Is the really big news around Prez Trump’s marijuana rescheduling order is that it has not generated much news?

I am gearing up to teach my marijuana law seminar at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law this coming spring semester. Looking back on my course materials from years past highlights that I’ve often had major new state legal reform developments to discuss in the class since I first started teaching this seminar in Fall 2013. This year is no different, particularly with the Ohio General Assembly just passing a host of significant reforms to Ohio’s 2023 marijuana legalization initiative.

But, of course, what seems to be the biggest marijuana reform news of recent vintage comes at the federal level in the form of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order last week calling for expedited rescheduling of marijuana under the Controlled Substance Act. And yet, for anyone paying attention only to major news sources, this major marijuana news might have been totally missed. Topics ranging from the Epstein Files to Powerball tickets to holiday travel weather seem to be generating more headlines and commentary now and for a much longer time than what amounted to an historic shift in federal drug policy announced by a headline-generating president.

That said, the significant “marijuana media” has been significantly covering the rescheduling story, and the Trump EO only serves to advance a possible change in the law that likely will not be complete for many more months. More broadly, there seemingly are relatively few folks in Congress, in the broader political universe, in the media, in advocacy spaces, or elsewhere (save perhaps the anti-marijuana reform group SAM) who are eager to be extremely aggressive and vocally oppositional to Prez Trump’s federal policy shift here. But, as I see it, that is the really big story now: even major federal marijuana law and policy reform has become something of a “ho-hum” matter.

I recall back in 2013, when I first proposed teaching a course on marijuana law, that a former colleague half-jokingly complained that I wanted to teach on this topic only because it was “sexy.” Is the muted reaction to Trump’s EO an indication that marijuana law and policy has gone from sexy to boring in just over a decade?