Cory Booker Will ‘Accept Any Progress’ On Marijuana, Saying There’s A ‘Common Purpose’ For Reform Across Parties

Federal marijuana rescheduling is the headline tonight, but the plot is older, smokier, and more human than a bureaucrat’s memo. In a D.C. ballroom where the coffee ran dark and the opinions ran darker, Sen. Cory Booker laid it out with the kind of blunt you don’t need to light: justice is descheduling—ripping cannabis out of the Controlled Substances Act entirely, not demoting it to a quieter corner of the same bad neighborhood. He said he’ll take any progress over none—rescheduling, descheduling, whatever moves the chain—but make no mistake, the end zone is full legalization. This wasn’t a stump speech so much as a reality check. Cannabis sits on the same shelf as heroin, and that, Booker said, “defies all science and reality.” He’s right. We’ve built a system that grades substances like a bad high school principal and punishes communities like a vengeful hall monitor. He’s been saying it for years, even joked during the 2020 race that someone must’ve been high writing a certain incremental plan. His mom didn’t love the line. The crowd did. That’s America in a nutshell: high ideals, higher stakes, and a family member shaking their head at our delivery.

Here’s the uncomfortable, liberating truth: rescheduling is triage; descheduling is surgery. Change the schedule and you loosen a few bolts—research opens up, federal penalties soften, maybe fewer people get chewed up by the machine. Deschedule and you admit the machine was wrong—no more pretending cannabis belongs next to the hardest stuff known to man. Booker’s argument hit the rails where policy meets culture: this isn’t about left versus right. Most people agree on the fundamentals—stop wrecking lives, regulate smartly, tax sensibly, and bring the thing out of the shadows. Recent polling shows partisan whiplash—Republican support has dipped from last year—but broad, cross-aisle backing still hums under the noise. You can feel it in rooms like this one, where entrepreneurs sit next to harm-reduction advocates, cops sit next to patients, and everyone’s sick of the fiction that the status quo makes sense. Cannabis policy reform isn’t a fringe crusade anymore. It’s dinner-table talk, paystub math, and a promise we’ve been slow to keep.

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking. Months after a promise of a quick call on rescheduling, we’re still waiting on a final decision. The White House line is that the process is ongoing, which is another way of saying: the pot keeps simmering while the kitchen debates the recipe. Out in the states, the plot twists multiply. In one corner, a high-profile push to not only pause but roll back parts of the hemp market—delta-8, hemp-derived THC, the grab-bag of cannabinoids that slipped through the 2018 Farm Bill’s side door—has turned into a culture war with supply chains. One marquee player: a statewide crusade to crack down on hemp THC in the name of order and safety. For a window into that front, see Florida’s Attorney General Supports Federal Recriminalization Of Hemp THC Products. The upshot? Even as Washington inches toward reform, some state actors are slamming the brakes, or slamming doors. And yet there’s movement in the other direction, too—citizen-led, ballot-driven, and impatient with waiting rooms and press releases. For context on the ballot mechanics in motion, read Florida Officials Advance Marijuana Legalization Initiative To Ballot Review After Being Sued Over Delay. Reform doesn’t travel in a straight line. It zigzags through courts, committees, and convenience stores.

Policy isn’t abstract when it reaches your kitchen table—or your vet’s office. The hemp panic doesn’t just touch weekend gummies; it bleeds into wellness routines, small-town retailers, and families trying to manage pain without a pharmacy loyalty card. If federal rules kneecap hemp-derived CBD access, we won’t just see spreadsheets adjust. We’ll see real collateral. Consider the warning from the animal-care world: Pets Will ‘Suffer Needlessly’ If Federal Hemp Ban Takes Effect And Limits CBD Access, Veterinarian Says. That’s the human (and canine) cost of whiplash policy. And it’s why Booker’s “accept any progress” line matters. Rescheduling may not exonerate the past or fix the whole economy, but it lowers the temperature. It frees researchers who’ve been stuck in red tape. It tells prosecutors to take their foot off the gas. It starts aligning federal rules with the lived reality in most states: legalization in practice, not just promise. It buys time while the bigger fight—descheduling, equity, repair—gathers the votes and the nerve.

• Rescheduling: incremental relief, expanded research, reduced federal penalties.
• Descheduling: full federal legalization, realigned law enforcement priorities, a clean slate for policy design.
• Hemp debate: consumer safety versus access, and a shadow market born from federal ambiguity.
• Public sentiment: broadly supportive, even as partisan tides ebb and flow.

Zoom out and you see a broader renaissance of evidence over ideology. Psychedelic therapy is drawing suits and ties into conversations that once got you laughed out of a committee room. It’s not the same beat as cannabis, but the rhythm is familiar: patients first, science forward, stigma last. If you want a snapshot of how mainstream that debate has become, scan Massachusetts Lawmakers Hold Hearing On Psychedelic Therapy Bills. That’s the “common purpose” Booker talks about—less tribal chest-thumping, more practical fixes for shared pain. Maybe that’s why his message lands. You don’t need to be pro-weed to be anti-nonsense. In a nation that argues about everything, we’re weirdly aligned on this: stop pretending Schedule I makes sense. Start moving toward a lawful, safe, equitable market. And if you’re ready to explore compliant THCA products while the policy dust settles, step into our kitchen and take a look around our shop: https://thcaorder.com/shop/.