Key Takeaways
- Congressman Steve Cohen introduced the Public Health and Research Reforms in Controlled Substances Act, aiming to comprehensively reform the Controlled Substances Act.
- The bill removes marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, instead of rescheduling it, which differentiates it from the Schedule III move.
- It eliminates weight-based mandatory minimum penalties and allows retroactive sentencing reviews for past offenses.
- The bill transfers drug policy authority from the Attorney General to the Secretary of Health and Human Services for improved oversight.
- Cohen’s proposal includes reevaluating roughly 30 substances under a new scheduling system within two years of enactment.
On October 29th, Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN, TN-9) introduced the Public Health and Research Reforms in Controlled Substances Act. Cohen is a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and co-chairs the Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus. According to his office, the bill touches nearly every section of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act and is the most comprehensive rewrite of that law since it was enacted.
The legislation builds on an earlier Cohen bill, the Controlled Substances Act Clarification in Science Act, introduced in June 2026. This new version goes much further. It creates a new dual-axis scheduling system, moves major authority from the Attorney General to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, eliminates weight-based mandatory minimum sentences, and directs retroactive sentencing review. Marijuana, specifically, would be removed from the Controlled Substances Act altogether, according to the bill text and its accompanying section-by-section analysis.
How Is This Different From the Schedule III Move?
Cannabis policy has spent most of 2026 wrapped up in a separate, narrower process: rescheduling. On April 23, 2026, the Department of Justice issued a final order moving state-legal medical cannabis, along with cannabis contained in FDA-approved drug products, to Schedule III, according to the Marijuana Policy Project’s explainer. All other cannabis remained Schedule I at that point, and the order did not legalize adult-use cannabis anywhere.
A separate DEA administrative hearing process aimed at fully rescheduling marijuana ran through mid-2026. Testimony wrapped on July 15, 2026, with post-hearing briefs due by mid-August. That was later reported that a DEA judge paused the hearing in late September over a new GAO report on federal drug scheduling, so the larger rescheduling push has not reached a final decision.
Rescheduling to Schedule III, even if finalized, would not legalize state cannabis markets or make state-licensed businesses federally compliant. Cohen’s bill works differently. Instead of moving marijuana down the ladder of federal drug schedules, it would take marijuana off the ladder entirely, removing it and tetrahydrocannabinols from the Controlled Substances Act with retroactive effect, per the section-by-section analysis. That is a materially different outcome than Schedule III placement, which still treats cannabis as a federally controlled substance subject to registration, quota, and Section 280E tax rules.
Would This Bill Actually Reduce Drug Sentences?
Sentencing reform sits at the center of the bill, not as an afterthought. Section 114 eliminates weight-based mandatory minimum penalties for drug trafficking offenses and replaces them with a simplified framework tied to the new scheduling structure, according to the section-by-section analysis. Enhanced penalties remain in place for repeat offenders, offenses involving death or serious injury, and trafficking tied to violent crime, so the bill is not a blanket reduction across every category.
Title V goes a step further. Section 501 orders the United States Sentencing Commission to revise federal guidelines twice, once to reflect the removal of mandatory minimums and again after the first batch of substances is rescheduled. Section 502 authorizes courts to reduce sentences for people whose offenses would now carry lower penalties, and it requires the Bureau of Prisons to identify eligible individuals, notify them, and file reduction motions on their behalf. Individuals can also file their own motions.
For marijuana offenses specifically, relief would come through the descheduling provision itself, which Cohen’s office describes as retroactive, applying to past offenses, pending cases, and existing convictions. Judges still retain discretion over any reduced sentence, and courts, not Congress, will decide how these provisions get applied case by case.
Given that the bill is newly introduced late in the current Congress, with no committee action yet scheduled, these mechanisms remain proposals rather than available remedies for anyone currently serving time.
What Changes for the DEA and HHS?
One of the quieter but more consequential pieces of this bill involves who runs drug policy day to day. Under current law, the Attorney General, acting through the DEA, holds most scheduling and research-registration authority. Cohen’s bill reassigns a large share of that authority to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Under Section 103, the HHS Secretary would take over core scheduling decisions, supported by a new 15 to 25 member expert committee that scores proposed scheduling changes using what the bill calls a multicriteria decision analysis. Section 110 moves production quota-setting from the Attorney General to HHS. Sections 107 and 108 split registration duties: the Attorney General would continue registering practitioners who dispense controlled substances, while HHS would register scientific investigators conducting research, replacing today’s separate Schedule I and Schedule II through V registration categories with a single Schedule I through IV system.
The stated goal, per Cohen’s press release, is a cleaner division of labor, with HHS focused on science and medicine and the DEA focused on preventing diversion and illicit trafficking. The bill also expands research access through blanket research registrations and a 45-day expedited registration process for investigators, changes aimed at making it easier to study controlled substances, including ones that remain tightly restricted today.
Does the Bill Touch Psilocybin and Ibogaine?
Yes, though cannabis is the bigger story here. The bill designates roughly 30 substances, including fentanyl, morphine, methamphetamine, psilocybin, and ibogaine, as the first group to go through reevaluation under the new scheduling system within two years of enactment.
Cohen’s office made it clear that this process would not deschedule any of these substances. Instead, regulators would reassess them under the bill’s new dual-axis framework, which uses letter and number designations to separate a substance’s risk profile from its therapeutic value. Regulators would review all remaining controlled substances within eight years.
Where Does the Bill Go From Here?
The bill has drawn public endorsements from the Drug Policy Alliance, NORML, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. NORML Political Director Morgan Fox called the current scheduling system built on a “shaky and unscientific foundation,” pointing to cannabis’s placement in the most restrictive federal category as the clearest example.
MAPS Associate Director Sia Henry praised the bill’s removal of mandatory minimums and its retroactive sentencing provisions as a step toward addressing decades of War on Drugs harm. These are advocacy group statements, and they reflect each organization’s own assessment of the bill, not an independent verification of its effects.
None of this changes the bill’s current status. It was introduced on October 29th, has not been referred through committee markup, and has no identified Senate companion. Whether any of its provisions, on marijuana, sentencing, or agency authority, advance further will depend on what the next Congress does with it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Introduced by Congressman Steve Cohen on October 29, 2026, this bill would overhaul the 1970 Controlled Substances Act. It would remove marijuana from federal drug schedules, set up a new scheduling system, and shift oversight from the DEA to the Department of Health and Human Services.
An April 2026 DOJ order moved only state-legal medical cannabis and FDA-approved cannabis products to Schedule III, so marijuana stays federally controlled. Cohen’s bill would go further and remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act altogether.
The bill would end weight-based mandatory minimums, direct the Sentencing Commission to update federal guidelines, and require the Bureau of Prisons to notify people eligible for shorter sentences. It would also retroactively remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, though judges would still decide individual cases.
HHS would take over scheduling decisions, production quotas, and researcher registration with help from a new expert committee, while the DEA would keep registering practitioners who dispense controlled substances and continue to combat diversion and illicit trafficking.
Nobody can say for certain. Lawmakers introduced the bill only on October 29, 2026. It hasn’t cleared committee, and it has no Senate companion, so future Congresses will decide its fate.
