Trump Marijuana Order Stalls at DEA, Putting Canopy Growth on Hold

A stalled order leaves investors pricing in a change that hasn't arrived

Trump's marijuana order hasn't moved through the DEA, and that stall is now the central variable in how investors read Canopy Growth.

The Motley Fool framed its Oct. 18 piece around a basic problem: a White House directive means little until the agency that writes the rule acts on it. That's the gap the market is sitting in.

No hearing date or final-rule deadline appears in the Motley Fool's headline, and CannIntel hasn't independently confirmed one. Treat any claimed timeline with caution.

Not yet.

Why Canopy Growth is exposed to the DEA calendar

Canopy Growth is a Canadian licensed producer whose U.S. upside depends on federal law changing, which makes DEA timing a direct input to its outlook.

The company operates under a Health Canada licensing regime and sells into a domestic market that has been legal at the federal level since the Cannabis Act took effect in October 2018. Its U.S. strategy runs through a separate vehicle, Canopy USA, built to hold American assets until federal law permits a cleaner structure.

That setup is a bet on timing. If the DEA process drags, the structure keeps costing money and management attention without delivering the federal change it was built for. Investors buying Canopy on a rescheduling thesis are buying a calendar, not a business plan.

What Schedule III would and wouldn't do

Moving marijuana to Schedule III would ease 280E tax pressure on U.S. plant-touching operators but wouldn't legalize adult-use sales or open cross-border trade.

Section 280E of the tax code bars deductions for businesses trafficking in Schedule I and II substances. Schedule III status would take marijuana out of that provision, which is the single biggest financial prize for U.S. multistate operators.

But the plant would still be a controlled substance. State-licensed dispensaries in markets like California would continue to operate without a federal licensing framework for adult use, and a Canadian company still couldn't ship product across the border into those markets. Big difference.

For Canopy Growth, then, the direct benefit of rescheduling is narrower than the headlines imply. The larger prize, a federal pathway that lets a foreign-domiciled company own U.S. operations outright, requires more than a schedule change.

The view from Ottawa, Berlin and Vienna

Canada and Germany show that federal reform only changes company economics when regulators also build a workable licensing channel.

Canada legalized adult use in 2018, and Health Canada has spent years refining a licensing system that producers, Canopy included, still find costly to run. Legal access and profitability are different things, and Canadian operators learned that firsthand.

Germany took a different route. It removed cannabis from its Narcotics Act in April 2024, while BfArM continues to supervise the medical channel, so the regulator's role didn't vanish when the legal status shifted. Berlin's lesson is that the agency writing the operating rules matters as much as the statute.

Then there's Vienna. The INCB, which monitors compliance with the UN drug conventions and criticized Canada's 2018 move as inconsistent with the treaties, has no say in a Schedule III decision. A shift under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act is a domestic change and doesn't alter the 1961 Single Convention schedules, though it could draw fresh scrutiny of how Washington squares federal policy with treaty obligations.

What to watch next

The next DEA procedural step, not presidential rhetoric, is the signal that changes the math for Canopy Growth.

Three markers would show real movement:

• A DEA notice or hearing schedule published in the Federal Register.
• IRS or Treasury guidance on how 280E would apply after any schedule change.
• Canopy Growth's next quarterly update on Canopy USA and its stated path to consolidation.

For full background on this story, see the CannIntel topic hub on DEA rescheduling.

Watch for a Federal Register entry from the DEA. Until one appears, the order is a statement of intent. Canopy's U.S. story stays on pause.