Poll: Cannabis Consumer Support for Trump's Marijuana Moves Plunges

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Something shifted in cannabis consumers' patience over the past two months. A new quarterly tracking poll from NuggMD and Marijuana Moment shows approval of the Trump administration's cannabis-related actions cratered between late May and mid-July, falling from a strong 73 percent down to just 48 percent. Disapproval nearly doubled, and a large chunk of respondents moved into neutral or undecided territory rather than flipping to outright opposition.

The timing isn't a coincidence. A companion survey found most cannabis consumers now doubt that full rescheduling will actually get finished this year, even as the administrative process grinds forward in Arlington, Virginia. Put those two data points together and a pattern emerges: consumers cheered the initial rescheduling push, then started noticing that moving marijuana to Schedule III for state-licensed medical programs and FDA-approved products does nothing for the recreational market where most of them actually shop. That gap between what's been done and what people expected is where this quarter's numbers took a hit.

What the New Poll Found

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NuggMD, the telehealth platform that connects patients with medical cannabis recommendations, has been running a quarterly tracking poll with Marijuana Moment to gauge how legal-market consumers feel about federal cannabis policy under the current administration. The latest wave surveyed 510 cannabis consumers living in states with legal markets between July 9 and July 15, carrying a margin of error of plus or minus 4.34 percentage points.

The results mark a sharp reversal from where things stood just seven weeks earlier. In late May, 73 percent of respondents said they approved or strongly approved of the administration's cannabis-related actions, with only 7 percent expressing disapproval. By mid-July, approval had dropped to 48 percent, disapproval nearly doubled to 13 percent, and the share of consumers who said they had no opinion or felt neutral jumped from 20 percent to 40 percent.

That 40 percent neutral bloc is worth sitting with. It's not that consumers suddenly turned against the administration's cannabis moves outright, since disapproval only ticked up six points. Instead, a huge swath of previously supportive respondents seem to have downgraded to fence-sitting. Since NuggMD began this quarterly tracking format, this is the first major reversal recorded, and it comes right as the practical limits of medical-only rescheduling have become harder to ignore.

Medical Rescheduling Isn't the Same as Legalization, and Consumers Know It

Consumer approval of Trump's cannabis actions plunged from 73% in late May 2026 to 48% by mid-July 2026, a 25-point drop reflecting growing skepticism that rescheduling will be completed this year.

Tyler Elson, NuggMD's chief marketing officer, told Marijuana Moment that rescheduling itself still polls well among cannabis voters, but there's a real split between how people feel about medical rescheduling versus the recreational legalization many of them actually want. Elson said he wasn't caught off guard by the cooling numbers, framing it as a predictable comedown after the initial enthusiasm that followed the administration's move on medical cannabis.

The poll backs up that read directly. When asked whether they'd support the administration more if marijuana were fully legalized rather than just rescheduled for medical use, 54 percent said yes, with 39 percent saying they'd support it much more and another 15 percent saying a bit more. The remaining 46 percent said their support level wouldn't change even with fuller legalization, suggesting a smaller but committed bloc who either remain skeptical of the administration's motives or have already made up their minds regardless of policy specifics.

That 54-46 split matters because it reframes what's driving the approval drop. This isn't a story about cannabis consumers souring on federal reform broadly. It's a story about a majority of them recognizing that Schedule III reclassification for state-licensed medical programs and FDA-approved products is a narrower fix than what many assumed was coming. The applause after the initial rescheduling announcement was, in hindsight, premature relative to what recreational users actually stand to gain from the current process.

Most Consumers Don't Expect Rescheduling Done This Year

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A separate NuggMD poll, fielded July 2 through July 6 among 1,063 respondents with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.01 percentage points, gets at the timeline question directly. Asked whether they expect full cannabis rescheduling to be completed by the end of the year, 52.5 percent said no. The remaining 47.5 percent said they still expect the reform to be finalized before 2025 wraps up.

That near-even split, tilted toward pessimism, lines up closely with the approval numbers from the companion tracking poll. Consumers aren't just losing enthusiasm for the administration's cannabis record in the abstract; they're specifically losing confidence that the process moving through the DEA will wrap up on any timeline resembling what's been promised. When roughly half the surveyed public that actually pays attention to this issue doubts a same-year resolution, that skepticism becomes its own political headwind, regardless of what happens procedurally.

This growing pessimism isn't happening in a vacuum. It tracks with what's actually unfolding inside the DEA's administrative process, where testimony wrapped up only last week after weeks of hearings, and where a final decision remains several procedural steps and, in all likelihood, several months away. Understanding why so many consumers doubt a 2025 finish requires looking at exactly where that process stands right now.

Inside the Stalled DEA Rescheduling Process

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Testimony in the DEA's rescheduling hearing before the administrative law judge concluded last week, wrapping up a stretch that ran from June 29 through July 15 at the agency's facility in Arlington, Virginia, under Docket No. DEA-1362. That's not the end of the process, though. Final briefs from all participants in the proceeding are due August 17. Only after those briefs are submitted does the administrative law judge issue a recommendation, which then goes to the DEA administrator, who makes the actual final call on rescheduling.

The proceeding traces back to Trump's December 18 executive order and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's order in late April moving state-licensed medical cannabis and FDA-approved cannabis products to Schedule III. That was a meaningful but narrow action. Complicating things further, a House committee voted in May to block federal officials from taking additional steps on rescheduling, injecting congressional resistance into a process that was already moving through the courts on parallel tracks. Multiple lawsuits challenge the rescheduling action itself, including one pending before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Even assuming the administrative law judge issues a favorable recommendation and the DEA administrator ultimately signs off, that wouldn't be the finish line. Litigation already in motion could delay implementation regardless of what the administrator decides, and congressional riders attached to appropriations bills have historically been used to slow or block cannabis policy changes outside the standard rulemaking process. The DEA docket is only one of several places where this could still stall.

None of this reads as cannabis consumers rejecting Trump's cannabis actions outright. What the numbers actually capture is a market waking up to the difference between medical Schedule III reclassification and the recreational legalization most legal-market consumers actually engage with day to day. The applause in May reflected optimism about where things were headed; the flatter numbers in July reflect consumers doing the math on what's actually been delivered so far.

With final briefs not due until August 17, and a judge's recommendation still needing to work its way to the DEA administrator after that, a resolution sometime later this year looks optimistic and a clean 2026 finish looks like the more realistic bet, no matter how the administration frames its progress publicly. Procedural timelines in federal administrative law rarely move as fast as political messaging suggests they will.

Anyone tracking this closely should keep an eye on more than just the DEA docket. The D.C. Circuit litigation and any appropriations riders that emerge from Congress could each independently stall implementation even if the administrator ultimately approves rescheduling. Cannabis policy in the U.S. remains a patchwork governed by state law regardless of what happens federally, so consumers and businesses alike should confirm the specific rules in their own state rather than assuming a federal rescheduling decision changes anything on the ground immediately.