Schedule III sounds like progress—but is it actually good for the cannabis industry?

Moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III is being framed as a historic win. And sure—getting it out of the same category as heroin exposes how broken the old system was.

But from a business perspective, this raises real concerns.

Most operators already support sensible regulation: age-gating, testing, COAs, child-resistant packaging, responsible marketing. Safety isn’t the issue.

The issue is what Schedule III may actually do:

• Raise compliance costs that hit small and mid-size operators hardest
• Increase barriers to entry
• Favor pharma, MSOs, and institutional capital
• Narrow product formats and consumer access under medicalized frameworks

If this cuts 280E but consolidates power upward, is that progress—or just a reshuffle?

I shared a quick visual take on this for context here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSdeeHfkmjP/

Curious how others see it?