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A Dangerous Retreat: Why Reclassifying Cannabis Is a Profound Mistake

by Ram ben Ze’ev



A Dangerous Retreat: Why Reclassifying Cannabis Is a Profound Mistake
A Dangerous Retreat: Why Reclassifying Cannabis Is a Profound Mistake

Yesterday, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order directing the United States Attorney General to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under federal law, placing it in the same regulatory category as drugs such as Tylenol with codeine. As a lifelong Republican, a committed GOP voter, and someone who proudly supported President Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, I write this with genuine disappointment. This decision represents a serious misjudgement on public health, mental health, and social stability—and it is not good for America.


For years, advocates of legalisation have insisted that cannabis is benign, even therapeutic, and that opposition is rooted in outdated fear rather than evidence. That argument might have carried superficial weight if we were still talking about the cannabis of the 1960s and 1970s. We are not. What is widely available today bears little resemblance to the low-potency marijuana remembered by an older generation. Modern cannabis is engineered for strength, routinely reaching THC concentrations that were once unimaginable. In many cases it is further altered with concentrates, synthetic additives, or contaminants whose effects are poorly understood. The result is not relaxation, but unpredictability.



Loud and credible voices have warned for years about where this path leads. Alex Berenson has persistently highlighted research linking high-potency cannabis to psychosis, mental illness, and violence, particularly among young men. Charles Fain Lehman, once sympathetic to libertarian arguments, has documented how the second-order effects of legalisation have validated sceptics rather than optimists—rising disorder, public health strain, and the normalisation of harm. In Britain, Peter Hitchens has long argued that de facto decriminalisation has already failed, leaving communities exposed to a dangerous drug while the state looks the other way. Patrick Cockburn has written with painful honesty about his own son’s mental illness and the role cannabis may have played in triggering it. Journalists and campaigners such as Mercy Muroki, Kathy Gyngell, and Mary Brett have consistently warned that the human cost is borne by families, not by ideologues.


At the centre of this issue is psychosis. The evidence that heavy and or early cannabis use can trigger psychotic episodes, exacerbate schizophrenia, and cause long-term cognitive damage is no longer marginal. Emergency rooms see it. Mental health services are overwhelmed by it. Families live with it. Reclassifying cannabis sends a clear signal that the state considers this drug broadly safe, manageable, and medically routine. That signal is false—and dangerous.


What makes this decision particularly troubling is its contradiction of President Trump’s otherwise commendable focus on health and mental health. The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services suggested a renewed seriousness about chronic illness, neurological harm, and the failures of modern public health orthodoxy.



Against that backdrop, loosening the federal stance on a drug increasingly associated with mental breakdown is incoherent. It looks less like principled reform and more like a political concession in the lead-up to the midterm elections.


This is not a question of compassion or freedom. It is a question of responsibility. Legalisation and reclassification do not occur in a vacuum; they reshape norms, behaviour, and risk. They expand access, increase use, and normalise a substance that we know can profoundly damage minds—especially young ones. To proceed regardless is not bold. It is reckless.


I remain a Trump supporter, and I remain committed to the broader vision he has articulated for America. But loyalty does not require silence. On this issue, the administration has caved where it should have stood firm. Reclassifying cannabis is a retreat from evidence, from caution, and from the duty to protect the most vulnerable. That is not conservative. It is unconscionable.



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