The story of federal psychedelic policy over the last few years has been, in many ways, the story of two tracks running parallel — and occasionally colliding. On one track: a growing body of clinical research, bipartisan political support, and patient advocates pushing for therapeutic access to psilocybin, MDMA, ibogaine, and other psychedelic compounds. On the other track: a federal Schedule I classification that has treated these substances as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse — a classification that, as we’ve argued before, is increasingly difficult to defend with a straight face. So for those who have been following along here for a bit, our take on the April 2026 DEA rescheduling order may feel familiar and a little like déjà vu — federal signals that seem meaningful, caveats that keep the champagne corked, and a “we’ll believe it when we see it” posture that industry veterans have learned the hard way. But this time, I think the signals are different enough for us to take a fresh look through rose-colored glasses.
We don’t think there is any confusion that the DEA’s April 2026 final order does not cover psilocybin, MDMA, ibogaine, or any other psychedelic substances. Those substances are not marijuana. Their Schedule I classification remains unchanged. But — and this is the same significant “but” we identified in our discussion of what the order means for hemp — it matters a great deal for the psychedelic industry anyway. The rescheduling order demonstrates, in a concrete and legally operative way, that the federal government is capable of moving substances out of Schedule I when the evidence, as well as political and public opinion, support the decision. The DEA’s willingness to use its existing authority to reschedule marijuana-derived medications and state-licensed medical marijuana programs is a proof of concept. The mechanism exists. The political will to use it appears to be materializing.
A Tale of Two Treaties
We wrote at the end of last week about how the manner in which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche achieved rescheduling could dictate what comes next for other Schedule I substances like adult-use/recreational cannabis. A quick summary for our purposes here may be helpful (although, I’d encourage you to read the entirety of the post):
- “DOJ acted under 21 U.S.C. § 811(d)(1) — which authorizes the attorney general to control a substance under the schedule deemed most appropriate to satisfy U.S. obligations under international treaties in effect on October 27, 1970, including the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs”
- “This provision permits the attorney general to issue a scheduling order ‘without regard to’ the findings and notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures that ordinarily apply under the CSA”
- In other words, Blanche bypassed the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment requirements and the Controlled Substances Act’s ordinary scientific-findings prerequisites by invoking his authority under 21 U.S.C. § 811(D)(1) vis-à-vis the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
This is where the path for psychedelics may diverge from marijuana. The Single Convention does not apply to psychedelics. The Single Convention was deliberately scoped to drugs with cannabis-, coca-, and opium-like effects. Later, as psychedelic drugs emerged and gained popularity, an entirely separate treaty was negotiated and signed in Vienna in 1971 to cover them: the Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, mescaline, and most other psychedelics are scheduled under that 1971 Convention, not the Single Convention.
Why does this matter for potential rescheduling of psychedelics? The legal shortcut Blanche used to fast-track marijuana rescheduling — 21 U.S.C. § 811(d)(1) — specifically authorizes the attorney general to act without normal notice-and-comment rulemaking requirements in order to satisfy U.S. obligations under international treaties “in effect on October 27, 1970.” The 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances — the one governing most psychedelics — was signed in February 1971 and didn’t enter into force until 1976. It almost certainly does not qualify as a basis under Section 811(d)(1) because it was not an international treaty in effect on October 27, 1970. So what? The treaty-authority fast track that allowed Blanche to bypass the Administrative Procedure Act and issue the marijuana order immediately is very likely not available for psychedelic rescheduling.
At first glance, that sounds like bad news. It isn’t — or at least, it isn’t only bad news. It just means that psychedelic rescheduling has to find a different avenue. Rescheduling could certainly proceed under the ordinary Section 811(a)/(b) process — standard APA notice-and-comment rulemaking grounded in HHS scientific and medical findings, not treaty obligations. That process is slower and requires more procedural steps. But it also isn’t constrained by the treaty language that may ultimately limit what the marijuana rescheduling order can accomplish. A psychedelic rescheduling order built on HHS scientific findings and the APA record would rest on a broader and arguably more durable legal foundation.
Even If Not a Roadmap, Could Marijuana Rescheduling Still Be a Guide?
The rescheduling order also matters because of the record it creates. The arguments developed in the marijuana rescheduling process — about therapeutic benefit, about appropriate scheduling criteria, about the inadequacy of Schedule I for substances with accepted medical applications — are directly applicable to any future psychedelic rescheduling debate.
When HHS evaluated marijuana for rescheduling in 2023, one of the questions it had to answer was whether the substance had an “accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” The answer — built partly on decades of research conducted despite Schedule I restrictions, and partly on real-world evidence from state medical programs — was that it does. For psychedelics, the same question will eventually need to be answered. The clinical research currently underway, often at significant cost and logistical difficulty imposed by Schedule I, is how that answer gets built. The rescheduling of marijuana-derived medications proves the loop can be broken.
HHS’s 2023 scientific and medical evaluation — which concluded that state-licensed medical marijuana and FDA-approved marijuana medications have accepted medical use and a lower potential for abuse than Schedule I substances — laid the groundwork for rescheduling, even if the final order ultimately proceeded under the treaty-authority shortcut rather than the standard eight-factor rulemaking process. For a future psychedelic rescheduling proceeding, which we think would most likely go through the ordinary Section 811(a)/(b) path, that eight-factor HHS analysis would be the critical foundation. For psychedelics, that record is being built right now. The FDA’s Breakthrough Therapy designations for psilocybin and MDMA — which require a threshold finding of preliminary clinical evidence of substantial improvement over existing therapies — are an early but meaningful marker that the evidence is moving in the right direction. They are not an “accepted medical use” finding under the CSA. But they are the kind of scientific foundation that a future HHS evaluation would build on, in the same way that decades of state medical program data and clinical research built the foundation for the marijuana finding in 2023.
The difference, of course, is that marijuana rescheduling covered substances already in FDA-approved medications (Epidiolex, Marinol) and operating under established state medical programs. Most psychedelics don’t yet have a completed FDA approval — although psilocybin and MDMA are arguably not far from that threshold. The directive of Section 5 of Trump’s April executive order is clearly designed to create institutional pressure to move quickly once Phase 3 data is in hand.
State medical marijuana programs were a meaningful component of the HHS evaluation that supported the 2026 rescheduling order. Real-world evidence — safety outcomes, regulatory compliance data, patient access records — gave HHS something concrete to point to. While we have yet to see the broad based acceptance of state legal psychedelic programs like we have in the cannabis industry, psychedelic programs seem to have big mo on their side. Oregon and Colorado have already enacted state-legal psilocybin programs — regulated service center models where trained facilitators administer psilocybin to adults in supervised settings. Oregon’s and Colorado’s programs could generate comparable evidence about psilocybin’s safety profile and therapeutic outcomes in supervised settings. Other states are actively developing frameworks. On its face, this looks a lot like the early days of state medical marijuana: state-level access outpacing federal law, operating in an enforcement gray zone, and building regulatory infrastructure that eventually contributes to federal reform.
There’s also a broader framing point worth making. For years, the federal government’s differing treatment of marijuana and psychedelics felt inconsistent — we wrote about that divide in 2023. The federal government now appears to be converging those tracks. Approved medications and state-licensed medical marijuana have a rescheduling pathway. Psychedelics have a Right to Try pathway, a presumptive rescheduling trigger when clinical trials are complete, and $50 million in federal support for state programs. The logic of the policy is becoming coherent in a way it wasn’t before.
The Stumbling Blocks
I’m optimistic, but I’m also a cynical litigator. And the cannabis analogy has real limits. Marijuana’s path from state-legal medical program to federal rescheduling took the better part of three decades and ultimately required FDA-approved medications — not just state programs — to clear the “accepted medical use” bar. And even then, rescheduling seemed to drag along even amidst clear direction from the president about what he wanted to see happen. The phrase fits and starts comes to mind.
Additionally, psychedelics don’t have the same broad-based support among the American public that cannabis now enjoys. According to a 2025 Gallup survey, 64% of Americans support legal marijuana. Psychedelics don’t measure up. According to a 2025 RAND survey only 23% of American adults support the legal use of psilocybin mushrooms, and support for MDMA and LSD was closer to 10%. Patience is a virtue though, and the public support for marijuana was built over decades of state-level reform and cultural normalization. According to RAND, the level of public backing for psilocybin resembles where marijuana stood in Gallup surveys from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s — right before California legalized medical marijuana in 1996 and public support began accelerating rapidly. Whether psychedelics follow that same trajectory is an open question.
So, What Does It All Mean?
Unfortunately, I don’t have a crystal ball. But the flurry of movement at the federal level — including rescheduling and the president’s April 18 executive order directed at psychedelics — is a legitimate cause for excitement for industry advocates and stakeholders. The April 2026 rescheduling order and the April 18 executive order together represent the most coherent federal policy statement on psychedelics we’ve seen. Indeed, in the last month, the president has directed FDA and DEA to establish a Right to Try pathway for psychedelic drugs, allocated $50 million in federal funding to states developing psychedelic treatment programs, formalized data-sharing among HHS, FDA, and the VA, and established a conditional rescheduling pipeline when a Schedule I substance successfully completes Phase 3 trials for a serious mental health disorder. Combine this with the potential roadmap from marijuana rescheduling and there’s a lot to look forward to.
