Trump Administration reclassifies marijuana for medical use to low-risk substance

The Trump Administration reclassified marijuana to a less restrictive category to make it easier to use the substance for medical purposes.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a release informing that marijuana moves from being in Schedule I to Schedule III in the classification of substances.

As acting attorney general Todd Blanche noted, this reclassification "expands patients' access to treatments and empowering doctors to make better-informed healthcare decisions."

"The Department of Justice is delivering on President Trump’s promise to expand Americans’ access to medical treatment options. This rescheduling action allows for research on the safety and efficacy of this substance, ultimately providing patients with better care and doctors with more reliable information," Blanche stressed.

Schedule III includes those substances "with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence," according to details from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on its website.

For its part, Schedule I includes all those "drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."

This decision comes after, in December last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to accelerate the reclassification of marijuana as a low-risk drug under the pretext of increasing research into the medicinal uses of this substance.