The federal framework for classifying controlled substances has “fundamental flaws” causing “immense damage,” argues a paper in the journal Science by Matthew Lawrence—a former senior advisor in the DEA deputy administrator’s office (2022–2023), now at Emory University School of Law—and David Pozen of Columbia Law School.
The paper arrives as the Department of Justice and DEA move to reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) under a Trump executive order, but the authors argue rescheduling alone cannot fix a structurally broken system.
“These schedules often force regulators into a Hobson’s choice between overcriminalizing drugs, through prohibitions that predictably backfire, or overcommercializing drugs, through hands-off approaches that leave users vulnerable to corporate exploitation,” Pozen and Lawrence write.
The authors argue that U.S. drug policy relies too heavily on criminal prohibition and too little on what they call “capitalism controls”—advertising restrictions, excise taxes, limits on addictive product additives, and checks on industry lobbying—none of which appear in the CSA.
Current law limits scheduling decisions to medical considerations, excluding nonmedical benefits—religious, creative, social, recreational—and policy gains like reduced incarceration. Because of this, “no matter how wisely the DEA might implement the statute…the agency cannot reach a sensible outcome for a popular drug such as marijuana,” they write.
“The policy that must change to bring rationality to the regulation of marijuana, along with many other controlled substances, is not the schedule in which marijuana is placed but rather the scheduling system itself.”
The paper also notes that Schedule I restrictions impede the research needed to justify reclassification. Drawing on EPA pollution control practice, the authors argue scheduling should incorporate a wider range of perspectives, including from people who use or prescribe the drugs in question.
Congress should create a “harm reduction schedule” for heroin and fentanyl and a “managed market access schedule” for cannabis and psilocybin, subject to limits on potency, additives, marketing tactics, and coordinated lobbying. States with regulatory regimes meeting or exceeding federal standards could qualify firms for full federal legal status, indefinitely or for a transitional period.
The approach could also reshape international drug control treaties. At a recent congressional hearing, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) similarly criticized the scheduling system, arguing it contradicts evidence of medical potential, hinders research, and carries criminal penalties that have not effectively prevented substance misuse harms.
