With just a day and a half left to his presidency, President Barack Obama has scaled up his executive power moves in a bid to solidify some of his legacy before Donald Trump takes office. Many of his actions won’t be easily reversed. So is it possible that Obama in his final act as President could federally legalize marijuana?

Since Trump’s win in November, Obama has worked tirelessly to push his agenda. He has banned drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. He made a drive in the final months of this year to register people for health care. He dismantled a Bush-era program that was used to track Muslim and Arab men and most notably for the cannabis industry he reduced the sentences of more than a thousand non-violent drug criminals.

By comparison George Bush Jr. designated the world's largest protected marine area on January 6, 2009 right before leaving office. On President Bill Clinton’s final day in office he issued 140 presidential pardons to people that had been convicted of federal criminal offenses. The granting of clemency to these criminals, some of whom were Clinton's relatives and friends, was met with much criticism from the American people.

In one of his last interviews conducted with Rolling Stone magazine, President Obama said that cannabis use should be treated as a public-health issue similar to tobacco or alcohol and called the current patchwork of state and federal laws regarding the drug “untenable”.

In a 2014 interview with the New Yorker magazine Obama said that marijuana was less dangerous than alcohol and recently told TV host Bill Maher quote “I think we're going to have to have a more serious conversation about how we are treating marijuana and our drug laws.”

Unfortunately within that Rolling Stone interview Obama also stated that changing federal marijuana laws is not something the president can do unilaterally. He said quote: “Typically how these classifications are changed are not done by presidential edict, but are done either legislatively or through the DEA.”

And as we know the DEA has only made matters worse recently by criminalizing all products made with CBD or CBG regardless if there is THC in them. They have even gone so far as to turn down a petition to lessen federal restrictions on marijuana, citing the drug's lack of “accepted medical uses” and its “high potential for abuse.” All of which we in the Cannabis industry know to be completely contradictory to the facts.

Congress could resolve the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws by amending the federal Controlled Substances Act, but it has declined to do so.

Obama has been hesitant throughout his second term to push for one approach or the other. His Justice Department has created a policy explicitly allowing states to legalize marijuana as they see fit, but he has made no effort to alter the strict federal prohibition on marijuana that complicates any effort to create a legal nationwide marijuana industry.

Pro-legalization advocates are worried that the current Justice Department policy of noninterference on marijuana legalization could be reversed by an incoming Trump administration stocked with harsh critics of such moves. Trump himself has said that the matter should be left up to the states.

The Johno Show Will Obama Free The Weed

As we’ve seen in the past week Jeff Sessions who's being grilled on the hill for his role as attorney general has been hesitant to specifically outline his agenda on Cannabis. But based on his previous statements could reverse the justice department's role and actively enforce federal law in states that have made marijuana legal either recreationally, medically or both.

Now, what that would do to the fabric of this nation is certainly worrisome because while Sessions believes in state’s rights for gun owners if he now disagrees with it for Cannabis or let’s say abortion rights he’ll be opening a pandora’s box that could lead to civil unrest.

Am I hopeful Obama will deschedule marijuana right before he leaves office. Absolutely. Am I confident that it will happen? Let’s just say I’m not heading down to Atlantic City to place a bet on it.