Trump's AG Pick Won't Commit to Broader Marijuana Rescheduling

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Confirmation hearings usually produce careful non-answers, but the written questions that follow them can be even more revealing, since there's no camera rolling and no follow-up to dodge in real time. That's exactly what happened when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's nominee to hold the job permanently, responded to a batch of questions for the record from the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 20. Sen. Alex Padilla of California wanted to know whether the Justice Department intends to push marijuana rescheduling any further than the medical-use carve-out it already finalized. Blanche wouldn't say.

The exchange matters beyond the usual Washington theater because of its timing. It landed just as a DEA administrative hearing on broader rescheduling wrapped up its testimony phase, leaving the single biggest open question in federal cannabis policy -- what happens to adult-use marijuana -- unresolved and, for the moment, entirely dependent on a process Blanche seems in no hurry to influence. His answers to Padilla suggest a Justice Department that's comfortable keeping recreational cannabis exactly where it sits: Schedule I, with U.S. Attorneys free to keep prosecuting people who possess it on federal land.

What Padilla Asked and How Blanche Answered

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Padilla's questions to Blanche zeroed in on process, and process is where the Controlled Substances Act is supposed to be strict. Normally, rescheduling a drug requires a notice-and-comment period and an administrative hearing where evidence gets weighed on the record. Padilla asked, in essence, why DOJ skipped that when it moved certain cannabis products to Schedule III earlier this year. Blanche didn't engage with the question at all. He offered no defense of the shortcut, no explanation of the legal theory that let DOJ bypass the usual notice-and-comment machinery, nothing.

What he did say was that it's important to empower U.S. Attorneys to enforce all laws as appropriate, in accordance with the relevant facts and law, in order to keep the public safe. That's boilerplate on its face, but read against the actual question being asked, it's a tell. Padilla wasn't asking about violent crime or fentanyl trafficking; he was asking about marijuana enforcement specifically. Answering with a general endorsement of aggressive U.S. Attorney discretion, rather than any acknowledgment that cannabis enforcement might warrant a lighter touch, signals that Blanche has no problem with federal prosecutors continuing to bring cases over simple possession on national park land or other federal property.

The same pattern showed up on a narrower but practically important question about Section 280E, the tax code provision that bars cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary business expenses because the plant remains federally illegal. Padilla asked whether the relief flowing from Schedule III reclassification would extend to companies that hold both medical and adult-use licenses under state law -- a common setup in states with combined markets. Blanche's answer simply restated the general language of the statute back to the committee without addressing the dual-licensee scenario at all. For operators trying to plan around 280E, that's not an answer they can build a tax strategy on.

From Bondi to Blanche: How We Got Here

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Blanche has been running the Justice Department since April, when Trump removed Pamela Bondi as Attorney General amid reported frustration over how the Epstein files were being handled. That same month, while serving in an acting capacity, Blanche signed off on a final order moving a specific slice of cannabis products out of Schedule I and into Schedule III: FDA-approved drugs like Epidiolex, Marinol, Syndros and Cesamet, along with marijuana used under state-licensed medical programs. It was a real policy change, but a narrow one, and the order was explicit that recreational and adult-use marijuana would stay in Schedule I pending further review.

Now Blanche is up for the permanent job, not just the acting title, and that's precisely why these written questions carry weight. Senators use the questions-for-the-record process during confirmations to lock in positions on the record, ones that can be cited later if a nominee's agency drifts from what was promised. Padilla clearly wanted Blanche to either commit to expanding rescheduling further or explain why he wouldn't. Instead he got restated boilerplate and a pivot to enforcement discretion.

That's arguably the most useful data point to come out of this whole exchange. Bondi's DOJ made the April rescheduling move, but Bondi is gone. What matters now is what a Senate-confirmed, Blanche-led Justice Department does with cannabis policy over the next several years, and his answers here are the clearest signal available so far. He's not promising to build on the Schedule III move. He's not promising to leave enforcement alone either.

The DEA Hearing on Full Rescheduling

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While Blanche was fielding written questions in Washington, the DEA was running the actual formal process for full rescheduling. An administrative hearing examining whether marijuana should be reclassified more broadly, including for recreational use, opened June 29, 2026, with a deadline of July 15, 2026, to finish taking testimony. This is the hearing Padilla was referencing when he pressed Blanche on process -- the notice-and-comment, evidentiary-hearing track that DOJ arguably sidestepped when it fast-tracked the narrower medical-use reclassification back in April.

Whatever comes out of that DEA hearing will determine whether adult-use marijuana ever moves out of Schedule I, or whether it stays frozen exactly where Blanche's April order left it -- available in Schedule III form for FDA-approved products and state medical programs, but federally illegal in every other context. That's not a small distinction. Schedule I status carries banking restrictions, tax burdens under 280E, and criminal exposure that Schedule III reclassification for medical products doesn't touch for the broader adult-use industry.

There's also organized political resistance to reckon with. Forty-eight congressional Republicans have gone on record formally opposing full rescheduling, which gives DOJ political cover to slow-walk any further action even if the DEA hearing record supports moving cannabis to a lower schedule or descheduling it entirely. Blanche's refusal to commit to anything beyond the medical-use framework fits that pattern. Nothing in his written answers suggests a Justice Department eager to see the DEA hearing produce a broader reclassification, and quite a bit suggests one that would be fine watching the process stall indefinitely.

Federal Land Prosecutions and the September Guidance Shift

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Padilla's questions also pushed Blanche on a policy shift that's already affecting people on the ground: DOJ guidance issued in September 2025 that rescinded Biden-era instructions telling federal prosecutors to generally deprioritize low-level marijuana enforcement. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Wyoming was explicit about what the change meant in practice, indicating it would allow federal law enforcement to rigorously prosecute cannabis offenses occurring on federal land, including national parks that sit inside states where marijuana is legal under state law. Grand Teton and Yellowstone both fall within federal jurisdiction regardless of Wyoming's own laws, which makes this more than an academic distinction for anyone visiting or working there.

Darin Smith was confirmed by the Senate in May 2026 as the U.S. Attorney overseeing that office and, by extension, that enforcement posture. Blanche's written answer to Padilla -- that U.S. Attorneys should be empowered to enforce all laws as appropriate and in accordance with the facts and law -- lines up cleanly with the harder-edged approach Smith's office has already signaled. There's no daylight between what Wyoming prosecutors said they'd do and what the incoming Attorney General says he supports.

The practical takeaway for ordinary cannabis consumers is one that gets lost in headlines about rescheduling: state legalization has never applied on federal land, and that gap hasn't closed just because certain medical products moved to Schedule III. National parks, national forests, military installations, federal buildings and tribal land under federal jurisdiction all remain zones where possession can trigger federal charges, independent of whatever a home state allows. Anyone traveling with cannabis products, even legally purchased ones, should treat federal property as a hard line rather than a gray area.

Blanche's non-answers function as an answer of their own. A nominee who genuinely intended to push rescheduling further, or who wanted to signal a lighter enforcement touch, had every opportunity in these written responses to say so plainly. He didn't. What emerges instead is a Justice Department that isn't racing toward full rescheduling and isn't backing away from federal cannabis prosecution either -- a holding pattern dressed up as prosecutorial discretion.

For anyone operating a state-licensed business or simply carrying a purchase from a legal dispensary, the practical lesson hasn't changed much: state legalization is not federal legalization, and it never has been. Federal land, federal buildings, federal employment, and interstate transport all sit outside whatever protection a state medical or adult-use program provides, and Blanche's answers make clear that gap isn't closing anytime soon under his leadership.

The real decision point isn't anything said in a Senate questionnaire. It's the record built during the DEA's rescheduling hearing, and whatever recommendation eventually comes out of that process. Blanche can dodge questions about it for as long as senators let him, but eventually the DEA's own proceeding will force an answer that a confirmation hearing never will.