Seventy percent of Americans, including majorities of Democratic and Republican voters, say that marijuana should be legal for adults. Yet this legislative session, lawmakers from both parties are placing cannabis consumers in their crosshairs.
In Republican-led states like Montana, Nebraska, Ohio and South Dakota, lawmakers are seeking to either repeal or significantly roll back voter-approved legalization laws. In Democrat-led states like California, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey, lawmakers are seeking to undermine existing legalization markets by drastically hiking marijuana-related taxes.
In all cases, elected officials are treating cannabis consumers as targets, not constituents.
These concerted attacks on state-legal marijuana markets are an explicit reminder that the war on cannabis and its consumers remains ongoing and, in some cases, is escalating. Our opponents haven’t gone away; in many cases they’ve simply regrouped and tweaked their strategies–such as by advocating for arbitrary THC potency caps or calling for new criminal penalties for consumers who don’t obtain their cannabis from state-licensed dispensaries.
Those who oppose legalization have also become bolder and more cynical in their tactics. No longer convinced that they can win the hearts and minds of voters, they are now frequently seeking to remove them from the equation altogether.
Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers in South Dakota sought to repeal the state’s voter-initiated medical cannabis access law, despite 70 percent of voters having approved it. The effort failed, but only by a single vote.
In Nebraska, lawmakers are also considering legislation to roll back that state’s voter-approved medical marijuana law and the state’s Republican attorney general has urged lawmakers to ignore the election results altogether.
In Ohio, GOP lawmakers in the Senate recently approved legislation to rescind many of the legalization provisions approved by voters in 2023. Changes advanced by lawmakers include limiting home-cultivation rights, imposing THC potency limits and creating new crimes for adults who share cannabis with one another or who purchase cannabis products from out of state.
In Texas, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued several cities, including Dallas, for implementing voter-approved ordinances decriminalizing marijuana possession. As a result, local lawmakers in various municipalities–including Lockhart and Bastrop–are ignoring voters’ decisions to rethink their marijuana policies rather than face potential litigation.
Hellbound and Down 