The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that a patchwork of marijuana legalization laws at the state level is creating opportunities for foreign drug cartels to exploit the system, using state-sanctioned business registrations as a front for illicit operations that involve moving cannabis into states where it remains illegal.
The agency’s latest report appears to concede that ongoing marijuana prohibition in many states is fueling the very illegal market it aims to stop.
Released Thursday, the DEA’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment includes a section focused on marijuana trafficking. It claims that transnational criminal organizations, particularly Asian syndicates, are bypassing legal restrictions and “hide behind state-by-state variations in laws governing plant counts, registration requirements, and accountability practices.”
The report alleges that cartels are taking advantage of licensing structures in legal states to set up operations that produce cannabis destined for states where marijuana remains illegal—or where regulatory systems are too new to be fully effective. These organizations, the DEA says, “operate under business registrations granted by state licensing authorities,” making enforcement difficult unless there’s clear evidence of interstate trafficking or other crimes such as money laundering or human trafficking.
While critical of state-level legalization, the report also indirectly acknowledges what advocates have long argued: prohibition in non-legal states fuels the illicit marijuana market. The DEA notes that large quantities of cannabis are being moved from “legal” states to those that have yet to legalize or build a functioning regulatory framework.
Interestingly, the DEA repeatedly places the word “legal” in quotation marks, reinforcing the federal government’s continued refusal to recognize state-legal marijuana as truly lawful under federal law. Still, the agency refers to states that have “not yet” developed legal markets, subtly recognizing the growing trend toward legalization.
The report also claims that cannabis produced by Chinese drug trafficking groups has increased in potency and popularity, with shipments traveling to the U.S. and western Europe by air and sea.
“DEA and our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners must continue to adapt and work together to attack global drug trafficking organizations at every level,” said DEA Acting Administrator Robert Murphy. “By joining forces to reduce supply and demand, we can destroy the drug trafficking networks and achieve a safer and healthier future for all Americans.”
