The U.S. federal shift in cannabis classification sparked tens of thousands of public responses, sending a clear message. Most people support change, but many say it does not go far enough.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) analyzed more than 40,000 public comments submitted in response to a proposed federal shift in how cannabis is classified. 

What they found was that most people supported moving marijuana out of Schedule I, the most restrictive category under federal law. And a lot of them felt that even moving it to Schedule III did not go far enough.

The study gives a rare look at what people actually say when they are not answering a poll but speaking in their own words about a policy that affects medicine, business, criminal justice, and everyday life.

The comments were submitted in 2024 after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) proposed rescheduling marijuana.

During the 63-day public comment window, 42,913 people sent in responses through the federal e-rulemaking portal.

That made it the largest collection of public input yet on federal cannabis policy.

Instead of reading the comments one by one in the usual way, the researchers used an open-source large language model, checked against human review, to sort through the themes and arguments at scale.

About 28.9 percent supported the Schedule III move as proposed. Another 63.5 percent supported even broader reform, while only 6.7 percent opposed any change at all.

So the overwhelming majority wanted cannabis reform, including removal from Schedule I. Most of that group also wanted something bigger than the change the federal government was offering.

The strongest support often came from people talking about real life, not ideology.

Some were patients, some were healthcare workers, and some were business owners. Many described cannabis in personal terms, as something that had helped them medically, supported their livelihood, or changed how they thought about federal policy.

One supporter wrote, “This is a legit medication, it has saved my life and I’m in the medical field.”

The researchers found that among people who supported the proposed move to Schedule III, the most common reason was therapeutic benefit. More than half pointed to cannabis as useful for treatment.

Others focused on economic effects, including what cannabis reform means for businesses and state tax revenue. Many also argued that clearer federal rules would improve safety and reduce confusion.

These results show that for many people, cannabis is no longer being discussed only as a culture-war issue. It is being discussed as medicine, as policy, and as part of ordinary economic life.

What stands out even more is that the biggest group was not the one cheering the proposed change as it was. It was the group saying the federal government still was not going far enough.

These commenters often called for full descheduling, which would remove cannabis from the federal scheduling system entirely.

“Cannabis as a whole should be descheduled in order to preserve the thousands of businesses, patients, and community members that rely on the ability to grow, extract, and consume cannabis,” one person wrote.

That group often made three kinds of arguments. Some focused on therapeutic use, some focused on economics, and many raised criminal justice concerns.

More than a quarter of them mentioned criminal justice reform directly. Around one in five raised social justice concerns, especially the way cannabis laws have disproportionately harmed marginalized communities.

“Rescheduling is a meaningful first step, but the public record shows Americans want federal policy to go even further,” senior author John W. Ayers said.

Another major theme in the study is that many people feel federal policy has lagged behind reality for years.

Co-author Ryan Vandrey, a cannabis researcher at Johns Hopkins, said public enthusiasm about cannabis as medicine needs to be matched by serious federal and state investment in research.

“As long as cannabis sits under stricter federal control, research remains harder than it should be,” he said.

Rescheduling to Schedule III would make more kinds of studies possible. Reform would also allow more scientists to work on the health effects of cannabis.

So for many supporters, reform is not just about legality. It is also about creating conditions where medicine and science can catch up with what many patients and doctors have already been living with.

The study did find opposition, though it was much smaller.

Those who opposed any rescheduling mostly framed their concerns around public health. They worried that changing cannabis’s classification would mislead people about its risks, especially for younger users.

“Moving cannabis into a category of drugs that have a low risk of dependence gives the public false information about this drug,” one opponent wrote.

Among this group, concerns about health risks appeared in all comments. Many also mentioned addiction, and a large share raised worries about children and teenagers gaining easier access.

That part matters too, because it shows that the people opposing reform were not simply dismissing cannabis out of habit.

Many were worried about dependence, youth exposure, and the possibility that rescheduling might make the drug seem safer than it really is.

In the end, this paper is about what happens when people are allowed to speak directly into policy debates and when someone takes the time to study what they said.

The researchers argue that AI tools can help governments process large amounts of public input more meaningfully, instead of reducing thousands of detailed comments to a single number on a spreadsheet.

“AI can revolutionize the way in which Americans engage in our democracy,” said co-author Mark Dredze, a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins.

That may sound a little grand, but the study does show something useful. When people spoke in their own words, the message that came through was not muddled.

Most of the commenters did not think cannabis belonged in Schedule I anymore.

Many thought the federal government was still moving too cautiously, too slowly, and too far behind the reality already taking shape in many states.

The full study is published in the journal Addiction.

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