Congressional lawmakers were recently presented with a unique argument in favor of expanding therapeutic access to cannabis and rescheduling marijuana under federal law: Doing so could mitigate threats associated with Chinese Community Party (CCP) operatives.
At a hearing before the House Small Business Committee last month, members took expert testimony on a variety of challenges linked to CCP, including intellectual property theft, foreign investments and vulnerabilities in the supply chain that impact small U.S. companies.
The hearing—titled “Defending Main Street: Combating CCP Threats to America’s Small Businesses” Summary”—involved testimony from Sean Murphy, founder of the nonprofit organization Kompassion that focuses on palliative care and rare diseases afflicting children.
Murphy said his personal experience raising a child with a severe health condition as well as volunteering in veterans hospices informed his advocacy for cannabinoid research and reform. That includes a proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to “unlock research and healing, especially for rare diseases,” he said.
Rescheduling wouldn’t federally legalize cannabis, but it would remove certain Schedule I research barriers, while benefitting state-licensed marijuana businesses by allowing them to take federal tax deductions they’re currently barred from under an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E.
The incremental change “will be a monumental movement in research and development of cures,” Murphy said in a written testimony submitted to the committee. And while marijuana remains Schedule I, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in December directing the attorney general to quickly finalize its reclassification under a process that was initiated under the Biden administration.
As part of his testimony for the committee hearing, Murphy also included policy recommendations that he argued would help address lawmakers’ concerns by empowering U.S. entrepreneurs and small business owners in healthcare, while generally expanding their access to capital.
One of the recommendations involves targeted funding for energetic medicine, palliative care and cannabinoid research through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
With funding for ARPA-H currently at $1.5 billion for the 2026 fiscal year, a portion should be side aside to “explicitly” support initiatives such as cannabinoid research, “including new therapeutic pathways made possible by marijuana’s rescheduling from Schedule I to Schedule III,” the testimony says.
“All mammals possess an endocannabinoid system (ESC) that plays a central role in inflammation reduction and homeostasis; targeted research in this area would unlock breakthrough whole-health approaches that treat the body’s nervous and endocannabinoid system, while supporting veteran and family care, all while keeping IP and data 100 percent secure from foreign exploitation,” it says.
Cannabis policy also intersected with a congressional hearing focused on foreign threats last year, when a GOP-led House committee looked at challenges associated with Chinese criminal organizations behind large-scale illicit marijuana grows.
Leveraging the increasing attention to the issue, the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) put out an ad in July arguing that if President Donald Trump moved forward with a pending cannabis rescheduling proposal, it would empower Chinese cartels.
In 2023, a major marijuana lobbying firm apologized after sending a letter to Senate committee leadership concerning a bipartisan cannabis banking bill that contained “inappropriate” references to investments from China in a “misguided attempt” to push for amendments expanding the legislation.
