of handling the illness and the side effects of the medication and those illnesses. So I’m not saying we’ve gotta make it illegal.”