Tag: legalized marijuana

The Heavy Pot Taxes Favored by The New York Times Would Undermine Legalization

The New York Times embraced legalization of recreational marijuana in 2014, two years after Colorado and Washington became the first states to take that step. By that point, most Americans opposed pot prohibition, and that majority has grown since then.

Although the Times does not regret endorsing legalization, its editorial board now says stricter regulation and heavier taxation are necessary to curtail the costs associated with marijuana abuse. Those recommendations elide two inconvenient facts: Cannabis is still federally prohibited, and states are still struggling to replace unauthorized pot peddlers with government-licensed marijuana merchants.

The Times emphasizes that “occasional marijuana use is no more a problem than drinking a glass of wine with dinner or smoking a celebratory cigar.” But while marijuana “is safer than alcohol and tobacco in some ways,” the Times says, “it is not harmless.”

Frequent cannabis consumption has increased substantially in recent years, the Times notes, and roughly one in 10 marijuana users “develops an addiction.” Even nonaddicted cannabis consumers “can still use it too much,” it says, since “people who are frequently stoned can struggle to hold a job or take care of their families.”

The Times also mentions cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, “marijuana-linked paranoia,” and the danger posed by stoned drivers. “Any product that brings both pleasures and problems requires a balancing act,” the Times says, which means “personal freedom” must be curtailed to protect “public health.”

That formulation is inherently paternalistic, since the “public health” burden to which the Times refers is borne mainly by cannabis consumers themselves. And the moral logic of the hefty marijuana taxes that the Times favors is questionable.

Those taxes would add to the difficulties that some heavy consumers face while punishing the occasional use that the paper says is no big deal. Although “adults should have the freedom to use” marijuana, the Times says, they must pay the government for that privilege.

A tax-based “balancing act” also raises practical difficulties. “The first step in a strategy to reduce marijuana abuse should be a federal tax on pot,” the Times says, gliding over the point that Congress cannot impose an excise tax on marijuana products unless it is prepared to legalize them.

The editorial does not explicitly acknowledge the need for that step. To the contrary, it implicitly criticizes President Donald Trump’s decision to reclassify marijuana under federal law, which falls far short of legalization.

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Washington State Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Marijuana Home Grow For Adults

Washington State lawmakers have advanced a bill to expand the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law by allowing recreational consumers to grow their own cannabis plants.

Weeks after Sens. Rebecca Saldaña (D), Noel Frame (D) and T’wina Nobles (D) filed the legislation, the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee on Tuesday approved the measure in a voice vote. It next heads to the Senate Rules Committee before potentially reaching the floor.

The vote comes about a week after the Senate panel held an initial hearing on the proposal, with law enforcement representatives voicing opposition to the reform and military veterans testifying in support of allowing personal home cultivation.

Under SB 6204, adults over 21 years of age would be allowed to cultivate up to six marijuana plants at home. No more than 15 cannabis plants could be produced at any one time in a single housing unit, regardless of how many adults live there.

People could lawfully keep the marijuana produced by those plants despite the state’s existing one-ounce limit on possession.

Property owners would be allowed to prohibit tenants from growing cannabis in rental units, and probation and parole officers would be able to bar people from cultivating marijuana as a condition of their supervised release.

Home cultivators would be required to keep plants from public view and grown in such a way that they could not be smelled from public places or private properties of other housing units. Violating those rules would be a class 3 civil infraction.

It would be a class 1 civil infraction for a person to grow more than six but fewer than 16 cannabis plants, while it would be a class C felony to produce more than 16 plants, under the bill.

No cannabis plants could be grown in housing units that are used to provide early childhood education and early learning services by a family day care provider.

The committee on Tuesday approved an amendment from Sen. Mark Schoesler (R) to allow municipalities and counties to ban or enact moratoriums on cannabis cultivation in housing units in areas that are zoned primarily for residential use.

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GOP Congressman Backs Effort To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization In Arizona—But Says Trump Holds ‘Power’ With Rescheduling Push

A GOP congressional lawmaker says he’d like to see his state of Arizona roll back its voter-approved marijuana legalization law with an initiative that could be on the November ballot—but he acknowledged that President Donald Trump’s recent federal rescheduling order could complicate that prohibitionist push.

Two Republican members of Arizona’s U.S. House delegation spoke with Marijuana Moment about the proposed ballot measure to eliminate commercial cannabis sales in the state, voicing opposition to legalization while recognizing that pending federal reform represents an obstacle for the anti-marijuana campaign.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ)—who was among a handful of GOP lawmakers who urged the Trump administration to reject rescheduling last year—said he would like to see voters approve an initiative to repeal the adult-use marijuana market in Arizona. That measure was filed with the secretary of state’s office last month, but it hasn’t been certified for ballot placement at this point.

“We need to really take a comprehensive look at cannabis all the way across the board. Science tries to commit one way or another to us, and we’re not getting the full background on it,” he said, adding that he still regards marijuana as a “gateway drug” to other illicit substances and arguing that the cannabis industry has “resisted every which way with the regulations.”

Asked about Trump’s recent executive order directing the attorney general to expeditiously finalize a rule moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the congressman conceded that could hamper the state-level repeal effort.

“He’s got power,” Gosar said. “But a lot of us want to know who was it that actually turned his ear” to support rescheduling.

The lawmaker said the president has historically been receptive to his input, and he’d like to have a discussion about the rescheduling move—but that’s yet to materialize.

Another congressional Republican representing Arizona, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), also weighed in on the rescheduling push in an interview with Marijuana Moment last week.

While there’s a libertarian perspective on the issue he appreciates when it comes to letting adults make their own choices about personal marijuana use, he said the fiscal conservative in him says prohibition can help prevent the use of taxpayer dollars to deal with what he characterized as the consequences of cannabis use.

“I’ve always taken the position that you need to keep marijuana where it was because the social safety network is in place, causing taxpayers to have to fund rehabilitation for those things,” he said.

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‘Dark Money’ Anti-Marijuana Group Is Bankrolling Ballot Measures To Roll Back Legalization In Multiple States, Records Show

When it comes to putting a proposed new law before voters, it helps to have lots of money ready to burn.

More than $11 million has already changed hands to advance or oppose a potentially record-breaking field of ballot questions that Massachusetts voters could decide in November, according to newly filed campaign finance reports, including a significant injection by a national dark-money group that opposes legal drug use.

All $1.55 million raised so far in support of a proposal to recriminalize recreational marijuana in Massachusetts came from SAM Action Inc., an organization that is not required to disclose the source of its own funding.

It’s the same organization that bankrolled opposition to a 2024 Massachusetts ballot question that sought to open up access to some psychedelic substances, which voters rejected.

Massachusetts is not alone as a battleground, either. SAM Action is also the only donor behind a ballot question in Maine this cycle that would similarly prohibit recreational pot use there, as the Portland Press Herald reported.

Both campaigns have generated scrutiny over their efforts to gather signatures from voters.

In Massachusetts, opponents filed an objection alleging the campaign “obtained signatures fraudulently” by telling voters the measure would provide affordable housing or fund public parks, not that it would ban recreational marijuana.

The State Ballot Law Commission heard arguments last week and is expected to rule by Friday. State law empowers the panel to determine whether signatures were placed on a ballot question petition “by fraud,” and its interpretation could set off a lengthier court battle over whether the question can go before voters.

Similarly, Mainers have been alleging in recent weeks that they were misled about what the anti-marijuana petition would do when they signed it. Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, said she’s received complaints about the topic, adding that she has no enforcement power because, as she put it to lawmakers, “You have a right to lie under the First Amendment.”

Wendy Wakeman, a veteran Republican operative who is working as spokesperson for the repeal campaign, said the Massachusetts and Maine questions are “not a coordinated effort” despite funding coming from the same national group.

SAM Action is a 501(c)(4) organization, so it’s not required to disclose its donors, leaving unclear exactly who is putting major dollars toward shutting down an industry both Massachusetts and Maine voted nearly a decade ago to legalize.

On its website, SAM Action claims affiliation with the nonprofit Smart Approaches to Marijuana group co-founded by former US Rep. Patrick Kennedy—a Democrat who represented Rhode Island, and the son of longtime US Sen. Ted Kennedy—along with former White House Office of National Drug Control Policy advisor Kevin Sabet and David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush who is now a senior editor at The Atlantic.

Wakeman declined to comment on SAM Action’s primary donors.

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19 States That Legalized Marijuana Use Nevertheless Say It Should Disqualify People From Owning Guns

If you are a cannabis consumer who owns a gun, you are committing a federal felony right now, even if you live in one of the 40 states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. That perplexing situation is perfectly reasonable and constitutional, according to 19 of those states, which are urging the Supreme Court to uphold the federal ban on gun possession by “unlawful” users of “any controlled substance.”

That law is at the center of a case that the Court is scheduled to hear on March 2, which involves a Texas man, Ali Hemani, who was charged with illegal gun possession after an FBI search of his home discovered a Glock 19 pistol, two ounces of marijuana, and less than a gram of cocaine. The potential implications extend far beyond Hemani because this ban applies to millions of peaceful Americans who pose no plausible threat to public safety.

As I explain in my new book, Beyond Control, that policy authorizes severe criminal penalties for drug users who try to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Under the law that Hemani violated, it does not matter whether someone handles guns while intoxicated or otherwise endangers the public.

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a federal judge’s dismissal of the gun charge against Hemani. That outcome was dictated by a 2024 ruling in which the 5th Circuit held that the Second Amendment barred the government from prosecuting a gun-owning cannabis consumer “based solely on her ‘habitual or occasional drug use.'”

Such prosecutions, the 5th Circuit said, are not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the Second Amendment test that the Supreme Court established in 2022. While “our history and tradition may support some limits on a presently intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon,” the appeals court said, “they do not support disarming a sober person based solely on past substance usage.”

The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to reject that conclusion and reinstate the charge against Hemani. Solicitor General D. John Sauer implausibly argues that all “unlawful” drug users, including occasional cannabis consumers and state-registered patients who use marijuana for symptom relief, pose a danger that justifies disarming them.

Sauer likens drug users to “habitual drunkards,” who historically could be confined to workhouses as “vagrants.” But the law he is defending is more analogous to a categorical ban on gun possession by alcohol consumers, which would be clearly unconstitutional.

The Trump administration’s position, which echoes the Biden administration’s, seems inconsistent with the president’s avowed commitment to the Second Amendment. The states that have joined Sauer in asking the Supreme Court to overrule the 5th Circuit likewise seem to be contradicting their own policies.

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Anti-Marijuana Group Hires Trump’s Former Attorney General For Lawsuit To Block Rescheduling Move Directed By President

A leading marijuana prohibitionist group says it’s retained the legal services of President Donald Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, to sue to reverse federal marijuana rescheduling if and when the pending rule is finalized. And they’ll also be filing a petition through the administrative process to keep cannabis strictly prohibited.

Trump earned bipartisan applause last month when he signed an executive order directing the current attorney general to complete the process of moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The policy change wouldn’t legalize marijuana, but it would formally recognize the plant’s medical value, allow marijuana businesses to take federal tax deductions and remove certain research barriers.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) President Kevin Sabet called the move a “full betrayal” of the president’s “promise to keep all Americans safe and health” that amounts to a giant gift to Big Marijuana and its pushers who are now more incentivized to target children with their highly addictive products.”

“This rule, if finalized, will herald a public health disaster,” he said. “Thankfully, this decision does not legalize marijuana, but it gifts the industry with more than $2 billion in tax write-offs at a time when their advertising is inflicting carnage on America’s families.”

SAM described the reform as a “pyrrhic victory for the industry”—and one that they intend to fight with the legal assistance of Barr, who now serves as a partner at the firm Torridon Law.

Barr’s firm previously represented SAM last year in asking the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to extend the public comment period for the cannabis rescheduling proposal.

Because current Attorney General Pam Bondi has not yet signed off on the proposed rescheduling rule, which is the product of a scientific and legal review initiated under the Biden administration, no lawsuit has been filed yet. But should that happen, Sabet said SAM intends to sue in the court system while also petitioning DEA to move cannabis back to Schedule I.

Sabet said that advocates have “failed in their attempt to legalize their products, banking, and they were dealt a huge blow with the new law outlawing Delta-8 and other synthetic pot products.”

While there was some speculation that the executive order Trump signed would include a directive for Congress to pass a bipartisan marijuana banking bill, there weren’t expectations that the president would push for outright legalization through that action.

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State Cannabis Legalization and Psychosis-Related Health Care Utilization

Key Points

Question  Is state cannabis legalization or commercialization associated with increased rates of psychosis-related health care claims?

Findings  In this cohort study of claims data from 63 680 589 beneficiaries from 2003 to 2017, there was no statistically significant difference in the rates of psychosis-related diagnoses or prescribed antipsychotics in states with medical or recreational cannabis policies compared with states with no such policy.

Meaning  The findings of this study do not support an association between state policies legalizing cannabis and psychosis-related outcomes; further research into this topic may be informative.

Abstract

Importance  Psychosis is a hypothesized consequence of cannabis use. Legalization of cannabis could therefore be associated with an increase in rates of health care utilization for psychosis.

Objective  To evaluate the association of state medical and recreational cannabis laws and commercialization with rates of psychosis-related health care utilization.

Design, Setting, and Participants  Retrospective cohort design using state-level panel fixed effects to model within-state changes in monthly rates of psychosis-related health care claims as a function of state cannabis policy level, adjusting for time-varying state-level characteristics and state, year, and month fixed effects. Commercial and Medicare Advantage claims data for beneficiaries aged 16 years and older in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia, 2003 to 2017 were used. Data were analyzed from April 2021 to October 2022.

Exposure  State cannabis legalization policies were measured for each state and month based on law type (medical or recreational) and degree of commercialization (presence or absence of retail outlets).

Main Outcomes and Measures  Outcomes were rates of psychosis-related diagnoses and prescribed antipsychotics.

Results  This study included 63 680 589 beneficiaries followed for 2 015 189 706 person-months. Women accounted for 51.8% of follow-up time with the majority of person-months recorded for those aged 65 years and older (77.3%) and among White beneficiaries (64.6%). Results from fully-adjusted models showed that, compared with no legalization policy, states with legalization policies experienced no statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related diagnoses (medical, no retail outlets: rate ratio [RR], 1.13; 95% CI, 0.97-1.36; medical, retail outlets: RR, 1.24; 95% CI, 0.96-1.61; recreational, no retail outlets: RR, 1.38; 95% CI, 0.93-2.04; recreational, retail outlets: RR, 1.39; 95% CI, 0.98-1.97) or prescribed antipsychotics (medical, no retail outlets RR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.88-1.13; medical, retail outlets: RR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.87-1.19; recreational, no retail outlets: RR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.84-1.51; recreational, retail outlets: RR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.89-1.45). In exploratory secondary analyses, rates of psychosis-related diagnoses increased significantly among men, people aged 55 to 64 years, and Asian beneficiaries in states with recreational policies compared with no policy.

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Ohio Activists Submit Signatures For Referendum To Block Lawmakers’ Move To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization And Restrict Hemp

Ohio activists announced on Monday that they’ve met an initial signature requirement to launch a campaign aimed at repealing key components of a bill the governor recently signed to scale back the state’s voter-approved marijuana law and ban the sale of consumable hemp products outside of licensed cannabis dispensaries.

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice said they’ve submitted a batch of 1,000 signatures to get the referendum process started. If the signatures are certified by the secretary of state, the campaign will then need to submit a total of about 250,000 signatures to make the ballot.

The proposed referendum would repeal the first three core sections of SB 56, a controversial bill that Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed into law earlier this month that he says is intended to crack down on the unregulated intoxicating hemp market. But the legislation would do more than restrict the sale of cannabinoid products to dispensaries.

The law also recriminalizes certain marijuana activity that was legalized under the ballot initiative voters approved in 2023, and it’d additionally remove anti-discrimination protections for cannabis consumers that were enacted under that law.

The governor additionally used his line-item veto powers to cancel a section of the bill that would have delayed the implementation of the ban on hemp beverages.

“We’re saying no to SB 56 because it recriminalizes the cannabis industry,” Wesley Bryant, a petitioner with the referendum campaign who owns the cannabis company 420 Craft Beverages, said. “SB 56 is a slap in the face to voters who overwhelmingly voted to legalize cannabis in 2023.”

Advocates and stakeholders strongly protested the now-enacted legislation, arguing that it undermines the will of voters who approved cannabis legalization and would effectively eradicate the state’s hemp industry, as there are low expectations that adults will opt for hemp-based products over marijuana when they visit a dispensary.

The pushback inspired the newly filed referendum—but the path to successfully blocking the law is narrow.

If activists reach the signature threshold by the deadline three months from now, which coincides with the same day the restrictive law is to take effect, SB 56 would not be implemented until voters got a chance to decide on the issue at the ballot.

“In filing our petitions today, we are taking a stand for Ohioans against politicians in Columbus and saying no to the government overreach of SB 56,” Bryant said.

A summary of the referendum states that “Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Am. Sub. S. B. No. 56 enact new provisions and amend and repeal existing provisions of the Ohio Revised Code that relate to the regulation, criminalization, and taxation of cannabis products, such as the sale, use, possession, cultivation, license, classification, transport, and manufacture of marijuana and certain hemp products.”

“If a majority of the voters vote to not approve Sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Act, then the enacted changes will not take effect and the prior version of the affected laws will remain in effect,” it says.

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Arizona Ballot Measure Seeks To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization

A newly filed ballot initiative in Arizona would repeal of key provisions of the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law by eliminating commercial sales, while still permitting possession and personal cultivation.

The “Sensible Marijuana Policy Act for Arizona” is being spearheaded by Sean Noble, president of the political strategy firm American Encore. Paperwork to register the initiative was filed with the secretary of state’s office this month.

This year has seen a series of attempts to roll back adult-use legalization laws, with anti-cannabis activists in Maine recently approved for signature gathering for a similar ballot initiative and a Massachusetts campaign clearing an initial signature threshold for their version that will first put the issue to lawmakers before it potentially heads to the ballot.

The Arizona measure is distinct from those proposals in at least one significant policy area: It would not take away the rights of adults to grow up to six cannabis plants for personal use.

Also, it explicitly preserves components of the law aimed at expunging prior marijuana records.

Like the anti-cannabis proposals in other states, possession would remain lawful if voters chose to enact the initiative—and Arizona’s medical marijuana program would remain intact—but the commercial market for recreational cannabis that’s evolved since voters approved an adult-use legalization measure in 2020 would be quashed.

“For adults that want to consume cannabis, they will be able to do that,” Noble told the Arizona Daily Star.

But the GOP operative—who has worked with Republican legislators on efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and played a role opposing a failed attempt to legalize for adult use in 2016—said declining revenue and advertising rules he perceives as insufficient to deterring youth use puts the campaign at an advantage among voters.

A findings section on the latest initiative states that “the proliferation of marijuana establishments and recreational marijuana sales in this state have produced unintended consequences and negative effects relating to the public health, safety, and welfare of Arizonans, including increased marijuana use among children, environmental concerns, increased demands for water resources, public nuisances, market instability, and illicit market activities.”

“Arizona’s legal marijuana sales have declined for two consecutive years, resulting in less tax revenue for this state, while some patients have relied on recreational use of marijuana instead of utilizing the benefits of this state’s medical marijuana program,” it says.

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Teen Marijuana Use ‘Remained Stable’ As Legalization Expands, Federal Health Officials Acknowledge

Teen marijuana use “remained stable” this year even as more states have enacted legalization, according to an annual federally funded survey

The Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey—supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and conducted every year for decades by the University of Michigan—examines substance use trends among 8th, 10th and 12th grade students. And the latest results add to a large body of evidence contradicting prohibitionist claims that state-level legalization would drive increases in underage cannabis usage.

The rate of past-year marijuana use for 12th graders was 25.7 percent, which is relatively consistent with recent years but at its lowest level since 1992. It was the same case with 10th graders, 15.6 percent of whom used marijuana in the last year. Among 8th grade students, 7.6 percent reported past-year cannabis consumption.

For past-month cannabis use, that rate was 17.1 percent for 12th graders, a slight uptick from the prior year but significantly lower than its record high of 37.1 percent in 1978 before any state had legalized cannabis for adult or medical use. For 10th grade students, the rate this past year was 9.4 percent, and for 8th grade it was 4 percent—consistent with recent years.

“We are encouraged that adolescent drug use remains relatively low and that so many teens choose not to use drugs at all,” NIDA Director Nora Volkow said in a press release. “It is critical to continue to monitor these trends closely to understand how we can continue to support teens in making healthy choices and target interventions where and when they are needed.”

The survey also found that students who reported past-month abstention from marijuana , alcohol and nicotine were “stable for all grades” (66 percent for 12th grade, 82 percent for 10th grade and 91 percent for 8th grade).

The survey also asked about the use of hemp-based cannabinoid products, including intoxicating compounds such as delta-8 THC. It found that 9 percent of 12th graders, 6 percent of 10th graders and 2 percent of 8th graders used products in that category in the past year.

This year’s MTF survey was based on data from 23,726 student surveys submitted from 270 public and private schools from February-June 2025.

To reform advocates, the results of the survey reinforce the idea that creating a regulatory framework for cannabis where licensed retailers must check IDs and implement other security mechanisms to prevent unlawful diversion is a far more effective policy than prohibition, with illicit suppliers whose products may be untested and where age-gating isn’t a strictly enforced regulation.

To that point, a separate federally funded study out of Canada that was released last month found that that youth marijuana use rates actually declined after the country legalized cannabis.

The study was released about three months after German officials released a separate report on their country’s experience with legalizing marijuana nationwide.

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