The Drug Enforcement Administration received over 40,000 comments on its proposed rule that would reschedule marijuana to Schedule III. Many comments highlighted adverse outcomes for children, suggesting that rescheduling the marijuana plant versus the psychoactive ingredients in the finished product doesn’t make sense. 

Historically, the DEA has scheduled drugs based on the active ingredients of the finished product and not an entire plant. For example, the DEA has scheduled the finished products derived from the opium poppy plant and derivatives in four different schedules: heroin-Schedule I, Vicodin-Schedule II (less than 15 mg of hydrocodone per dosage unit), Tylenol-Schedule III (less than 90 mg of codeine per dosage unit), Robitussin-Schedule V (less than 200 mg of codeine per 100 mL). It’s only logical to approach marijuana similarly.