Presidents and Marijuana: From the Cole Memo to Schedule III

By James Buddsey · Updated October 30, 2026

U.S. presidents have shaped marijuana policy mainly through enforcement priorities, pardons and the scheduling process: Obama’s Justice Department let state markets operate under the 2013 Cole memo, Biden pardoned federal simple-possession offenses and started the rescheduling review, and Trump’s administration moved state-licensed medical marijuana to Schedule III in April 2026. No president has legalized marijuana, because that takes an act of Congress or a full descheduling.

Editor’s note: This URL first carried a 2011 open letter from a reader to President Obama and “every politician of our nation.” The writer had spent a night in jail for less than a gram of marijuana and asked why leaders who admitted past drug use faced no consequences. We have replaced that letter with this history of how presidents have actually handled marijuana since then, as of October 27, 2026.

Can a president legalize marijuana?

No. A president cannot legalize marijuana alone, but the executive branch controls three powerful levers: how federal prosecutors use their resources, who gets pardoned and where marijuana sits in the Controlled Substances Act schedules. Congress placed marijuana in Schedule I when it passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, after the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 had “imposed taxes that effectively prohibited marijuana use,” as the Justice Department summarized in its 2024 rescheduling proposal. Changing a drug’s schedule runs through the Attorney General and the DEA, with a scientific review from HHS. Removing marijuana from the act entirely, or legalizing it, would take Congress. Our history of marijuana in the U.S. covers the century before 2009.

Timeline: presidents and marijuana policy

What did Obama do about marijuana?

Obama did not change marijuana’s legal status, but his Justice Department chose not to block state legalization, which let the first adult-use markets open in Colorado and Washington. The October 2009 Ogden memo told federal prosecutors that targeting patients in clear compliance with state law was not a good use of resources, the Telegraph reported. The June 2011 Cole memo pulled back, saying the earlier guidance was never meant to shield large commercial operations. That is the climate in which our reader wrote his letter.

After voters in Colorado and Washington legalized adult use in 2012, the August 2013 Cole memo listed eight federal priorities, such as keeping marijuana away from minors and cartels, and said the department would generally rely on “strong and effective” state regulation. The Justice Department also said it would not sue to undo those state laws, the New York Times reported. In December 2014 Obama signed the first version of the medical marijuana rider, Sec. 538 of P.L. 113-235, which bars the Justice Department from spending money to stop states from implementing medical marijuana laws. Congress has renewed it ever since; the current version is Sec. 531 of P.L. 119-74. His own past use, from the “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, is covered in our Choom Gang story, and the memos in detail in our Ogden and Cole memo history.

What did Trump do about marijuana in his first term?

Trump’s first-term Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, rescinded the Cole memo on January 4, 2018, returning enforcement decisions to individual U.S. Attorneys, while Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp. The rescission was widely expected to bring a crackdown, the Times reported, but state markets kept growing and the spending rider still shielded medical programs. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-334) took hemp, cannabis with no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC, out of the marijuana definition, which later opened the door to the intoxicating hemp market Congress is now closing.

What did Biden do about marijuana?

Biden pardoned people convicted of federal simple possession and started the formal process to move marijuana to Schedule III, but he left office before it was finished. Proclamation 10467 (October 6, 2022) pardoned simple possession under federal law and D.C. law for U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. Proclamation 10688 (December 22, 2023) added attempted possession and use, including on federal land. Neither covered state convictions, sales, intent to distribute or DUI. The same day as the first pardon, Biden asked HHS and the Attorney General to review marijuana’s schedule; HHS recommended Schedule III in August 2023, and the Justice Department published its proposal on May 21, 2024. The DEA hearing that followed stalled before the end of his term.

What has Trump done about marijuana in his second term?

In his second term, Trump signed Executive Order 14370 on December 18, 2025, directing the Attorney General to finish rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III “in the most expeditious manner,” and the April 2026 order followed. The order, titled “Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research,” also asked for work with Congress on full-spectrum CBD. On April 28, 2026, the Acting Attorney General’s final order moved FDA-approved products and marijuana held under a state medical license to Schedule III; the order says those state licensees are no longer subject to the Section 280E tax deduction ban. Adult-use marijuana is still Schedule I. A separate DEA hearing on rescheduling all marijuana is paused while the parties file new briefs, due October 29 and November 5, 2026, NORML reported. The same administration also signed the hemp redefinition in P.L. 119-37 on November 12, 2025, which pushes most intoxicating hemp products out of the legal market starting November 12 and December 11, 2026. Our rescheduling hearing coverage tracks what happens next.

Have presidents admitted using marijuana?

Yes. Barack Obama wrote about using marijuana as a young man, and our original letter writer also named Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Obama’s memoir describes it (“Pot had helped, and booze”), and he called his teenage drug use a moral failure in a 2008 forum, according to the record collected in his early-life biography. The 2011 letter’s point, that people with records still carry consequences their leaders escaped, is part of why the later pardons were limited to simple possession: they target the most common, lowest-level federal convictions.

What this means for you

If you have a federal or D.C. simple-possession conviction, you may already be pardoned under the 2022 and 2023 proclamations and can apply for a certificate through the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. State convictions are handled by your state, and many legal states run expungement programs; check your state law guide. The 2026 Schedule III order helps state-licensed medical businesses and research, but it did not make adult-use marijuana federally legal, so federal rules on guns, jobs, travel and federal land still apply; see our federal marijuana laws guide.

Presidents and Marijuana FAQ

Federal status as of October 27, 2026; the rescheduling hearing and court challenges to the April 2026 order are ongoing. General information, not legal advice.