💸 The Tape

With Senate Democrats refiling the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA) last week, Washington now has three distinct blueprints for ending federal cannabis prohibition sitting on the table: the CAOA, the STATES 2.0 Act, and the MORE Act. They're often lumped together as "legalization bills." They shouldn't be. The three proposals represent fundamentally different philosophies of what post-prohibition America looks like — and their differences matter enormously for operators, investors, and the law itself.

The MORE Act: Descheduling With a Justice Lens

The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act is the elder statesman of the trio — and the only one that has ever actually passed a chamber of Congress. Introduced by Rep. Jerry Nadler with then-Senator Kamala Harris carrying the Senate companion, the MORE Act passed the House twice: 228-164 in December 2020 and 220-204 in April 2022, both under Democratic control with only a handful of Republicans (notably Matt Gaetz and Dave Joyce) crossing over. Both times, it died in the Senate without a vote.

Substantively, MORE is descheduling with a criminal justice engine: complete removal of cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, automatic expungement of federal convictions, resentencing hearings, a 5% federal excise tax rising to 8% funding an Opportunity Trust Fund for communities harmed by the drug war, SBA access, and protections in immigration and federal benefits. What MORE deliberately does not do is build a heavy federal regulatory apparatus — it largely leaves regulation to states, treating cannabis closer to how alcohol was handled post-21st Amendment.

For the industry, MORE would deliver the two holy grails — 280E elimination and banking normalization — through descheduling itself, with a modest federal tax layer. Its light regulatory touch means minimal new compliance burden. Its weakness: without a federal product framework, questions around interstate commerce standards, FDA jurisdiction, and hemp-cannabinoid boundaries would remain messy.

The CAOA: Descheduling With a Federal Regulatory State

The Schumer-Booker-Wyden bill is MORE's maximalist cousin. Its history is less distinguished: a discussion draft in July 2021, formal filing in July 2022, refilings in 2023 and now 2026 — and in five years, it has never received a hearing, a markup, or a vote in either chamber. It has zero Republican support and, filed by a Senate minority, no realistic path to sixty votes.

Substantively, CAOA goes furthest: full descheduling, automatic expungement, a Cannabis Justice Office at DOJ, restorative justice grants — plus an entirely new federal regulatory architecture. The FDA would gain a Center for Cannabis Products regulating manufacturing, labeling, and standards; the TTB would administer taxation; the ATF would handle trade enforcement. The federal excise tax scales up to 25% for large businesses — stacked atop state and local taxes.

For the industry, CAOA is a double-edged sword sharpened on both sides. Descheduling, expungement, banking, interstate commerce, and institutional capital access are transformational. But a combined federal-state tax burden approaching or exceeding 40% in some markets would hand the illicit market a pricing advantage that California has already proven fatal, and an FDA compliance regime layered onto existing state frameworks would favor the largest, best-capitalized operators while crushing small businesses — ironic for a bill whose stated priority is equity. CAOA is the most comprehensive vision and the least commercially examined one.

STATES 2.0: Federalism Without Descheduling

The STATES 2.0 Act — championed by Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) with bipartisan co-sponsors including Dina Titus (D-NV) and Max Miller (R-OH), descended from the original 2018 Gardner-Warren STATES Act — takes the opposite philosophical approach. It doesn't deschedule cannabis at all. Instead, it amends the CSA so that federal prohibition simply does not apply to activity conducted in compliance with state law, while adding an updated framework permitting interstate commerce between consenting legal states and directing FDA treatment of cannabis products.

Legislatively, STATES has never passed anything — no floor vote in any Congress — but it has something the other two lack: genuine Republican authorship and a federalism framing engineered for a GOP-controlled Congress. In the current Washington, where Republicans hold the gavels and the Trump administration has claimed cannabis reform as its own, STATES 2.0 is structurally the most viable of the three vehicles, even if none is moving today.

For the industry, STATES 2.0 would quietly deliver most of what operators actually need: exempting state-legal activity from the CSA resolves 280E (the tax code's trafficking trigger disappears when the conduct is no longer federally unlawful), unlocks banking (the predicate offense evaporates), and permits interstate commerce — arguably the single biggest economic unlock in any bill, allowing efficient producers in California or Oklahoma to supply high-cost markets. What it doesn't do: no expungement, no equity funding, no federal excise revenue, no uniform national standards. Cannabis would remain technically scheduled — an awkward legal residue with implications for immigration, gun rights, and federal employment that descheduling would resolve.

The Comparison That Matters

Strip away the press releases and the three bills answer three different questions. MORE asks: how do we end prohibition and repair its harms? CAOA asks: how do we build a permanent federal cannabis regulatory state? STATES 2.0 asks: how do we make the federal government stand down where states have decided?

On raw industry economics, STATES 2.0 is paradoxically the most favorable — maximum relief, minimum new taxation and compliance — despite being the least ambitious. CAOA is the most transformative and the most burdensome. MORE sits between them, pairing descheduling's full legal benefits with a tax load the industry could actually survive.

On political reality: MORE has proven it can pass a Democratic House and nothing else. CAOA has proven it can generate headlines and nothing else. STATES 2.0 has proven nothing yet — but it's the only bill whose coalition matches the Congress that actually exists.

The Bottom Line

Here's the uncomfortable truth about all three bills: they mean well, and none of them are going anywhere. MORE has passed the House twice and died in the Senate twice — and that was under Democratic control that no longer exists. CAOA has been filed four times in five years without ever receiving so much as a committee hearing, and its latest iteration was introduced by a Senate minority with zero Republican co-sponsors the day after a Republican administration's rescheduling hearing concluded. Even STATES 2.0, the most politically realistic of the trio, has never been marked up in the twelve months since its introduction. These are messaging vehicles wearing the costume of legislation, and the industry has learned — painfully, repeatedly — not to price them into anything.

But the landscape that made these bills futile may be the same one that produces something real. The political conditions of mid-2026 are unlike anything cannabis reform has operated under: a Republican president who has personally claimed rescheduling as a legacy achievement, an ALJ recommendation expected within weeks, cannabis companies donating to Trump-aligned PACs, Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott publicly conceding the banking problem, and supermajority public support that now includes most Republican voters. In that environment, the logical next move isn't a Democratic bill that Republicans won't touch — it's a Republican bill that Democrats can't refuse. Reporting and chatter around Capitol Hill increasingly point toward exactly that: GOP lawmakers exploring legislation built on the STATES Act chassis — federal deference to state markets, interstate commerce authority — but going further, potentially descheduling cannabis outright and pairing it with the regulatory framework Trump ally William Barr has publicly advocated: tax it, regulate it, and end the gray zone.

If that bill materializes, the three proposals compared above become instantly historical — the drafts that defined the debate but never crossed the finish line. The party that spent decades blocking reform would deliver it, the party that spent decades promising reform would be forced to vote for someone else's version, and the industry would finally get the only thing it has ever actually needed: a law. Watch the Republican side of the aisle. That's where the ending gets written.

📈 Dog Walkers

$HELP ( ▼ 3.46% ) Completes Enrollment Early

The clinical-stage company announced it has completed enrollment ahead of schedule in APPROACH, the first Phase 3 pivotal study of HLP003 as an adjunctive treatment for major depressive disorder. The trial enrolled 223 participants with moderate to severe MDD (MADRS ≥24) responding inadequately to stable antidepressant regimens, randomized 1:1 to two 16 mg doses of HLP003 or placebo administered three weeks apart. Topline data remains on track for Q4 2026, with the primary endpoint measuring MADRS change at six weeks.

The Phase 2 foundation is what makes this readout so anticipated: a mean ~23-point MADRS reduction sustained 12 months after just two doses, with 100% response and 100% remission using the ≤12 benchmark employed by peers like Definium. HLP003 — a deuterated psilocin analogue with FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation — is targeting a potential NDA submission in 2028.

Interim CEO Eric So credited the clinical team's screening and site selection, noting baseline disease severity matched the Phase 2 population — "reinforcing the quality and integrity of the Phase 3 study population." Enrollment continues in EMBRACE, the second pivotal study, with participants rolling into the EXTEND long-term extension evaluating durability and redosing.

The commercial context Helus cited is telling: J&J's SPRAVATO posted $584 million in Q2 sales, up 40.8% year-over-year — proof that clinic-administered interventional psychiatry is scaling rapidly. The adjunctive positioning matters too: current add-on options are atypical antipsychotics carrying weight gain, sedation, and tardive dyskinesia risks. An intermittent two-dose alternative addresses a genuine practice gap.

With $207 million in liquidity, FDA guidance alignment baked into the PARADIGM program design, and Eli Lilly's atai acquisition validating the entire space, Helus enters Q4 with everything in place. Now the data decides.

📺 Trade To Black

Why M&A Is Already Happening in Cannabis & Psychedelics | TTB Presented by Flowhub

• Vireo's Biggest Swing Yet: The hosts break down Vireo's $35 million acquisition of Cannabist assets across five states — up to 25 dispensaries pushing its footprint to ~230 locations across 15 states, second only to Trulieve — and debate whether ten acquisitions in one year is smart consolidation or mounting integration risk.

• Florida Hemp on the Clock: Florida hemp businesses face the November 12 federal THC ban threatening an industry that's become a major part of the state's retail landscape — with operators now hoping Trump intervenes on their behalf.

• Alabama Watches Washington: State officials are holding a public hearing this week on whether to reschedule marijuana at the state level in alignment with the federal Schedule III move — an early example of federal reform cascading into prohibition states.

• Whiz on the Lilly Deal: Former fighter pilot Matthew "Whiz" Buckley of Top Gun Options gives his read on Eli Lilly's $2.8 billion acquisition of AtaiBeckley — including whether the premium was rich enough and what Big Pharma's entry means for the remaining independent psychedelic developers.