House GOP’s Rescheduling Block is the Last Gasp of a Dying Drug War

_{Filed Under: The Last Drug War}

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On September 11, 2025, the House Appropriations Committee advanced a bill that would block the Department of Justice (DOJ) from using funds to reschedule cannabis. It is a procedural move that reads like bureaucracy, but in reality, it is one of the most cynical plays of the drug war era. The GOP wants to stop the DOJ from shifting cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, a move that would finally admit what every American already knows. Cannabis is not heroin. It is not crack. It is not the menace that politicians have been selling for decades. But the party of law and order cannot let go of its favorite tool of control. So here comes the block.

This is not just about scheduling. It is about power. Schedule III would not legalize cannabis, but it would crack the door open. It would let research expand. It would let doctors talk openly without fear. It would let businesses write off expenses, access banks, and breathe a little easier. It would strip away the fiction that cannabis belongs in the same category as LSD and fentanyl. For the GOP, that is too much. Because rescheduling is not just a change in law, it is a change in narrative. And they have lived off that narrative for fifty years.

The committee’s move was led by members who have taken donations from the alcohol lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby, and law enforcement unions. The same trifecta that has bankrolled prohibition since Richard Nixon. These are not guardians of health. They are guardians of power. They know rescheduling makes prohibition harder to defend. They know it makes arrests look even more absurd. They know it makes their tough-on-crime slogans ring hollow. So they used the oldest trick in Congress. Tie cannabis reform to an appropriations bill and bury it under the language of fiscal restraint.

It is cowardice dressed up as governance. If they believed cannabis was truly a threat, they would put it to a vote on the floor. But they know where the polls stand. Two-thirds of Americans support legalization. Three-quarters support medical access. Majorities in both parties support reform. So they sneak it in the back door, hoping no one notices, hoping that headlines about budgets will drown out the reality that they are trying to freeze cannabis policy in 1971.

The hypocrisy could not be louder. These same lawmakers have no problem approving billions in subsidies for Big Pharma. They have no problem handing out tax breaks to alcohol companies. They have no problem watching opioids devastate their districts while doctors overprescribe with impunity. But cannabis, a plant that has never killed anyone, is where they draw the line. Not because it is dangerous, but because it threatens the industries that keep them in office.

This is prohibition theater. It is not about protecting children, it is not about science, it is not about safety. It is about control. The drug war has always been a tool to police communities, to target the poor, to criminalize people of color, and to keep law enforcement budgets fat. Rescheduling does not end overnight, but it chips away at the foundation. It removes one of their justifications. And that is why they are fighting so hard to stop it.

The irony is that this move comes at a moment when the drug war is already collapsing under its own weight. States from coast to coast have legalized. The cannabis market is worth tens of billions. Research from institutions like Johns Hopkins and UCLA has confirmed medical benefits in pain, PTSD, epilepsy, and anxiety. Poll after poll shows Americans are done with prohibition. The House GOP is not saving the country from a health crisis. They are fighting the tide, standing in the surf, screaming at the waves.

This is not the first time they have played this game. Appropriations riders have been used for years to block or limit cannabis reform. Sometimes they protect state medical programs. Sometimes they prevent the DOJ from interfering with state laws. This time it is the opposite. A rider designed to stop forward movement. A rider designed to tell the DOJ that even if science says reschedule, even if doctors say reschedule, even if voters say reschedule, Congress will not let them spend a dime to act. It is petty, it is transparent, and it is doomed.

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Because rescheduling will happen. Whether through the courts, through the executive branch, or through sheer cultural pressure, cannabis will not stay in Schedule I forever. The evidence is too overwhelming. The hypocrisy is too glaring. The reality is too obvious. Blocking it today only makes the collapse uglier tomorrow. But that is the GOP strategy. Delay, obstruct, cling to the wreckage of a narrative that is slipping through their fingers.

The cultural cost of this delay is real. Veterans waiting for treatment. Patients are stuck on opioids because doctors cannot prescribe cannabis. Entrepreneurs are locked out of banks and insurance. Small businesses are crushed by tax codes that treat them like cartels. Communities of color are still targeted by police using cannabis as a pretext. Every day that prohibition survives, those harms continue. The House GOP owns that harm now. They voted for it. They chose it. And no speech about fiscal restraint will wash the blood off their hands.

There is also the global angle. Countries like Germany and Canada are moving forward with reform. The United States, once a leader in setting global drug policy, is now the outlier. Blocking rescheduling makes the U.S. look like a dinosaur, clinging to laws that the rest of the world sees as failed experiments. Investors will move their money elsewhere. Scientists will take their research elsewhere. Patients will look at America and wonder how a nation that advertises whiskey during football games can still pretend cannabis is too dangerous to handle.

This is not just embarrassing. It is dangerous for the future of the American cannabis industry. Every year of delay hands the advantage to global competitors. Every year of delay keeps small operators in legal limbo. Every year of delay lets stigma fester while corporations circle, waiting to swoop in once reform finally comes. The GOP is not just blocking rescheduling; they are kneecapping American cannabis on the world stage.

And yet, there is a strange optimism in this ugliness. Because desperation is the last act of power. This move shows the prohibitionists know they are losing. They know the culture has shifted. They know the war is over, even if they refuse to admit it. This is their last gasp. Their final attempt to freeze time. And it will fail. Just like every other desperate attempt to keep cannabis locked in the shadows.

So remember this vote. Remember who stood in the way of reform. Remember who chose donors over patients, industries over communities, fear over truth. When cannabis finally moves to Schedule III or beyond, when the walls finally crack, these names should not be forgotten. They should be written into the history of prohibition alongside Nixon and Harry Anslinger. Politicians who lied, stalled, and obstructed until reality forced their hand.

The drug war did not end because politicians had a change of heart. It is ending because people demanded it. After all, culture shifted because truth broke through the lies. The House GOP can block rescheduling in committee, but they cannot block it in reality. The plant is here. The culture is here. The truth is here. And no appropriations rider will erase that.

So what do we do? We remember who sold us out. We remember who stood in the way of science and freedom. And we fight back the only way that matters, by refusing to be silenced, by refusing to let prohibitionists write the story, and by building the culture louder and stronger until their lies collapse under the weight of truth.

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