Right now we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known.

I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening,

alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Walts,

Katanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Charlemagne the God,

and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Marijuana gets a tax break. From Marketplace, I'm Sabri Banishore. The Justice Department is changing its classification for some marijuana products,

downgrading them from Schedule 1 drugs, which is the same level as heroin and LSD,

to Schedule 3, which is the same as drugs like testosterone or ketamine.

The change applies to medical marijuana regulated under state licenses, and it could

mean a major tax break for some cannabis businesses, as marketplaces Henriop reports.

Anyone who sells Schedule I substances can't deduct business expenses from their taxable income,

and that's had a big impact on cannabis companies, says Victoria

Litman, a visiting professor of law at Roger Williams University. So you can't deduct the rent or the

salaries of your employees or most of the things you need to run your business. Cannabis businesses

often end up with a really high effective tax rate, upwards of 70%, Lippman says. But now medical cannabis companies

may be able to deduct their business costs. And that could free up a lot of cash, says Scott Gryper,

CEO of Viridian Capital Advisors. You're able to redeploy that former tax payment into scaling your

business, hiring more people, standing up another store.

But things could get complicated, Lippman says, because many cannabis retailers have licenses for both

medical and recreational sales.

And so this creates sort of like an accounting headache where they're trying to separate out,

oh, these expenses are related to my medical program, these they're trying to separate out, oh, these

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