Short answer: partly, and the part matters enormously.
If you sell or use cannabis in an adult-use market, your federal position today is exactly what it was in March. If you are reading headlines that say marijuana is Schedule III now, those headlines are describing a rule that probably does not cover you.
Here is the actual order.
What happened on 28 April 2026
The Department of Justice issued a final rule, published in the Federal Register at 91 FR 22714, effective the same day it was published. The document states that it “constitutes a final order”. The operative sentence is this:
“I am hereby ordering that FDA-approved drug products containing marijuana, as well marijuana in any form covered by a state medical marijuana license, be placed in schedule III of the CSA.”
Two categories. FDA-approved drug products containing marijuana. And marijuana in any form covered by a state medical marijuana license. That is the complete list.
The sentence almost nobody quotes
The same document is explicit about everything else:
“any form of marijuana other than in an FDA-approved drug product or marijuana subject to a state medical marijuana license remains a schedule I controlled substance”
Adult-use cannabis is still Schedule I. Not reclassified, not in a grey zone, not pending. Unchanged.
This distinction is doing real work. It means two dispensaries on the same street, one medical and one recreational, can now be in genuinely different federal positions.
What else the order does
It sets up an expedited registration process under 21 CFR part 1301 for entities holding state medical marijuana licenses, so those businesses have a route to operate under federal law consistent with the Single Convention obligations the order is built on. It also adds these drugs to the list of substances that can only be imported or exported under permit.
On tax, the order is careful, and so are we. Section 280E has been the provision forcing cannabis businesses to pay tax on gross profit rather than net income, and its application follows the schedule. The final rule does not declare the matter settled. It says licensees “should consult with tax counsel regarding the applicability of Section 280E to their specific circumstances”. If the DOJ is being cautious about it, anyone telling you 280E is definitively gone is ahead of the document.
The broader rescheduling is not finished
Moving all marijuana to Schedule III is still in progress, not done. On the same day, the DEA published a notice of hearing at 91 FR 22777 on the wider rescheduling, with the hearing beginning 29 June 2026. It simultaneously withdrew the earlier August 2024 hearing notice and terminated those proceedings, restarting the process in order to move faster.
So there is a narrow change that is already in force, and a wide change that is still in a hearing process with no guaranteed outcome or date.
What this means for you
If you are a patient in a state medical program, the material you buy sits in Schedule III federally as of 28 April 2026.
If you buy in an adult-use market, nothing about your federal position has changed.
If you are watching this because of hemp products, note that this is a completely separate track. Rescheduling deals with how cannabis is classified under the Controlled Substances Act. The hemp changes arriving in November 2026 come from a different statute entirely, with its own definition and its own deadline. People conflate the two constantly and end up with the wrong answer to both.
A note on what this is
This is a plain-English summary written on 8 July 2026 and checked against the primary documents rather than against other coverage. It is not legal advice, and it is not medical advice. Rules in this area move quickly, so check the date at the top before you rely on any of it.
