Stone and Spicer Talked Past the Marijuana Rescheduling Split

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche moved state-licensed medical marijuana to Schedule III on April 22, 2026.

Adult-use cannabis stayed on Schedule I. That split is the part Sean Spicer and Roger Stone never pinned down when they argued marijuana rescheduling on The Sean Spicer Show.

Spicer Smelled the Street and Stone Counted Taxes

Spicer, Trump’s former White House press secretary, treated the file as a culture fight. He said the president has been “very clear” in his personal habits: “No drugs, no alcohol, no smoking, no tattoos.” He asked Stone why “Donald Trump, of all people, is going to declassify pot.”

Then he went to the sidewalk. He said that walking through Washington or New York, he was done with the odor of urine and cannabis on the block, and he did not know why anyone would want to decriminalize it, “never mind why Donald Trump would want to do it.”

I’m tired of smelling urine and pot on every single block. It’s disgusting, and I don’t know why we’d want to decriminalize it, never mind why Donald Trump would want to do it.

Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary, on The Sean Spicer Show

Stone did not defend public smoking. He said public use “should be illegal, just like carrying an open container of alcohol is illegal.” He still wanted the plant moved off Schedule I. Those are two different jobs, and the show treated them as one.

Spicer later told journalist Mark Halperin that Trump advancing cannabis reform “is not going to happen. That will not happen.” If he meant full federal legalization, he still has a point. If he meant no schedule change at all, the April order already cut against him.

A Cancer Ward and 40 State Laws

Stone has been a senior campaign aide to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Trump. He argued from states’ rights first. “Since 2016 when he got into politics, Donald Trump has always taken the position that this is a states’ rights issue,” he said. “It makes no sense to have federal law and state law contradict each other.”

He then made it personal. His father used medical cannabis during cancer treatment, Stone said, and the plant helped him eat and cut pain. “So I believe this has a medicinal value, based on my own experience.”

Forty states have now legalized some form of cannabis, so all I want the president to do is to move it from a Schedule I drug, where it’s classified with heroin, which is ridiculous, to be a Schedule III drug, where you can solve the banking issues in the states where it’s legal, you can solve the taxation issues.

Roger Stone, longtime Trump advisor, on The Sean Spicer Show

The tax half of that pitch was the part federal law could actually touch. Section 280E of the tax code blocks ordinary business deductions for firms that sell Schedule I or II drugs, other than the cost of goods sold. A move to Schedule III is how that bar falls, because moderate to low dependence potential is how DEA describes Schedule III substances, not Schedule I.

Banking is the half Stone bundled in and oversold. Cannabis remains a controlled substance even on Schedule III, and many banks still will not take the deposits. Public-use rules stay with cities and states. Spicer’s nose was never going to be a DEA scheduling factor.

Nine Republican lawmakers had already urged the attorney general to reject what they called a “corrupt and flawed” rescheduling proposal. Reform groups wanted the plant taken off the schedules entirely. Trump, on the campaign trail, had endorsed a Schedule III move, then later said a decision would come within weeks, with less edge in his voice.

April’s Order Moved Medical Cannabis Only

The first hard action was not the talk show. On December 18, 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled “Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research,” telling the attorney general to move on medical access and research, not adult-use legalization. Blanche then used a treaty-compliance path in the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. § 811(d), instead of waiting out the stalled May 2024 notice that would have tried to move the whole plant.

The Justice Department’s final order put two buckets into Schedule III: FDA-approved drug products that contain marijuana, and marijuana covered by a state license to make, distribute, or dispense it for medical purposes only. Recreational product, even where a state already licenses it, stayed on Schedule I. So did unlicensed activity and synthetically made THC. Hemp’s separate legal definition did not change, and older drugs such as Marinol and Syndros were left where they already sat.

The department described that step as state-licensed medical marijuana in Schedule III, not a green light for street sales. Medical licensees who filed for a DEA Schedule III registration by June 22, 2026, could keep operating under state papers while DEA reviewed the file, with a pledge to process those early applications within six months. Annual DEA fees listed with the order were $3,699 for manufacturers, $1,850 for distributors, and $888 for a three-year dispenser registration.

MEDICAL VERSUS ADULT-USE AFTER APRIL 2026

Shops that sell both medical and adult-use product in the same building now sit in two federal worlds at once. Dual licenses are common in states such as Michigan, Massachusetts, and Illinois. DEA has signaled it will look at how the floor actually runs, not only at the paper on the wall.

What the April Order Left in Schedule I

The order did not do the thing Spicer feared or the thing Stone’s broader legalization writing asked for. It did not make public smoking lawful. It did not deschedule the plant. It did not create a federal adult-use market.

STILL UNCHANGED AFTER THE ORDER

• Adult-use stores: State-legal recreational cannabis remains a Schedule I substance under federal law.
• Sidewalk use: Open smoking is still a local and state policing question, not a scheduling one.
• Interstate commerce: Moving marijuana across state lines is still a federal crime.
• Bank accounts: Schedule III status does not, by itself, require a bank to take cannabis deposits.
• Mixed shops: Treasury has not issued rules on how to split 280E between medical and adult-use sales in one company.

That list is why the television argument aged so badly. Spicer was describing a smell he still has every legal tool to hate. Stone was describing a tax and research problem the April order only half-fixed, and only for the medical lane.

Adult-Use Shops Still Pay the 280E Tax

Treasury and IRS said on April 23, 2026, that the order “generally removes section 280E as a bar to claiming deductions and credits for businesses that as a result of the Final Order no longer traffic in Schedule I or II controlled substances.” In plain English, a medical-only licensee can start taking ordinary deductions for the part of the year on and after April 22.

Adult-use-only firms get none of that. Effective federal tax rates for those shops still regularly land between 60 and 80 percent of actual economic profit, because rent, wages, and other ordinary costs cannot be deducted. Blanche also “encouraged” Treasury to look at retroactive relief for prior years under a state medical license. Encouraged is not a refund check. That relief has not been authorized.

THE TAX SPLIT IN ONE PAGE

• Medical-only shops: 280E no longer bars deductions for qualifying Schedule III activity after April 22, 2026, though full IRS implementing rules are still pending.
• Adult-use-only shops: 280E still applies, with effective federal rates often in the 60 to 80 percent band.
• Mixed licensees: Treasury said guidance would explain how to apportion expenses; as of late summer 2026 that guidance had not landed.
• Prior-year refunds: Blanche asked Treasury to consider them for medical license years; they are not approved.

The louder remaining money problem is that split, not whether a former press secretary likes the smell on K Street. Medical operators who want the federal benefit still have to carry DEA recordkeeping, inventories, and security on top of the state rules they already run. Adult-use operators can watch that paperwork pile up next door and still write a 280E return.

The DEA Hearing Closed Without a Ruling

Blanche’s medical order and the leftover plant were put on parallel tracks on purpose. The April shortcut used the treaty path. The broader May 2024 proposal came back as a separate administrative case on whether remaining marijuana, including adult-use product, should also go to Schedule III.

FROM THE SPICER SHOW TO THE CLOSED RECORD

1. May 2024: The Justice Department proposes moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III; the hearing process then stalls into 2025.
2. December 18, 2025: Trump signs the medical-research executive order directing the attorney general to move.
3. April 22, 2026: Blanche’s final order places FDA-approved products and state-licensed medical marijuana in Schedule III; the Federal Register follows on April 28.
4. June 22, 2026: Deadline for medical licensees to file DEA registrations and keep operating during review.
5. June 29, 2026: DEA opens a hearing on broader marijuana scheduling in Arlington, Virginia.
6. July 16, 2026: That hearing concludes, with no published date for the judge’s recommendation or a DEA administrator decision.

In an August closing brief, department lawyers told the tribunal marijuana no longer meets two of the three statutory tests for Schedule I, including currently accepted medical use, and that its abuse and dependence profile fits Schedule III. They pointed to state medical programs in which more than 30,000 doctors have treated more than six million patients. Opposition parties, including Smart Approaches to Marijuana and the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association, spent the hearing attacking whole-plant chemistry, high-THC products, psychosis risk, and workplace drug testing.

Parents Opposed to Pot, a prohibition group, was still calling the plan “a terrible idea” in September 2026 and pointing to psychosis and harm to children. That is the same culture lane Spicer was in. It is not the lane the April order was written to settle.

Lawsuits followed the shortcut. Smart Approaches to Marijuana announced plans to challenge the treaty theory and the odd move of scheduling a plant by the seller’s license type. As of August 2026 the April order was still operating. A later bid to freeze it did not take the medical lane off the board.

California’s Cannabis Director Is Still Waiting

The implementation gap is now the story state regulators actually have to live with. On September 21, 2026, Clint Kellum, director of California’s Department of Cannabis Control, said DEA has not shown “any sort of interest” in giving states guidance on what the Trump rescheduling move means in practice, even as the agency asked California for more information about its medical program.

That is a strange posture for an order sold as aligning federal law with state medical systems. California runs the largest legal market in the country. If DEA will not answer the state that has to apply the rules, medical operators elsewhere should not expect a clean handbook either.

Some prohibition states never wanted the federal medical lane at all. The December 2025 order talk was treated, even by people who disliked it, as one of the largest federal drug-policy moves in decades. April then delivered a thinner slice: research and tax relief for qualifying medical product, with adult-use shops, sidewalk smokers, and mixed-license bookkeepers left in the old fight.

Spicer still has the smell. Stone got the schedule change he named, but only for the medical door his father would have walked through. Adult-use firms are still writing 280E returns, and the DEA judge has not yet said whether the rest of the plant moves.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of federal marijuana scheduling and tax rules. It is for information only. It is not legal, tax, medical, or investment advice, and it is not a guide for filing a DEA registration or an IRS return. Readers should consult a licensed attorney and a CPA or other qualified tax professional before changing how a cannabis business is structured, booked, or registered. Figures, court postures, and agency statuses reflect the sources as of the dates named in this piece and may change as DEA, Treasury, and the courts act.