Alabama Considers Matching Federal Marijuana Rescheduling

Alabama is deciding whether to move marijuana into a lower-risk category under state law to match the Trump administration’s federal reclassification, a choice that will shape how the state treats medical cannabis patients, licensed operators, and its own criminal code. State health officials took public testimony on the question in Montgomery on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, and a final decision is now weeks away.

The hearing traces back to a federal order issued in April 2026, when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche placed FDA-approved marijuana medicines and state-licensed medical cannabis products into Schedule III of the federal Controlled Substances Act. Under Alabama law, a federal scheduling change automatically takes effect in the state within 30 days unless the State Committee of Public Health objects and holds a public hearing. The committee did exactly that in May, freezing any automatic state reclassification while officials studied how the change would fit with Alabama’s brand-new medical cannabis market. Because of the objection, the state’s current classification stays in place until the committee publishes a final decision. State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said then that the department “fully intends” to adopt the federal standard, but wanted time to work through the details.

A hearing dominated by opposition

Wednesday’s testimony ran heavily against the change. As Alabama Reflector reported, a group of conservative activists used the session to press the committee to keep marijuana in the state’s most restrictive drug category. Becky Gerritson, executive director of Eagle Forum of Alabama, warned that the reclassification would harm children and deepen the state’s mental health problems. “Rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III puts it on the same level as Tylenol with codeine,” she said, urging the committee to base its policy on evidence rather than commercial pressure. Another Eagle Forum representative asked the committee to hold its objection so Alabama could set higher medical standards than federal regulators.

Greg Davis, chief executive of the Alabama Citizens Action Program, a group representing churches across the state, argued that cannabis causes the same harm regardless of whether it comes from a dispensary or the illicit market, and asked the committee to reject the change. A member of the public warned that rescheduling would send the wrong signal to teenagers about the drug’s risks.

Only one speaker backed the change. Joey Robertson, president and chief executive of Wagon Trail Med-Serv, an Alabama medical cannabis licensee, said refusing to follow the federal government could erode trust between patients, doctors, and the state. He noted that the state’s tightly regulated program “has nothing to do with the illicit market, which will grow no matter what.”

What Schedule III would change

The federal shift does not legalize marijuana in Alabama or anywhere else. Schedule I is reserved for drugs the government treats as having no accepted medical use and the highest potential for abuse; Schedule III covers substances with recognized medical uses and a lower risk of dependence. Moving medical cannabis into that lower tier eases two long-standing burdens on legal operators: it lifts the federal tax rule that bars cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary expenses, and it opens research to state-legal products that scientists previously were barred from studying.

Those stakes are still new in Alabama. The state authorized medical cannabis only under its 2021 Compassion Act, which limits access to patients with qualifying conditions, requires parental approval for anyone under 19, and caps THC in products for minors at 3 percent. The first legal sale took place in June 2026, at Callie’s Apothecary in Montgomery, making the reclassification debate one of the first major policy tests for a market that has barely opened.

What happens next

The department’s general counsel said a decision must come after August 5, 2026, the deadline for written public comments. The committee will then choose whether to maintain its objection, leaving marijuana in the state’s harshest category, or adopt the federal Schedule III standard that Harris has signaled the state will eventually follow.

Alabama’s deliberation is part of a wider state-by-state reckoning with the federal move. Wyoming’s attorney general moved to block state-level rescheduling outright, and a group of Republican attorneys general has sued to stop the federal reclassification entirely. At the national level, the DEA’s own broader rescheduling hearing has wrapped up without a clear timeline for a final rule. For Alabama patients and the operators now serving them, the practical question is narrower: whether the state will treat the medicine they buy as a recognized therapy or keep it filed alongside the drugs it polices most aggressively.