The MORE Act: What Full Federal Descheduling Would Change

Federal marijuana law finally moved in 2026, when state-licensed medical marijuana left Schedule I, yet recreational weed is still a federal crime. A bill that has been sitting in Congress since 2019 would change that in one stroke.

The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, better known as the MORE Act, would take marijuana off the federal list of controlled drugs entirely, clear old federal convictions and tax legal sales to fund the communities hit hardest by the drug war. It has passed the House twice and never reached a Senate vote.

Key takeaways

• Full descheduling under the bill would remove marijuana from every federal drug schedule, a bigger step than the 2026 move of medical marijuana to Schedule III.
• The House passed versions of the bill in 2020, by 228 to 164, and in 2022, by 220 to 204, but the Senate never voted on either.
• Five Republicans backed it in 2020, and three backed it in 2022.
• The 2025 version, H.R. 5068, sets a federal excise tax on cannabis products that starts at 5% and rises to 8%.
• Congress's budget scorekeeper estimated in 2022 that the bill would raise about $8.1 billion in federal revenue over 10 years.
• State laws on sales, possession and home growing would stay in place.

Out of the federal drug schedules

The 2026 rule moved part of the marijuana market from one schedule to another. The MORE Act would take marijuana off the list altogether, which makes it a federal descheduling bill rather than a rescheduling one. The 2025 version, introduced by Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York on August 29, 2025, states its aim in its very first words, to decriminalize and deschedule cannabis, and goes on to promise reinvestment and the expungement of certain cannabis offenses. It strikes marijuana and THC from Schedule I and gives the attorney general 180 days after enactment to finalize the rule. Alcohol and tobacco already sit outside the Controlled Substances Act, and descheduling would leave marijuana in a similar spot, governed by taxes and business rules instead of criminal drug schedules.

Expungement is the other MORE Act pillar, since the 2025 text promises to clear certain federal cannabis convictions and the House-passed 2022 version also called for reviewing old sentences. The 2025 text lays out the rest of the package:

• Removal of marijuana and THC, except THC in hemp, from the federal drug schedules
• Retroactive effect for past offenses, pending cases and old convictions
• A federal excise tax on cannabis products that starts at 5% and climbs to 8%
• An Opportunity Trust Fund that sends the tax money to community programs and small business grants
• Continued marijuana drug testing for federal employees

Two House votes and a stalled Senate

The first version cleared the House Judiciary Committee 24 to 10 in November 2019, while a Senate companion sponsored by then-Sen. Kamala Harris died in committee. The full House took it up in December 2020. On December 4, the House approved decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level, NPR reported, in a vote that ran largely along party lines, 228 to 164. Five Republicans and the lone independent member joined Democrats to pass it, while six Democrats voted no. UPI noted that the House had become the first chamber of Congress to vote for federal decriminalization, and that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell faulted the House for spending time on it during COVID-19 relief talks. The Republican-controlled Senate never took it up.

Democrats tried again after taking the Senate in 2021. The House passed the next version on April 1, 2022, 220 to 204, with only three Republicans voting yes, and Axios reported that the legislation is likely to face a steep uphill battle in the Senate, where it would have needed 10 Republican votes to get past a filibuster. It never got a Senate vote.

Taxes, grants and the money trail

Supporters built the bill around money as much as law. When the Congressional Budget Office scored the 2021 version, which would decriminalize cannabis and expunge the records of people convicted of certain federal cannabis offenses, it estimated about $8.1 billion in added federal revenue from 2022 to 2031. The same estimate put about $7.8 billion into the Opportunity Trust Fund, projected about $800 million in savings for the Bureau of Prisons and expected federal prison time to drop by about 37,000 person-years.

The 2025 text spells out the tax schedule. Cannabis products would be taxed at 5% of their removal price, the price when they leave the producer or importer, for the first two years, then 6%, 7% and 8%, after which the tax switches to a set amount per ounce of flower or per gram of THC, pegged at 8% of the prevailing price. Net revenue would go into the trust fund, split 50% and 10% to Justice Department programs and 20% and 20% to Small Business Administration programs. In the 2021 version, that money fed three programs: community reinvestment grants, loans for cannabis businesses owned by disadvantaged entrepreneurs, and grants to help states and cities lower the barriers to getting a cannabis license.

The unexamined day is a wasted opportunity. Reflect on what you did, what you learned, and how you can improve.

John Dewey

Descheduling next to Schedule III

The obvious comparison in 2026 is with the Schedule III rule that took effect in April. That rule moved FDA-approved marijuana drugs and state-licensed medical marijuana into Schedule III, while recreational marijuana stayed in Schedule I. Descheduling would go much further:

For businesses, the difference is practical. Adult-use sellers stayed under federal prohibition after the Schedule III rule, while the House-passed bill would have opened government loans to cannabis businesses, one of the changes Axios highlighted in 2022.

Home grows and old genetics

For growers, descheduling would change the federal backdrop more than the rules at home. Because the bill leaves state laws in place, plant counts, licenses and home-grow bans would still come from statehouses, and a grower in Idaho would gain nothing until Idaho changed its own law. The genetics in a home garden have outlasted every turn of federal policy anyway. Hindu Kush, a pure landrace from the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where farmers grew it for hashish for centuries, is 100% indica at 26% THC and flowers in 55 to 65 days with a heavy body stone, while Acapulco Gold, a 70% sativa that originated in Mexico, also tests at 26% THC and brings energetic, creative effects with citrus, coffee and pine flavors after 60 to 70 days of flowering.

The MORE Act in 2026

The MORE Act in 2026 looks much like it did the day it was filed. The current version, H.R. 5068, had gathered 71 cosponsors by May 2026 and had been referred to the Subcommittee on Conservation, Research, and Biotechnology, with no vote scheduled. Republicans control both chambers of the current Congress, and no Republican-led committee has taken it up. Every bill that has not passed when this Congress ends in early January 2027 dies, so supporters would have to file it again. All four versions so far line up like this:

For any version to become law, it has to clear the same steps:

1. Approval by the House committees the bill was sent to, starting with Judiciary.
2. A majority vote on the House floor.
3. Sixty Senate votes to break a filibuster, then a majority to pass.
4. The president's signature, or a two-thirds vote in both chambers to override a veto.

Waiting on the next Congress

The MORE Act would end federal marijuana prohibition, clear old convictions and tax legal sales to fund grants, while leaving the states in charge of their own markets. It has won two House votes and no Senate vote, and in 2026 it waits in committee while the narrower Schedule III rule does the moving. For now, full descheduling exists only on paper in Congress.

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