Federal marijuana trafficking cases fell to another record-low in 2025, with a new report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) revealing a continued trend amid the expanding state-level reform movement that has given consumers more places to buy legal cannabis.
A recently published USSC fact sheet on drug prosecution trends shows just 383 federal cannabis trafficking cases in the last fiscal year. That marks a decline from the 471 cases reported in 2024.
More broadly, USSC said, marijuana trafficking prosecutions have dropped 62 percent from fiscal year 2021 to 2025.
Shifting federal priorities, which seem to have coincided with state-level marijuana reform efforts, have gradually pushed cannabis near the bottom of the list of drug trafficking cases.
The 383 cases from last year stands in stark contrast to the nearly 3,500 cannabis trafficking cases that were reported in 2015. Just two years before that, in 2013, the marijuana prosecutions amounted to approximately 5,000.
Colorado and Washington State became the first two states to approve recreational marijuana legalization in 2012.
Methamphetamine trafficking cases have dominated the list over the past decade, the USSC document published last month shows. In 2024, cases targeting fentanyl took over as the second most common drug trafficking target, followed by crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The number of heroin trafficking cases (356) was marginally lower than marijuana last year.
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