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The Senate has given final approval to a spending bill that would continue protecting state medical marijuana programs from federal intervention—while excluding a provision that previously advanced to block the Justice Department from rescheduling cannabis.
About a week after the appropriations legislation was negotiated on a bicameral basis and advanced through the House, the opposite chamber voted 82-15 on Thursday to send it to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Advocates and industry stakeholders were encouraged to see the rescheduling language stripped from the final deal after it had been approved by the House Appropriations Committee last year, as well as the preservation of a longstanding rider preventing DOJ from using its funds to interfere in state medical marijuana laws.
Two GOP senators filed an amendment to add the cannabis rescheduling restrictions back in this week, but it was not considered on the floor.
The bill that’s heading to Trump is part of a package that covers Fiscal Year 2026 spending for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS), Interior, Environment and Energy and Water Development.
The move comes weeks after the president issued an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to expeditiously complete the process of moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Here’s the language of the provision advanced by the House but excluded from the final bill:
“SEC. 607. None of the funds appropriated or other wise made available by this Act may be used to reschedule marijuana (as such term is defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)) or to remove marijuana from the schedules established under section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812).”
GOP senators have separately tried to block the administration from rescheduling cannabis as part of a standalone bill filed in 2023, but that proposal did not receive a hearing or vote.
Meanwhile, last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said a marijuana rescheduling appeal process “remains pending” despite Trump’s executive order.
The package also contains a rider that’s been annually renewed since 2014 barring the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws.
However, for reasons that are unclear, the rider that lists each state that would be protected excludes Nebraska.
Here’s the text of that provision:
“SEC. 531. None of the funds made available under this Act to the Department of Justice may be used, with respect to any of the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, or with respect to the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, or Puerto Rico, to prevent any of them from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
Missing from the final version is an addition to the anti-rescheduling rider the House previously included that would have authorized enhanced penalties for sales near schools and parks.
That provision specifically stipulated that the Justice Department could still enforce a section of U.S. code that calls for increased penalties for distributing cannabis within 1,000 feet of an elementary school, vocational school, college, playground or public housing unit.
However, a joint explanatory statement for the spending package also says Congress “directs the Department to appropriately enforce the Federal Drug-Free School Zones Act (2 1 U.S.C. 860), to ensure that areas with young children, including schools and playgrounds remain drug-free.”
That appears to be related to a report from the Senate committee that was released last year stating that the medical marijuana protection rider “does not explicitly preclude” U.S. attorneys from enforcing a federal statute on selling or manufacturing controlled substances in “areas with young children, including schools and playgrounds.”
The bill also maintains protections for state industrial hemp research programs under the 2014 Farm Bill:
“SEC. 530. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used in contravention of section 7606 (‘Legitimacy of Industrial Hemp Research’) of the Agricultural Act of 2014 (Public Law 113–79) by the Department of Justice or the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
Advocates may welcome the exclusion of the rescheduling provision and inclusion of medical marijuana protections in the CJS bill, but many cannabis stakeholders have protested Trump’s signing of a separate appropriations measure in November that includes provisions to ban most consumable hemp products.
However, when the president issued the marijuana rescheduling order last month, he also directed Congress to reevaluate that policy and ensure that people can continue to access full-spectrum CBD products. A federal agency will also be moving to cover such products for certain patients under Medicare and Medicaid.
Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
Kyle Jaeger is Marijuana Moment’s Sacramento-based managing editor. He’s covered drug policy for more than a decade—specializing in state and federal marijuana and psychedelics issues at publications that also include High Times, VICE and attn. In 2022, Jaeger was named Benzinga’s Cannabis Policy Reporter of the Year.
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