“Rescheduling”won’t change anything and according to this expert, it’s just more BS. We found this analysis of the “reschedule” vs “deschedule” controversy by Nicole Fryer (pictured here) just now on LinkedIn. Our team at YourCanna-Club agreed that Nicole got to the core of the problem and explained it in a way we all can understand. Click HERE to read her analysis. It’s also pasted below.
Rescheduling Is Not the Win People Think It Is by Nicole Fryer
There’s a lot of chatter right now about TACO and his usual crew of political spin doctors announcing they’ll be “rescheduling” cannabis as soon as tomorrow. I’m seeing a lot of excitement, but I want to slow this down for a second and talk about what’s actually happening. If cannabis were truly descheduled and removed from the Controlled Substances Act, it wouldn’t just tweak policy language. It would disrupt an entire enforcement economy. The DEA, federal task forces, asset forfeiture programs, probation systems, private prisons, and local policing budgets have all been built, at least in part, on cannabis prohibition.
Rescheduling keeps that system intact. Descheduling threatens it.
Once a substance is no longer controlled, the justification for raids, surveillance, forfeiture, and incarceration starts to fall apart. You can’t keep feeding people into the system without the crime. And without the crime, the machinery that extracts labor, money, and control begins to fail.
This is where the 13th Amendment has to be part of the conversation. Slavery was abolished except as punishment for a crime. Cannabis arrests have long been one of the easiest on ramps into that constitutionally protected punishment system. Remove cannabis from the equation, and one of the most reliable feeders into incarceration and forced prison labor disappears.
That’s why we keep getting half measures. New schedules. Pilot programs. Corporate carve outs. Lots of optics, very little structural change.
Descheduling isn’t just about freeing a plant. It’s a direct challenge to a system that relies on criminalization to sustain itself.
I’m genuinely curious how others in this industry and beyond feel about rescheduling versus descheduling, and what you think about the role cannabis has played in the larger carceral system. Let’s actually talk about it and educate each other, respectfully and honestly.
Nicole Fryer is a Wellness & Cannabis Pioneer at Zephyr Hospitality. You can follow her on LinkedIn.