Efforts to legalize marijuana nationwide have stalled while the Trump administration and states ponder lagging tax revenue and health risks.
Ohio, Maryland and Michigan officials have proposed tax increases on dispensaries to plug state budget gaps. The Montana Legislature passed a bill this month to limit the psychoactive content of cannabis gummies that the state blamed for poisoning dozens of children.
Most Americans live in the 39 states that have legalized medical marijuana since 1996, including 24 that have also allowed recreational cannabis since Colorado and Washington became the first in 2012. However, no states have legalized recreational marijuana since 2023, and President Trump has proved unwilling to lift a federal ban on the drug for any purpose.
“When Colorado and Washington kicked things off, it was like the Wild West, and honestly that momentum lit the fire under an entire industry,” said Jerry Joyner, a Texas-based marijuana advocate who hosts the “Weed & Whiskey” podcast. “But now, with federal gridlock, state-level resistance, and Big Pharma and Big Alcohol whispering in lawmakers’ ears, progress has slowed.”
In states with legalized marijuana, health experts have flagged an uptick in impaired driving and minors using the substance. In November’s elections, voters in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota rejected well-funded ballot measures that would have legalized recreational cannabis in their states.
“Legalization hasn’t delivered on most of its promises, and voters are understandably more skeptical of it,” said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University psychologist and addiction researcher. “Marijuana legalization promised to reduce alcohol use and opioid overdoses, to shrink prison populations and to promote racial equity. It did none of these things.”
Recreational and medical marijuana remains illegal in Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. They nevertheless allow the sale of nonpsychoactive cannabidiol oil derived from hemp, a variety of the cannabis plant often used for medical purposes.
Mr. Humphreys predicted that whether legalization gains support in such states “probably depends on whether the industry cleans up its act” in states that allow cannabis.
In a study of 106,032 students in grades 7 to 11 published Friday in JAMA Network Open, researchers linked the 2018 legalization of marijuana in most of Canada with a 26% jump in minors using it. That included a 43% spike in edible cannabis use, a 34% surge in marijuana smoking and a 28% bump in minor students using alcohol and cannabis together.
The study also tracked a “lower perception of cannabis harms” amid an explosion of “youth-friendly edibles such as cannabis chocolates, candies, and desserts and cannabis vaping products” in Canada, where the legal age for use is 19.
“The increase in adolescents’ cannabis use associated with the legalization highlights the need for stricter policy measures to curb adolescents’ access to cannabis edibles and extracts and greater awareness among adolescents about harms of cannabis use,” the researchers wrote.
While the federal ban on marijuana prevents similar studies from happening in the U.S., some reports have found Americans souring on the drug as dispensaries pop up in their neighborhoods.
The latest Gallup polling released in August found that 54% of U.S. adults said cannabis harms society as a whole and 51% said it hurts “most people who use it.”
Those numbers were nearly flipped from a 2022 Gallup poll that found 49% of adults viewed marijuana as a positive for society and 53% said it benefited users.
Marijuana use has surged in recent years and involves higher concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. THC is the psychoactive substance in cannabis that, in higher doses, can produce nausea and scream-vomiting.
The average potency of marijuana plant material jumped from 1% to 3% THC content in the 1970s to 18% to 23% by 2023, according to Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which warns about the potential harm of cannabis use.
“I don’t think the conversation on cannabis legalization policy has fully updated itself to recognize that we essentially have unregulated legal cannabis broadly available throughout the country now,” said Coleman Drake, a University of Pittsburgh public health professor who studies the impact of recreational cannabis laws. “Will the new administration allow the rescheduling of cannabis to proceed? Will states begin to develop regulatory regimes? If the midterms are good for Democrats, that could push a few more states to legalize.”
