After extensive lobbying and some generous donations from major players in the marijuana industry, the president was convinced to follow through with his campaign promise to shift cannabis from a Schedule I to Schedule III substance during a meeting with Kim Rivers, the CEO of Florida-based cannabis company Trulieve, Trump confidante Howard Kessler and Florida Sheriff Gordon Smith in early December.

Eager to share the news immediately, Trump told the people in the room he planned to announce the decision on Truth Social before an executive order was even drafted.

Smith remembered things getting heated as Oval Office insiders tried to stop their boss from blabbing, according to the Journal.

President Donald Trump pictured after signing an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a schedule III drug on December 18, 2025.

Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images

“The lawyers and his staff, they started yelling, ’No sir, you can’t yet; there’s a 30-day period, it’s gotta go through this and that,” Smith recalled.“They had to stop him from posting.”

It was surreal display, according to the sheriff, who told the paper, “I was in awe of the whole thing.”

Trump, a teetotaler with a hard stance against illicit drugs, flouted the wishes of a sizable faction of Republicans with the move, which was made official with a Dec. 18 executive order.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) was reportedly on speakerphone during the president’s meeting with Rivers, Smith and Kessler, where he argued that marijuana was a dangerous “gateway drug.”

Cannabis had held Schedule I status since the Controlled Substances Act became law in 1970, categorizing it alongside heroin, LSD and ecstasy as drugs that have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

CORRECTION: This story has been amended to reflect that cocaine and methamphetamine are Schedule II drugs, not Schedule I drugs.