BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont cannabis business owners are cautiously optimistic about a new directive from President Trump that could change how the federal government classifies marijuana.

The executive order issued Thursday encourages the judicial branch to move forward with rescheduling cannabis from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug, moving it from the same level as heroin and LSD to the level of prescription medications.

The biggest immediate impact if the change happens is for businesses. The current tax code blocks businesses involved with controlled substances from getting any tax deductions and credits. If cannabis gets on the prescription drug level, businesses like dispensaries can take advantage of the same tax write-offs as any other business.

“This is something that we haven’t been able to do, and so our tax burdens at the end of the year have been completely unmanageable. And this is why a lot of the times, you see smaller companies not be able to make it,” said Tito Bern, CEO of The Bern Gallery, a Burlington cannabis business.

However, there is some suspicion surrounding what rescheduling could mean for the cannabis industry’s small business landscape if it gets knocked down to a pharmaceutical drug level.

“You always have to ask, who does this benefit? And it does not seem to really benefit the small, locally-owned Vermont companies in the industry to the extent that it benefits, say, large pharmaceutical industry players who are trying to make it so you can go to your pharmacy and get cannabis isolates like THC or CBD,” said Joshua Decatur, co-owner of Heybud Dispensary in Burlington.

Catherine Burke, a Burlington attorney whose firm, Gravel & Shea, has a variety of clients in the industry, says there’s also hope that researchers could learn more about the popular plant. “Scientific research on the impacts of cannabis, what types of diseases or ailments it may aid, drug interactions it could have. You know, things that aren’t out there on that scale right now,” Burke said.

On a state level, sales tax will still be collected. Vermont Cannabis Control Board Chair James Pepper says no matter what happens, from a state regulatory standpoint, it’ll be business as usual. “The products that we’re mostly talking about, the adult use products, are going to be just as illegal from a federal standpoint as they are currently, so I really don’t expect much to changes,” he said.

Everyone we spoke to seems to agree that the biggest immediate impact of this executive order is symbolic. “We watched doctors stand up on TV and say, ‘cannabis has medicinal properties to it.’ We’ve just been waiting so long to hear a doctor actually admit this,” Bern said.

The executive order also encourages more research on the medicinal effects of CBD and hemp products and expanding medical access to them. This comes about a month after hemp restrictions were included in the appropriations bill that ended the government shutdown, essentially making CBD and hemp products with certain amounts of THC be controlled and sold as high THC products.

The Supreme Court is expected to make a final decision on whether cannabis will be rescheduled, possibly by this spring.

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