Tag: marijuana legalization

Marijuana Consumers Are Under Attack In Multiple States, And It’s Time To Fight Back

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.

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New Hampshire Lawmakers Move Forward With Plan To Legalize Simple Possession Of Marijuana

Committees in New Hampshire on Wednesday took action on a handful of marijuana bills, advancing a plan that would legalize the simple possession by adults as well as a proposal to double existing possession limits for medical cannabis patients and caregivers. They put a pause, however, on broader legislation to legalize and regulate a commercial recreational marijuana market.

At a hearing, the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee gave its approval to two different bills. One—HB 198, from Rep. Jared Sullivan (D)—takes a simple, unregulated approach to marijuana legalization.

If approved, the measure would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to two ounces of marijuana flower, 10 grams of concentrate and up to 2,000 milligrams of THC in other cannabis products.

Retail sales of marijuana products, along with home cultivation, would remain illegal under the plan. Consuming marijuana on public land would also be prohibited.

Another bill—HB 190, from Rep. Heath Howard (D)—would increase the possession limit of medical marijuana by patients and caregivers, raising it to four ounces from the current two. Existing 10-day patient purchase limits would also increase from two ounces up to four.

Members of the committee voted 9–7 in favor of HB 198 and 14–0 to advance HB 190.

“We as a body have passed bills legalizing cannabis again and again,” Rep. Alissandra Murray (D), who made the motion to advance HB 198, said before Wednesday’s vote. “The people of New Hampshire have made it clear that they would like us to legalize cannabis.”

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Colombian President Calls On Lawmakers To Legalize Marijuana To Combat Cartel Violence In The Illicit Market

The president of Colombia is calling on lawmakers to legalize marijuana in the country, arguing that prohibition “only brings violence” from cartels in the illicit market. And he’s also pushing other nations to legalize coca leaves for “for purposes other than cocaine.”

On Sunday, President Gustavo Petro warned in a social media post of the “multinationalization of the cocaine mafias,” claiming that there are more cartels today than before high-profile trafficker Pablo Escobar was caught and imprisoned.

“The empowerment of mafia organizations shows the failure of prohibition and the absence of alternative measures to simple prohibition,” the president said, according to a translation.

“My government will maintain full cooperation with all governments in the matter of confiscating cocaine,” he added. “And it has focused and will focus its action on large shipments and on high-ranking cocaine and money laundering bosses worldwide.”

Petro then said he’s asking the Colombian Congress to “legalize marijuana and remove violence from this crop.”

“The prohibition of marijuana in Colombia only brings violence,” he said.

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Major Coalition Of Marijuana Groups Announces Week-Long Push In DC For Legalization And Clemency Under Trump Admin

Marijuana advocacy groups and industry stakeholders will be staging another demonstration in Washington, D.C. this spring to show support for federal legalization at a time of significant uncertainty about what might be achievable under the GOP-controlled Congress and White House.

Led by the Last Prisoner Project (LPP), the Cannabis Unity Week of Action will take place from April 28-May 1, bringing together a diverse coalition to “unite advocates, impacted individuals, and industry leaders to pressure Congress and the Trump administration to fully legalize cannabis and implement retroactive relief measures for those affected by prohibition-era policies.”

The week-long event will involve educational outreach, press conferences featuring congressional allies in the reform movement and “an action outside the White House to honor those still incarcerated for cannabis and demand their freedom via presidential clemency.”

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Dozens Of New Jersey Marijuana Businesses Push To Legalize Home Cultivation, Despite Resistance From Governor And Legislative Leaders

Dozens of New Jersey small marijuana businesses and advocacy groups are calling on the state legislature to allow adults to cultivate their own cannabis at home—seemingly contradicting repeated claims from the governor and legislative leaders that the reform could undermine the evolving legal marketplace.

And as Gov. Phil Murphy (D) is set to term out at the end of the year, activists are drawing attention where his potential successors stand on the issue as well.

The more than 50 businesses and advocates, which formed a collective known as the New Jersey Home Grow Coalition last year, signed an open letter to Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D), rejecting the idea that the market needs more time to mature before people can be permitted to grow their own plants for personal use.

Unlike most other states that have enacted cannabis legalization, New Jersey continues to prohibit home cultivation for adults or medical marijuana patients.

“Even with our growing industry there’s no hope of access to the clean, consistent, strain-specific medicine that I need for my epilepsy,” Andrea Raible, co-founder of the NJ Homegrow Coalition, said in a press release. “Politicians are concerned with adult use profits while we are concerned with life threatening health conditions and facing prison for plants.”

In the open letter to Scutari, who has broadly championed cannabis reform but has recently resisted calls for home cultivation, the members of the New Jersey marijuana community said “discussions on home cultivation in New Jersey have stalled, attributed to allowing the industry ‘time to mature.’”

“As licensed cannabis operators, stakeholders in the industry, and relevant organizations, we respectfully disagree with this statement. The legalization of medical home cultivation will not negatively impact the legal state cannabis industry,” they said. “We firmly support the immediate legalization of medical home cultivation for patients and caregivers. We also endorse additional legislation to be introduced that allows for the legalization of personal use home cultivation safely and equitably.”

The advocates and stakeholders are voicing support for an amendment to expand a pair of bills seeking to provide for medical cannabis home cultivation, making it so the plant limit would be replaced with an allowance to “allow up to 100 square feet of mature cannabis plant grow canopy area.”

“This would allow patients and caretakers to have the ability to properly pheno-hunt and cultivate an amount that meets individual needs,” they said. “Additionally, this change would mitigate the potential for exploiting the law through the cultivation of massive cannabis plants.”

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Doctors Supporting Marijuana Rescheduling File Lawsuit Calling For DEA Witness Selection Redo Over Alleged Unlawful Conspiracy With Reform Opponents

A non-profit organization of pro-marijuana reform doctors has filed a brief in a federal appeals court arguing that new evidence has surfaced demonstrating that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) carried out an “arbitrary and capricious review” of witnesses for hearings on the ongoing cannabis rescheduling process that should now be redone.

The group is alleging that there’s “substantial evidence” of procedural violations committed by DEA leadership during the witness selection process—including previously unreported unlawful ex parte communications with certain parties, most of whom oppose the rescheduling proposal.

The suit from Doctors for Drug Policy Reform (D4DPR)—filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday—comes amid an indefinite delay of the DEA administrative hearings on the Biden administration-initiated proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

At issue in the legal challenge is the fact that then-DEA Administrator Anne Milgram selected just 25 of more than 160 applicants that sought to provide input on the rescheduling proposal.

According to attorneys represented by D4DPR, which was among the groups denied designated participant status for the hearings, there’s substantial evidence that DEA’s ex parte communications were “motivated by the impermissible goal of creating an evidentiary record that would allow it to reject the proposed rule to reschedule marijuana.”

“The Agency gave no reasons for selecting only 25 participants or why it selected particular applicants,” the lawsuit says. “The Agency’s failure to explain the reasons for its selections warrants vacatur and remand with instructions to redo the selections.”

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Wisconsin Governor Puts Marijuana Legalization In Budget Request, Along With Provisions To Regulate Hemp-Derived THC

The governor of Wisconsin has once again included a proposal to legalize marijuana in his biennial budget request.

“Legalize, regulate, and tax the sale of marijuana for recreational use, much like Wisconsin already does with alcohol,” a budget brief that the office of Gov. Tony Evers (D) released on Tuesday says, adding that it will result in “$58.1 million in revenue in fiscal year 2026-27 and growing amounts in future years.”

Under current Wisconsin law, cannabis is illegal for both recreational and medical purposes.

The governor’s proposal would additionally “create a process for individuals serving sentences or previously convicted of marijuana-related crimes to have an opportunity to repeal or reduce their sentences for nonviolent minor offenses.”

“The Governor further recommends the imposition of a 15 percent wholesale excise tax and a 10 percent retail excise tax on the sale of marijuana for recreational use by department-issued permit holders,” it says.

Identical bills to facilitate the budget requests have been filed in both the Senate and Assembly.

In addition to legalizing cannabis for adult use, Evers is proposing to include delta-8, delta-10 THC and other intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids in the definition of marijuana to “ensure their production, processing and sale is regulated and not available to individuals under 21.”

Further, the governor is calling for the the Department of Revenue the enter into agreements with tribal territories “for the refund to tribes of marijuana excise taxes estimated to be collected from sales on tribal lands,” similar to current policy with tobacco products.

The companion bills that were filed in tandem with the governor’s budget request stipulate that all revenue collected from the proposed cannabis taxes will be deposited into the state general fund.

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RFK Jr. Says Marijuana Can Have ‘Catastrophic Impacts’ On Consumers, But State-Level Legalization Can Spur Research On Its Harms And Benefits

Fresh off his Senate confirmation vote to become the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday that he is “worried about” the normalization of high-potency marijuana and that he feels its use can have “really catastrophic impacts” on people, but that state-level legalization can facilitate research into its harms and benefits.

Kennedy, who was vocal about his support for marijuana legalization when he was running for president—as well as during his time on the Trump transition team—has been notably silent on cannabis policy issues over recent months as he worked to win over senators to secure confirmation for the country’s top health role.

Now, during his first major media interview since receiving that final vote to secure the cabinet position earlier in the day, Kennedy told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that he believes cannabis does hold serious harm potential.

The HHS secretary, who personally struggled with drug addiction during his youth, was asked about his cannabis policy position and noted that he’s been in recovery for over 40 years and attends daily 12-step meetings.

“I hear stories all the time of the impacts of marijuana on people—and the really catastrophic impacts on them,” he said.

However, Kennedy said “that worry also has to be balanced [with] the impacts that we’ve had before” as it relates to criminalization.

“Twenty-five states [have] now legalized marijuana, but we had about a third of our prison population that was in jail because of marijuana offenses,” he said. “That’s something we don’t want either.”

“Because of the legalization of recreational marijuana in 25 states, we have now a capacity to really study it and to compare it to states,” he said. “We need to do studies. We need to figure it out, and then we need to we need to implement policies to address” any health concerns.

Of course, HHS has already completed a comprehensive scientific study into cannabis that led the agency under the Biden administration to recommend moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

The new comments come on the same day that Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said he received a commitment from Kennedy to “follow the science on the harms of marijuana.”

Ricketts had already disclosed last week that he spoke to Kennedy about the the “importance” of “preventing the expansion of marijuana.” Now he says “RFK committed to me that he would follow the science on the harms of marijuana.”

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Montana GOP Senator’s Bill Would Require People To Register And Pay A $200 Annual Fee To Use Recreational Marijuana

Marijuana reform advocates are sounding the alarm after a Montana GOP senator filed a bill that would require adult-use cannabis consumers to register and pay a $200 annual fee to participate in the legal program that voters approved in 2020.

Sen. Greg Hertz (R) introduced the legislation, SB 255, last week. It would create a registration system similar to what’s in place for medical cannabis in many states—except that this would be for adults in a recreational market, with a significantly higher annual fee.

Adults would need to pay the $200 fee to obtain a cannabis card from the state Cannabis Control Division (CCD). Participants would need to pay that fee each year for renewal under the proposal.

Upon applying for the card, there would be a 60-day period where adults could access marijuana from licensed retailers. But if they don’t pay the fee by the end of that window, the division “shall cancel the temporary marijuana identification card.”

“This is an outrageous attempt to gut the will of the people and re-criminalize cannabis for most Montanans. Voters legalized cannabis for all adults 21 and older,” Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), told Marijuana Moment on Thursday.

“No other adult-use state forces cannabis consumers to enroll in a state registry, and the people’s initiative explicitly prohibits this surveillance and government overreach,” she said. “Re-criminalizing cannabis for anyone who does not pay $200 per year to register with the state is an affront to Montana voters who made their voices clear when they passed Initiative I-190.”

The text of the bill states that a “marijuana cardholder shall keep the individual’s marijuana identification card in the individual’s immediate possession at all times. The marijuana identification card and a valid photo identification must be displayed on demand of a law enforcement officer, justice of the peace, or city or municipal judge.”

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New GOP Bill Would Block Marijuana Industry Tax Deductions, Even After Federal Rescheduling

Two GOP senators have introduced a bill that would continue to block marijuana businesses from taking federal tax deductions under Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code 280E—even if it’s ultimately rescheduled.

Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) filed the “No Deductions for Marijuana Businesses Act” on Thursday to maintain the tax barrier for the industry, which has been eagerly following the ongoing administrative process of moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in large part because it would address their 280E challenges under current law.

While rescheduling isn’t a guarantee, and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hearings on the proposal have been delayed, the senators are aiming to preemptively take the wind out of the industry’s sails.

The bill would amend the IRS code to say that, in addition to all Schedule I and Schedule II drugs, businesses that work with marijuana specifically would be barred from taking tax deductions that are available to other industries.

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