Biden’s election-year move on weed: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, we examine the political implications of the Biden administration's decision to reclassify marijuana. Plus, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki breaks down how Donald Trump seems to have broken through his 2020 polling ceiling.

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Biden administration plans to reclassify marijuana, easing restrictions nationwide

By Julie Tsirkin, Monica Alba and Adam Wollner

President Joe Biden is making a big election-year move on weed.

His administration will take a historic step toward easing federal restrictions on cannabis, with plans to announce an interim rule soon reclassifying the drug for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted more than 50 years ago, four sources with knowledge of the decision tell NBC News.

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The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the strictest Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III, the first time that the U.S. government would acknowledge its potential medical benefits and begin studying them in earnest.

What rescheduling means: Since 1971, marijuana has been in the same category as heroin, methamphetamines and LSD. Schedule III substances include Tylenol with codeine, steroids and testosterone.

By rescheduling cannabis, the drug would now be studied and researched to identify concrete medical benefits, opening the door