Tag: legalized marijuana

Legal Weed Is Working, Data Suggests: $24.7 Billion In Taxes, Teen Use Down In Most States

More than a decade into America’s state-by-state experiment with cannabis legalization, the results are no longer theoretical. Government data now confirms what early advocates envisioned—and what critics warned against: legal cannabis is reshaping public policy. The numbers tell a clear story, one grounded in billions in state tax revenue and a measurable decline in teen marijuana use.

According to two reports from the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), legal adult-use cannabis sales have generated more than $24.7 billion in state tax revenue since 2014. Much of that money is being directed toward education, healthcare, infrastructure, substance use prevention and community reinvestment. At the same time, teen cannabis use has declined in most legal states, defying long-held fears that legalization would increase youth access and consumption.

“Legalization does not increase youth cannabis use. In fact, evidence suggests the opposite,” MPP’s youth impact report states.

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Ohio GOP Lawmakers Can’t Agree On How To Amend Marijuana Law, Causing Planned Vote To Be Canceled

Despite efforts in the Ohio legislature to pass a bill to significantly change the state’s voter-approved marijuana law, last-minute disagreements between the House and Senate Republicans seemed to have derailed that plan for now—with House lawmakers signaling that a deal won’t be struck before the summer recess.

After taking public testimony and adopting certain changes to the Senate-passed legislation, SB 56, in recent weeks, the House Judiciary Committee ultimately declined to advance the proposal as scheduled at a Wednesday hearing, making it so the measure couldn’t advance to a floor vote planned for that day. Evidently, the revisions didn’t sit well with key senators, according to several legislators.

“Apparently the Senate changed their mind,” Rep. Jamie Callender (R), a pro-legalization lawmaker, told News 5 Cleveland.

Changes approved at a hearing late last month, for example, rolled back some of the strict limits included in a version of the measure passed by the Senate in February, including a criminal prohibition on sharing marijuana between adults on private property.

“They wanted to make a mandatory jail sentence for passing a joint between friends,” Callender, who has spent weeks working on additional changes to the legislation, said. He also complained about the Senate’s proposal to put all cannabis tax revenue in the state’s general fund, which would have prevented local municipalities from getting a share of those dollars as is currently the law.

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Maine Legislature Passes Bill Creating Separate Licensing System for Sun-Grown Marijuana With Significantly Lower Fees

The legislation was approved by the Senate in a 21 to 14 vote, after clearing the House 110 to 35. The measure defines “sun-grown cultivation” and “sun-grown cultivator” under state law, applying to those who grow marijuana primarily using natural sunlight and limited artificial lighting.

The bill creates a separate licensing framework for outdoor cultivators, including significantly lower fees. For example, a Tier 4 outdoor cultivation license would cost $15,000 annually—half the cost of an equivalent indoor operation.

Under the proposed law, sun-grown caregivers would be allowed to grow up to 150 mature plants or use up to 2,500 square feet of canopy each year, expanding the current limits. Additional provisions include updated security requirements for cultivation facilities, a grace period for new employees awaiting ID card approval, and the elimination of yeast and mold testing requirements for adult-use marijuana.

Supporters say the measure promotes sustainability, lowers barriers for small growers, and reflects Maine’s agricultural roots. If signed into law, it would mark a significant shift in how the state regulates outdoor marijuana cultivation, and it would make Maine one of the only states with a designated license for sun-grown cannabis growers.

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Legalization turns Germany into a cannabis hotspot: Mary Jane becomes the world’s largest cannabis trade fair for the first time

About a year after partial legalization by the “traffic light” government coalition, Germany has become the key meeting point for the global cannabis scene. With 60,000 expected visitors, over 500 exhibitors, and an expanded festival area, Mary Jane Berlin will – for the first time since its founding in 2016 – be the largest cannabis trade fair in the world, taking place from June 19 to 22, 2025. On more than 70,000 square meters of exhibition space, industry icons like former world boxing champion Mike Tyson will present the latest products, top acts such as Samy Deluxe will perform on the festival stage, and experts will discuss home cultivation, the booming demand for medical cannabis, and the growing telemedicine market at the professional conference. Cannabis-related sales in Germany are expected to reach around one billion euros in 2025.

“We started as a small scene gathering and are now the largest cannabis trade fair in the world. When it came to cannabis, the world used to look to the U.S. – now it looks to Germany, and Mary Jane is the highlight of the industry,” says Nhung Nguyen, organizer and co-founder of the fair. A record 40,000 tickets were sold in advance. For the first-ever B2B day on June 19, 5,000 industry representatives from 50 countries have registered. The professional conference, organized in cooperation with the Cannabis Industry Association (BvCW), will host 90 high-profile speakers from business, science, and politics. “We want to showcase all facets and the many positive qualities of cannabis – and why legalization is the only right way forward,” says Nguyen.

The effects of legalization are also reflected in the numbers: Germany has around 4.5 million cannabis users, and that number has roughly doubled over the past 15 years. According to Statista, cannabis market revenues in Germany are expected to reach around one billion euros in 2025. Special focus is being placed on medical cannabis. Thanks to the new legal situation, the market is booming like never before. The import of cannabis for medical and scientific purposes has significantly increased over the course of 2024, according to the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices. The quantity rose from 8.1 tons in Q1 to 11.6 tons in Q2, 20.7 tons in Q3, and 31.7 tons in Q4.

Numerous medical cannabis distributors will showcase their product ranges and services at the fair. In addition, telemedicine is playing an increasingly important role. More and more people are using the option to order cannabis with a prescription online and receive it via a pharmacy. Delivery services bring the products directly to customers. “The medical community is increasingly recognizing the plant’s value in treating illnesses and relieving pain. Initial hesitations from doctors and pharmacies are slowly dissolving,” says Nguyen.

In addition to medical cannabis, visitors will also find the latest industry trends at the fair: digitalized balcony greenhouses for home growing, edibles from brownies to granola bars, and a wide selection of non-intoxicating CBD products ranging from massage oils to meditation teas. “Mary Jane offers something for everyone. We’ve tailored the entire fair concept to attract new audiences as well. Smoking is prohibited in the halls out of consideration for all guests, and there will be various chill-out areas, international food trucks, and awareness teams. Everyone should feel comfortable and have fun,” says Nguyen.

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Marijuana Companies Are Blocked From COVID-Era Employee Retention Tax Credits Under 280E Penalty, Federal Court Says

In yet another wrinkle stemming from the ongoing federal prohibition on marijuana, a U.S. district court has ruled that an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax rule prevents state-legal cannabis companies from being eligible for refunds of employee retention credits (ERCs), which helped businesses continue to pay workers during early COVID-era shutdowns.

In the decision, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled that “nothing in the plain text of [IRS code] Section 280E limits its application to income tax credits,” rejecting arguments from plaintiffs.

The government, meanwhile, contended that the Section 280E prohibits any and all tax credits, including refunds of the COVID-era ERCs, which are typically refundable for other businesses.

On May 9, the court granted the government’s motion to dismiss the the case, Solstice Holdings v. U.S.

Section 280E disallows standard tax deductions and tax credits for businesses that traffic in Schedule I or II substances. It applies even in cases where businesses are operating in compliance with state law.

The law firm Holland & Hart said in a post about the new ruling that it appears to be “the first case where a court has addressed the application of IRC § 280E to ERC.”

Another law firm, GreenspoonMarder, noted in post about the district court opinion that many cannabis businesses applied for the ERC during the pandemic—and many received it.

“Some were deemed ‘essential’ and had to stay open during the pandemic despite the higher costs associated with continued operations during the pandemic and various restrictions that rendered it much more difficult to visit their stores,” attorneys Nick Richards and Sabrina Strand wrote recently.

“When the ERC first came out, there was a question as to whether it was available to cannabis companies because it creates a tax credit that Section 280E may disallow,” the post points out. “There was also an argument that it didn’t apply to the ERC, because Section 280E is part of Section A of the [Internal Revenue Code], which concerns income rather than employment taxes. At least one court now disagrees.”

Both law firms suggest the case out of Washington State creates a standard across all states within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. GreenspoonMarder, for example, says the ruling “technically only applies to companies located in the 9th Circuit.”

“That said, as the only opinion on this subject,” lawyers wrote, “the IRS may look to it as authority regardless of whether taxpayers are in one of the nine states located in the Circuit.”

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Missouri Officials Will Begin Unannounced Marijuana Dispensary Visits For New Product Testing Initiative Next Month

State cannabis regulators will begin their first attempt next month to double check the work of licensed testing labs tasked with ensuring the safety of Missouri marijuana products.

Starting July 1, staff with the Division of Cannabis Regulation will arrive unannounced at dispensaries and collect about 50 products a month off the shelves. They’ll take them to the Missouri State Public Health Reference Laboratory to be tested for things like mold, pesticides and a whole range of other things.

Ryan Bernard, the division’s testing and research unit manager, said the unannounced sampling has been in the works for a while as a way to add an extra level of compliance. The division, Bernard said, isn’t expecting to find problems.

“We won’t know until we see the data,” Bernard said. “I have full faith and confidence in our testing licensees that they’re testing according to rule as it’s been outlined.”

However, national testing lab experts told The Independent that Missouri’s regulators might be shocked at the results.

“Shelf testing has not gone well in any state that I know of, especially if it’s just starting,” said Josh Swider, vice chair of the cannabis working group for American Council of Independent Laboratories. “It will be very telling very fast.”

Swider pointed to a citation in Arizona in April of a cannabis lab, where the state found more than a dozen alleged “deficiencies” including problems with the lab’s potency testing and pesticide and microbial detection methods.

Swider called the levels of pesticides on the Arizona products “sickening.”

“But this is what you’re seeing around the country,” said Swider, co-founder and CEO of Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs in San Diego. “Regulators are starting to enforce. They’re realizing an issue that’s been systemic for a long time.”

Other common issue Missouri regulars might also find, he said, are inflated levels of THC on products.

Regulators previously talked about conducting a “round robin” testing, where the state’s certified testing labs would double check each other’s work under the state’s instruction. Amy Moore, director of the Division of Cannabis Regulation (DCR), told lawmakers in 2023 that this additional testing rule was “critical.”

“The challenges in regulating and relying on for-profit cannabis testing labs,” Moore told lawmakers at a 2023 committee hearing, “is one of the most discussed challenges in the national cannabis regulatory community.”

However, the state never ended up getting the process going for a variety of factors, Bernard said, so the unannounced samples will be the regulators first attempt at a testing backstop.

Lawmakers began allocating money for this kind of sampling to be tested at the state laboratory in the fiscal year that began on July 1, 2024 with $3.8 million. Most of it went unspent because the cannabis testing methods were “still in the process of being implemented,” according to state budget documents. Another $2.4 million was allocated for this fiscal year ending on June 30, and it’s unclear how much of it has been spent.

Bernard couldn’t speak on the budget for testing, he said, because the division and state lab budgets are “totally separate.”

“Our operating budget is DCR only,” he said. “State public health labs is theirs.”

The lab will receive another $2.4 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

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Trump Wants To Delete State Medical Marijuana Protections From Budget While Continuing To Block Cannabis Sales Legalization In D.C.

President Donald Trump is again proposing to remove existing protections for states that have legalized medical marijuana, while maintaining a ban that’s prevented Washington, D.C. from enacting a system of regulated adult-use cannabis sales.

As part of his budget request for the 2026 fiscal year sent to Congress on Friday, Trump is seeking to delete a longstanding rider that’s barred the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere in the implementation of state-level medical marijuana laws.

This is Trump’s first budget request of his second term, but during his first term he similarly called for its deletion each year of his presidency.

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, consistently proposed to continue the medical cannabis provision intact in his budget requests—though President Barack Obama, like Trump, had sought to delete it.

Congress has the final say on appropriations legislation language, however, and has not followed through on any president’s request to delete the medical marijuana protection since it was first enacted into law in 2014—though lawmakers have also declined to expand the protections to cover state recreational marijuana programs.

After signing prior appropriations bills into law that included the medical cannabis protection in contravention of his request to delete it, Trump on three occasions issued statements that specifically said his administration “will treat this provision consistent with the President’s constitutional responsibility to faithfully execute the laws of the United States”— implying he was reserving his right to ignore the rider.

The latest action in Trump’s new budget request will likely come as a disappointment to advocates and stakeholders, who have held out hope that the president would take a new direction on marijuana policy reform—especially after he endorsed rescheduling, industry banking access and a Florida cannabis legalization ballot initiative that ultimately fell short.

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New Jersey Lawmakers Consider Recriminalizing Some Marijuana Purchases And Sales

Lawmakers mulled Thursday whether New Jersey should ramp up enforcement against unlicensed cannabis sellers by passing a bill that would criminalize the purchase of unlicensed marijuana.

The bill riled cannabis activists, who say it would bring back the criminalization of weed that New Jersey’s marijuana legalization law was supposed to end. 

Under the bill, sponsored by Senate President Nick Scutari (D-Union), it would be a third-degree crime to operate an unlicensed marijuana business and a disorderly persons offense to knowingly purchase from one. A person who leads an “illegal marijuana business network” would be charged with a second-degree crime. 

“We have a problem where people are opening up brick-and-mortar stores, small stores, unlicensed to sell these products, and quite frankly, they’re just selling them and this state is doing nothing about it,” Scutari told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. “We need to do something more about those brick-and-mortar stores, but we also need to continue to fight back against drug dealers because those are alive and well.” 

Scutari spearheaded legalizing recreational cannabis, first introducing legislation to regulate it for adult use in 2014. After bills languished in the Legislature, recreational cannabis was legalized in 2020 by voters, and Scutari was the primary sponsor of the bill to launch the legal marijuana industry.

Scutari said the new legislation would be a corrective measure in response to the “black and gray market” that has flourished even though hundreds of cannabis dispensaries have opened statewide.

New Jersey has some of the most expensive cannabis in the nation for both medical and recreational users. The industry has raked in over $1 billion since sales launched in April 2022. 

The committee did not vote on the bill, which does not yet have a companion in the Assembly.

Lawmakers generally voiced support for Scutari’s proposal to address the unlicensed THC products that they say undermine the regulated industry. Sen. Joe Lagana (D-Bergen) said he’s seen questionable cannabis products in “every single gas station I walk into, every convenience store, every corner store.”

But senators also repeatedly placed blame on the Attorney General’s Office, accusing it of not enforcing the state’s cannabis laws.

Sen. Mike Testa (R) blasted Attorney General Matt Platkin (D) for what he called “absentee” leadership. And Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Union) said that once certain laws aren’t enforced, the community “loses respect for government.” Bramnick suggested the committee should call on Platkin to appear before them on the issue and said ignoring the law is “disrespectful to this body.”

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States Have Generated Nearly $25 Billion In Marijuana Tax Revenue Since First Markets Opened, New Report Finds

States have generated nearly $25 billion in revenue from recreational cannabis since the first sales started over a decade ago, according to a new report from a leading advocacy group.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) also said that in 2024 alone, states collected $4.4 billion in recreational cannabis tax revenue—the most ever garnered in a single year. Seven states took in over $200 million each, with four of those seeing more than $500 million in revenue and one exceeding $1 billion.

“At a time when federal funding cuts are putting pressure on states’ budgets, adult-use cannabis taxes are bringing billions of dollars into states’ coffers,” Lauren Daly, interim executive director at MPP, said in a press release.

“Legal adult-use markets have also contributed to significant job growth, creating thousands of new employment and small business opportunities,” she said. “While economic growth isn’t the primary reason for legalizing adult-use cannabis, it is undeniably a great benefit.”

The new adult-use-focused analysis does not account for additional revenue that states have collected from medical marijuana sales.

MPP has been consistently tracking state cannabis tax data, and this latest report shows that states generated about $200 million more in 2024 compared to 2023.

“Cannabis prohibition destroys lives by tearing apart families and creating life-altering criminal records that stand in the way of jobs, housing, and an education,” Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at MPP, said. “Cannabis legalization dramatically reduces the number of arrests and wasted law enforcement resources, while generating billions of dollars in new revenue that can improve residents’ wellbeing.”

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Ohio Is More Than Doubling The Amount Of Marijuana That Adults Can Legally Buy Per Day

Ohio adults will soon be able to buy more than double the amount of marijuana that they are currently allowed to purchase per day, with state officials determining that the market can sustainably supply both medical cannabis patients and adult consumers.

In a notice released last week, the Ohio Division of Cannabis Control (DCC) said that its priority “continues to be ensuring medical marijuana patients have adequate supply and maintain their medical marijuana card, and the Division knows that licensees share that priority.”

“Since non-medical cannabis sales began in August 2024, the market has demonstrated the ability to support both medical marijuana patients and non-medical consumers alike,” it said.

Accordingly, DCC said that, effective June 4, adults will be able to buy up to 2.5 ounces of flower cannabis per day, a significant increase compared to the current daily transaction limit of one ounce. This will make it so consumers could buy marijuana in an amount that matches the 2.5 ounce possession limit under state statute.

“At this time, when calculating 2.5 ounces of plant material, the only approved form that may be applied to the 2.5 ounces of cannabis plant material is dried cannabis plant material for vaporization,” the new notice says. “All other products apply towards the non-medical consumer’s cannabis product limitation of 15,000mg of total THC content.”

“Dispensaries are permitted to dispense in accordance with the statutory per day transaction limits but are not required to,” DCC said. “The Division reminds dispensaries of their responsibility…to serve and accommodate medical patients/caregivers and non-medical consumers alike, and maintain ongoing inventory sufficient to maintain an adequate supply of medical marijuana.”

The purchase limit for medical cannabis patients will not change under the updated guidance. Patients and caregivers can continue to buy up to a 90-day supply of marijuana for medical purposes.

If a retailer decides to raise its daily transaction limit for adult consumers in accordance with the guidance, the licensee must first submit a “Change of Operation” request to DCC.

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