Apr 15 2024

A Complete Timeline of the DEA’s Marijuana Scheduling Review, Prompted by Department of Health Recommendation

Last year the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended to the DEA that marijuana be rescheduled. A lot has happened since then. Here’s a timeline.

Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, making it illegal under all circumstances. If marijuana were moved to Schedule III, as the HHS has recommended, it would be legalized nationwide for prescription use. The move would also bring forth a plethora of additional changes, including giving federal protections to state-level medical marijuana patients and businesses. This would be a far cry from legalization or a full deschedule, but it would one of the largest changes in federal marijuana laws since prohibition was established.

Below is a timeline of HHS’s recommendation, and the DEA’s current review.
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Apr 15 2024

White House Press Secretary Says Department of Health’s Marijuana Rescheduling Recommendation Was “Guided By the Evidence”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said today that the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) recommendation to the DEA to reschedule marijuana was “guided by the evidence”, while clarifying that the Justice Department now has the final say on the matter.

During today’s daily White House Press Briefing, Jean-Pierre was asked “There’s currently still a patchwork of state marijuana laws to regulate the drug safety, including whether there’s traces of led in products. Since marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, with it becoming more common at the state level, is the administration doing anything to try to improve the safety regulation of [cannabis] products, or any consideration of legalizing marijuana moving forward at the federal level?”

Jean-Pierre responded by saying “I will give you a little bit of an update. As you all know the President asked secretary of HHS and attorney general to initiative the administrative process to review how marijuana is scheduled. HHS has concluded their independent review, guided by the evidence.”
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Apr 15 2024

The 4 States That Still Have a Legitimate Shot to Legalize Marijuana This Year

Of the numerous state-level efforts to legalize marijuana that were active to start the year and that will continue into 2025, these four states remain the most viable options to legalize marijuana this year.

Despite it only being April, a considerable number of states have legislatures whose sessions have already ended, or have already passed deadlines for when a bill must be passed out of committee. For example, a Hawaii bill to legalize marijuana is officially dead for the year, despite being approved by the full Senate and three House committees, because the chair of the House Finance Committee failed to give it a vote before the 2024 deadline for bills to be passed out of committee and sent to their full chamber of origin.

That being said, there are still four state-level efforts to legalize marijuana that have a legitimate possibility of being successful.
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Apr 15 2024

New Poll Finds 56% of Florida Voters Support Initiative to Legalize Recreational Marijuana

New polling shows that a strong majority of voters in Florida support legalizing recreational marijuana via an initiative that will be voted on this November.

Earlier this month the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a marijuana legalization initiative can appear on the November ballot. According to the new USA Today/Ipsos survey, released on April 13, “just over half (54%) of Floridians say they are familiar with the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to put recreational cannabis on the 2024 ballot”, while “Fifty-six percent of registered voters in Florida say they would vote in favor of legalizing recreational cannabis on the 2024 ballot measure.”

Two in five say they would vote against it, and just 4% say they are unsure.
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Apr 15 2024

American Medical Association Study Finds Marijuana Legalization Reduces Teen Marijuana Use

According to a new study, the legalization of marijuana is associated with reduced usage rate among teens.

The study, published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Pediatrics, found that legalizing marijuana including allowing licensed marijuana stores is associated with reduced use rates among teenagers. The study included data from nearly a million teens across 47 states who reported “prior month use of cannabis, alcohol, cigarettes, and e-cigarettes.”

“[Legalizing recreational marijuana] was not associated with adolescents’ likelihood or frequency of cannabis use, although negative total effect estimates indicated significantly lowered use following RCL”, states the study. The study also found this to be true once legal marijuana states begin legal access to marijuana through licensed marijuana stores.
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Apr 14 2024

Nevada: $62 Million in Marijuana Sold in January, $12.4 Million in Taxes Garnered (Most Since May, 2022)

In Nevada, legal marijuana sales topped $62 million, resulting in over $12 million in taxes.

There was $62,462,103 in marijuana sold legally in January throughout Nevada. This is a considerable increase over the $54,908,607 sold in December, and it brough in $12,422,849 in tax revenue for the state.

Although marijuana sales in January were nearly $8 million lower than in January, 2023, marijuana tax revenue was around $500k higher.
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Apr 14 2024

Democrats’ Call to Federally Deschedule Marijuana is Not Just Political Posturing: Here’s Why

Democratic leaders pushing bicameral legislation to deschedule marijuana is not just political posturing in an election year, it’s an example of what’s possible if there’s political change.

87 Democrats in the House of Representatives are currently sponsoring legislation to fully deschedule marijuana. In the Senate, legislation to do the same will be filed on 4/20, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. It’s easy to consider this simple posturing in an election year; a reminder of how often politicians promise one thing during a campaign only to pull a 180 after winning. In this instance, Democrats may finally be for real.

One of the primary reasons behind this line of thinking is that when Democrats controlled the House in 2022, the full chamber gave approval to the MORE Act, legislation that would deschedule marijuana entirely. This would decriminalize the plant nationwide while allowing states to establish their own marijuana laws. The measure would also place a federal excise tax on legal marijuana sales, and it would allow marijuana expungements.
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Apr 14 2024

Connecticut Marijuana Sales Passed $24 Million in March

Connecticut’s legal marijuana industry accounted for over $24 million in sales in March.

There was a total of $24.66 million in marijuana sold legally between March 1 and March 31, according to data released by the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. This is roughly $2.5 million more than the marijuana sales total for the previous March.

$16,042,876 of these sales were purchased by recreational marijuana consumers. $8,624,463 of this was purchased by authorized medical marijuana patients.
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Apr 14 2024

The 3 Federal Marijuana Bills Likely to Be Enacted Into Law if Democrats Take Over US Congress and Retain Presidency

With Republicans controlling the US House of Representatives and Speaker Mike Johnson adamantly opposed to marijuana law reform, it’s unlikely there will be much movement this year on any marijuana-related bill. However, things could change this November.

Despite Democrats currently in control of the Senate and presidency, and despite Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in support of descheduling marijuana and passing a marijuana banking bill, there’s been no significant movement on any marijuana-related bill in this year or the last, other than one Senate committee advancing marijuana banking legislation. A big reason for this lack of movement is that Republicans control the House of Representatives. Speaker Mike Johnson opposes any attempt to loosen marijuana laws, as did Kevin McCarthy before him.

Things could change this November, with Democrats having a reasonable opportunity to take back control of the House, while retaining the Senate. When the Democrats controlled the House in 2022, they passed a variety of marijuana-related bills, including the MORE Act to fully deschedule marijuana and allow marijuana expungements. The measure failed to advance in the Senate, with Democrats and Republicans split 49 to 49 and with much of the year spent on a few specific proposals such as the  Inflation Reduction Act.
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Apr 12 2024

Maine Legislature Approves Bill to Allow Marijuana Possession and Cultivation Convictions to be Sealed

Legislation allowing those with convictions for possessing or cultivating marijuana to have the charges sealed (hidden) from their criminal record has been passed by Maine’s full legislature.

House Bill 2236 was given approval Wednesday through the Maine House of Representatives by a vote of 90 to 57. The following day the Senate passed the measure 27 to 8.  The proposal will soon be sent to Governor Janet Mills, who is expected to sign it into law.

The measure will implement a recommendation of the Criminal Records Review Committee to add to the definition of “eligible criminal conviction” for the Maine Revised Statutes. “which identifies what is considered an eligible underlying crime for a person to file a post-judgment motion to seal criminal history record information related to the conviction for that crime, any Class D crime related to unlawfully possessing or cultivating marijuana when that crime was committed prior to January 30, 2017, the effective date of Maine’s first adult use cannabis laws.”
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