WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday reclassified marijuana — taking it out of the same Schedule I class as heroin and LSD and putting into the less-dangerous Schedule III category — along with drugs that have proven medical uses.

The move will ease federal approval and funding for research into pot’s properties and extend tax benefits to the cannabis industry operating under the laws of dozens of states.

“Under the decisive leadership of [President Trump], this Department of Justice is delivering on his promise to improve American healthcare,” Blanche tweeted, along with a photo of himself signing the document.

Blanche wrote he was “immediately rescheduling FDA-approved marijuana and state-licensed marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule IIl” and “ordering a new, expedited hearing with set deadlines, to fully reschedule marijuana.”

Trump announced his plan to reschedule marijuana on Dec. 18, but the change didn’t happen for more than four months amid pushback from a group of Republicans in Congress.

And some members of his party remain opposed to the move.

“A change to marijuana’s drug classification is a step in the wrong direction,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said Thursday.

“Marijuana today is much more potent than just ten or twenty years ago, leading to increased psychosis, anti-social behavior, and fatal car crashes. Arkansans don’t want more dangerous drugs obtained more easily.”

Trump stuck to his guns and enacted the downgrade, despite 22 GOP senators signing a letter in December pleading with him to reconsider.

The president complained aloud during an Oval Office event Saturday that “they’re slow-walking me on rescheduling” — appearing to prompt Blanche’s action.

Trump said Thursday afternoon that his decision was motivated by lobbying from entrepreneur Howard Kessler, a leukemia survivor, whom the president called a “straight arrow” who found that pot helped him with pain relief during cancer treatments.

“Hopefully you don’t need it, but if you do need it, I hear it’s the best of all the alternatives,” Trump said at an Oval Office event hours after Blanche made the change official.

“I want to thank Howard Kessler and Michelle Kessler, and he really pushed us very hard — two people, very straight arrows and not into marijuana, they’re not into anything, but they found this answer,” Trump said. “He’s doing it for other people.”

Blanche became acting attorney general April 2 when Trump fired Pam Bondi and is in the running to permanently replace his former boss, who was seen as a staunch opponent of cannabis reform.

Rescheduling has been a core demand of pro-pot activists for decades due to strict rules for licensing, procuring and storing Schedule I drugs, a label for substances deemed to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical value, including heroin and LSD.

Between 1968 and 2021, the University of Mississippi was the sole institution authorized to grow marijuana for research, prompting scientist complaints about quality and a lack of strains rich in certain compounds. 

Since then, the number of government-approved weed sources for research has grown to seven.

A Wall Street Journal analysis found the new designation also could save businesses billions of dollars.

A section of federal tax law known as “280E” bars companies involved in “trafficking” Schedule I or II substances from deducting business expenses.

Although Thursday’s move will boost the finances of state-legal companies, it won’t have immediate effects on consumers due to the fact Schedule III drugs — a category that includes ketamine, anabolic steroids and some anti-addiction drugs — still require prescriptions.

The Food and Drug Administration also hasn’t approved raw pot as medicine.

Trump’s predecessors resisted activist efforts to push the reform, including smoke-ins in front of the White House calling upon then-President Barack Obama, himself a former toker, to make the change.

“I promised to be the president of common sense. That is exactly what we’re doing,” Trump said in December when he ordered the rescheduling.

“The facts compel the federal government to recognize that marijuana can be legitimate in terms of medical applications when carefully administered,’ he said at the time.

“This may include [marijuana’s] use as a substitute for addictive and potentially lethal opioid painkillers … This can do it in a much lesser way and can make people feel much better that are living through tremendous pain.”

The president said marijuana also can allow people to “die with dignity” with “their senses about them, as opposed to painkillers.”

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The high-inducing compound in marijuana, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), is part of a broader group of chemicals unique to cannabis.

CBD, or cannabidiol, is widely used to treat epilepsy. THCV, or tetrahydrocannabivarin, is reputed to assist weight loss and CBN, or cannabinol, is thought to promote sleep.

The Republican president, who supported an unsuccessful recreational marijuana legalization ballot measure in Florida in 2024, has delivered prior wins for pot reformers while maintaining long-standing federal tolerance of state-level reforms.

On the final day of his first term in 2021, Trump released seven prisoners given life sentences for pot — including some jailed without parole under incoming president Joe Biden’s 1994 crime bill.

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Biden mass-pardoned people convicted federally of simple pot possession, none of whom were behind bars, but left office failing to fulfill his campaign pledge to release “everyone” in prison, most of whom are there for dealing.

Twenty-four states, three US territories and Washington, DC, have legalized recreational use of marijuana under local law, while 40 states allow residents to use marijuana for medical reasons — generally with a doctor’s recommendation.