“The rush to provide senior citizens with medical marijuana will require considerable legal, scientific and commercial infrastructures, which, in an ideal world, would avoid repeating historical mistakes by forming with clarity and coordination.”
By Emily Dufton
Everyone knows that last month was historic for cannabis. Big changes are afoot with medical marijuana’s rescheduling and federal Medicare coverage for hemp.
But what many have misunderstood is why.
For the first time in 56 years, a form of marijuana has finally escaped Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Cannabis was placed there in 1970, and despite repeated prior legalization attempts—including in the 40 states that legalized medical access and the 24 states that legalized recreational use—for over half a century cannabis remained stubbornly defined as a substance with no accepted medical use and high potential for abuse.
Until last month, when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche moved medical marijuana into Schedule III, a category of drugs with some accepted medical use and “moderate-to-low” potential for dependence.
This rescheduling includes medical products currently legal in 40 states and Washington, D.C., and the four cannabis products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These products are now all Schedule III, which means dispensary owners aren’t subject to heavy tax burdens like 280E.
Medical marijuana just became a much more legitimate industry.
But what makes this shift even more historic is who it’s intended to benefit: senior citizens.
Previous legalization movements all centered on young adults. The decriminalization movement of the 1970s painted cannabis as a maturing baby boomer’s “adult right.” Activists in the 1980s and ’90s argued that medical marijuana was necessary for young men struggling with HIV/AIDS. And in the 2010s and 2020s, the social justice movement promoted legalization as a means to end the mass incarceration of young Black men.
Recriminalization movements have been equally concerned with the effect of pot on kids. The zero-tolerance, “Just Say No” drug war of the Reagan 1980s was launched explicitly to save the children. And intoxicating hemp products, accidentally legalized in the 2018 Farm Bill, are scheduled to be made illegal again this November, after opponents warned that they have sent too many children to the emergency room.
But the Trump administration’s vocal support for rescheduling medical marijuana is based on something new: concern for the 18 percent of Americans—almost 1 in 6—who are over the age of 65, a number expected to rise to almost a quarter of the population by 2050.
A new industry is rising to serve this demographic. Howard Kessler, of the Commonwealth Project, is one of the most vocal proponents of seniors’ medical marijuana use.
A video from the Project (which Trump reposted on Truth Social last September) seemed to address the president directly. “You can revolutionize senior health care,” the narrator begins, before listing cannabis’s positive effects on pain, stress, and sleep. The video closes by promising that, “You will deliver the most important senior health initiative of the century, cementing your legacy and transforming aging care. Millions everywhere will thank you.”
As a drug historian, I did not see this coming. Medical marijuana’s historic rescheduling is being praised as a win for senior citizens, a demographic that almost never entered the conversation before.
For years, prohibitionists argued that today’s cannabis products are too strong, a far cry from yesterday’s tamer, weaker weed. But with these new senior-directed products, this actually is your grandma’s marijuana. The baby boomers who fought for decriminalization in the 1970s are getting it, in 2026, with federal funding from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Director Dr. Mehmet Oz.
By centering senior health and wellness, Kessler’s campaign successfully upended decades of drug policy concerns over kids, and this shift will have major impacts on both legalization and re-criminalization campaigns. The attitude of “save the children” that changed laws before might not work when marijuana’s intended users are senior citizens.
But a backlash could form just as quickly if unregulated “medical” products start hurting Grandma.
That’s why, as a historian, I’m also concerned that this project was rolled out quickly with vocal support but little coordination. There’s a distinct lack of clarity about how this transformation will work.
Given marijuana’s half-century in Schedule I, the science behind cannabis medicine is still inchoate. It’s also not entirely clear who’s in charge, since numerous entities are involved with the shift, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, FDA, Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service, as well as legislative, regulatory and law enforcement bodies at the state and local level.
And so far no one has addressed its impact on the hemp/marijuana divide. A lack of coordination doomed previous legalization campaigns, and it may harm rescheduling if rolled out in a chaotic manner.
At the moment, the outlook doesn’t look promising. As Dr. Gillian Schauer, executive director of the Cannabis Regulators Association, told NPR, “We have been implementing policy that’s far ahead of where the science is… It’s like we’re flying the plane blind while building it without parts.”
Last month’s rescheduling was historic, but it’s also incomplete. The rush to provide senior citizens with medical marijuana will require considerable legal, scientific and commercial infrastructures, which, in an ideal world, would avoid repeating historical mistakes by forming with clarity and coordination.
It may not be happening yet, but it’s what Grandma deserves.
Emily Dufton is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America and Addiction, Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America’s Forgotten War on Drugs.
