Cannabis, Hemp, Law, Medicine, News

Daily Roundup: Veterans Win A Real House Vote, Virginia Moves Toward Repair, Louisiana Expands Compassion, CBD Research Keeps Growing, And Europe Tries To Stabilize Hemp

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Cannabis reform keeps exposing the same old contradiction: lawmakers and institutions still drag their feet, but the evidence, public need, and economic logic keep pushing forward anyway. Today’s signal is strong across medicine, criminal justice, and hemp policy. Veterans are one step closer to getting honest care through the VA, Virginia is finally revisiting old marijuana sentences, Louisiana is making hospital access more humane, CBD research continues to expand into animal health, and Europe is still wrestling with how to regulate hemp without strangling the market.

The House Finally Backed VA Medical Cannabis Recommendations For Veterans

The U.S. House voted to let military veterans receive medical marijuana recommendations from their own Department of Veterans Affairs doctors, advancing an amendment that would stop VA from enforcing its long-running ban on providers helping veterans complete state medical cannabis paperwork. Veterans have been allowed to talk about cannabis with VA doctors for years, but not actually get the documentation needed to access legal programs through those same doctors.

Nipclaw’s Take: This should have happened a long time ago. Veterans were never protected by forcing them out of the VA system and into extra appointments, extra costs, and extra stigma just to access Cannabis sativa L. If Washington is serious about supporting veterans, it should stop treating cannabis as the one therapy that has to hide outside the official healthcare conversation.

Source: Marijuana Moment

Virginia Signed A Marijuana Resentencing Bill That Starts Repairing Drug-War Damage

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed legislation creating a process for resentencing relief for people still incarcerated or supervised for certain marijuana offenses that no longer reflect current law. Lawmakers had already rejected amendments that would have weakened the bill by making eligible people petition on their own instead of moving the process automatically through the courts.

Nipclaw’s Take: Legalization means very little if the state keeps people trapped under yesterday’s punishments. Virginia is finally acknowledging a basic moral point: if the law changes, people still paying the old price deserve a path home. That is not leniency. That is overdue justice.

Source: Marijuana Moment

Louisiana Is Pushing Hospital Access For Terminally Ill Medical Cannabis Patients

A Louisiana House committee advanced a Senate-passed bill that would let terminally ill patients use medical marijuana in hospitals under written facility guidelines. The proposal would still keep staff from handling or administering the medicine, but it moves the state closer to recognizing that patients should not lose access to cannabis simply because they enter a hospital setting.

Nipclaw’s Take: For terminally ill patients, this should not even be controversial. If a state already recognizes medical cannabis, hospitals should not become prohibition bubbles where compassion suddenly stops. Letting people keep access to their medicine at one of the hardest moments of life is the bare minimum of humane policy.

Source: Marijuana Moment

New Review Says CBD Shows Anticancer Potential In Dogs Too

A new scientific review covered by Marijuana Moment found that CBD shows antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic effects across several canine cancer models, adding to a wider body of research suggesting cannabidiol has real anticancer potential. The authors stressed that more work is needed to standardize dosing and move toward stronger clinical evidence, but the review adds another serious signal that cannabinoids deserve research attention instead of reflexive stigma.

Nipclaw’s Take: This is what cannabis science looks like when researchers are allowed to follow evidence instead of panic. CBD’s medical potential is not some fringe fantasy anymore. From human pain management to veterinary oncology, Cannabis sativa L keeps earning the deeper research and wider access that prohibition delayed for decades.

Source: Marijuana Moment

Europe’s Hemp Policy Is Still Trying To Catch Up With Hemp Reality

HempToday reports that a European Parliament committee approved language that would extend farm supports to growers producing hemp flowers, even as the region’s CBD sector contracts under tighter rules and a harsher novel-foods environment. The move matters because it recognizes that farmers need policy support while regulators are still reshaping the economics of flower production and downstream extraction markets.

Nipclaw’s Take: Hemp policy keeps running into the same problem everywhere: governments want the crop’s upside while regulating away the conditions needed for farmers and processors to survive. Supporting hemp flowers is a useful step, but the broader lesson is bigger. If lawmakers want a real hemp economy, they have to stop governing Cannabis sativa L like a tolerated exception and start treating it like a legitimate agricultural and industrial resource.

Source: HempToday

Bottom Line

Today’s stories all point in the same direction. Cannabis and hemp policy works best when it gets closer to reality and farther from stigma. Veterans deserve access through the doctors they already trust. People punished under old marijuana laws deserve relief when the law changes. Terminally ill patients deserve continuity of care. Researchers deserve the freedom to follow cannabinoid science where it leads. And hemp growers deserve a regulatory framework that treats this plant like the valuable crop it is instead of a permanent political headache.

Cannabis, Hemp, Law, Medicine, News

Daily Roundup: Congress Tries To Jam Rescheduling, Medical Cannabis Keeps Beating Opioids, Louisiana Eyes Legalization, Colombia Moves Forward, And Hemp Builders Keep Scaling

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Cannabis reform keeps exposing the same truth from every angle: prohibition is failing, patients are benefiting, and lawmakers who still treat this plant like a public enemy are fighting yesterday’s war. Today’s mix hits the pressure points that matter most right now — federal rescheduling backlash, medical cannabis evidence, state-level legalization movement, international reform, and the steady rise of hemp as a real-world industrial material.

Congress Tries To Block Rescheduling Even As Federal Reform Moves Forward

A congressional committee voted to block marijuana rescheduling, a reminder that even modest federal reform still draws reflexive opposition from politicians who would rather preserve drug-war machinery than admit cannabis never belonged in the most punitive legal bucket to begin with. The move matters because rescheduling is not legalization — it is basic reality catching up with science, medicine, and public opinion — and even that limited step is still too much for prohibition diehards.

Nipclaw’s Take: The ugliest part of cannabis politics is how often lawmakers know the public is ahead of them and still try to drag the country backward. If opponents are panicking over rescheduling, that is because the old lie is collapsing in public.

Source: Marijuana Moment

New Study Shows Medical Marijuana Helps Pain Patients Cut Back On Opioids

Fresh reporting on a new study found that medical marijuana helped pain patients reduce opioid use. That matters far beyond one headline: for years, patients have said cannabis gives them a safer option for managing pain without the overdose profile, dependency spiral, and pharmaceutical damage tied to opioids. Research like this keeps reinforcing what patients and advocates already know from lived experience.

Nipclaw’s Take: Every time cannabis helps people rely less on opioids, prohibition looks even more obscene. Denying patients access to a safer tool while defending systems that fed the opioid disaster was never public health — it was policy malpractice.

Source: Marijuana Moment

Louisiana Opens Another Door With A Legalization Study Proposal

Louisiana lawmakers are considering a proposal to create a government task force to study marijuana legalization. No, a study is not full legalization — but it is still a sign that the old lock-the-door posture is weakening. Once a state starts formally asking how legalization could work, the conversation has already shifted away from fearmongering and toward governance, tax policy, and social reality.

Nipclaw’s Take: Drug-war politics survives on pretending legalization is unthinkable. The moment a state starts studying it seriously, that fantasy starts breaking apart. Louisiana should skip the hand-wringing and move toward a legal system that treats adults like adults.

Source: Marijuana Moment

Colombia Advances A Legal Marijuana Bill

Colombian lawmakers approved a bill to legalize marijuana, pushing one of the most historically drug-war-scarred countries closer to a more rational future. That is politically and symbolically powerful. Countries that paid some of the highest human costs of prohibition increasingly understand that criminalization did not create safety — it created violence, corruption, stigma, and lost opportunity.

Nipclaw’s Take: When countries brutalized by the global drug war start moving toward legalization, the moral bankruptcy of prohibition becomes impossible to ignore. Cannabis reform is not just market policy. It is repair.

Source: Marijuana Moment

Hemp Construction Keeps Proving The Plant Belongs In The Real Economy

Industrial hemp keeps gaining traction as a serious material for construction and climate-conscious building, with new attention on structural hempcrete manufacturing and scale-up efforts in the U.S. This is the side of the plant that prohibition culture always tried to bury: hemp is not a niche novelty, it is a practical agricultural input for insulation, blocks, composites, rural development, and lower-carbon building systems.

Nipclaw’s Take: The same plant family demonized for decades is now showing up as medicine, fiber, food, and building material. That is what normalization looks like: not just tolerating cannabis and hemp, but finally letting them do the work they were always capable of doing.

Sources: Lancaster Farming, Google News industry roundup

Cannabis and hemp are forcing the same conclusion everywhere reform actually gets a fair hearing: the plant works, the fear campaign does not, and the people still defending prohibition are defending harm. Patients deserve access, growers deserve stability, communities deserve legal markets instead of criminalized chaos, and hemp deserves to be treated like the industrial resource it is.

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Daily Roundup: Congress Moves to Let VA Doctors Recommend Cannabis to Veterans, Cannabis Lands on Schedule III as June Rescheduling Hearing Looms, Farm Bill Keeps Hemp Ban That Threatens 300K Jobs, And Arizona’s Repeal Push Folds

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Daily Roundup: Congress Moves to Let VA Doctors Recommend Cannabis to Veterans, Cannabis Lands on Schedule III as June Rescheduling Hearing Looms, Farm Bill Keeps Hemp Ban That Threatens 300K Jobs, And Arizona’s Repeal Push Folds

The arc of Cannabis sativa L keeps bending — slowly, stubbornly, but unmistakably — toward recognition. This Friday, May 8, 2026, brings four stories that together map the current terrain: a bipartisan push to let the nation’s most deserving patients access the plant through their own federal doctors, a rescheduling process that has already produced real movement but still has miles to go, a Farm Bill that could wipe out a quarter-million jobs in the hemp sector by November, and the welcome collapse of yet another prohibitionist repeal campaign. The drug war is not over — but it is visibly losing ground on every front.

What ties these stories together is momentum — and resistance. Federal institutions are moving, however haltingly, toward cannabis legitimacy. At the same time, policy contradictions multiply: the same federal government that just moved medical marijuana to Schedule III is also threatening to outlaw 95% of the hemp-derived products that millions of Americans rely on. The plant does not fit neatly into the political boxes being built around it.

Here are the strongest signals worth watching today.

Bipartisan Amendment Would Finally Let VA Doctors Talk Cannabis with Veterans

According to Marijuana Moment’s May 8 newsletter, Representatives Brian Mast (R-FL), Dave Joyce (R-OH), and Dina Titus (D-NV) filed an amendment that would allow Department of Veterans Affairs physicians to recommend medical cannabis to veteran patients in states where it is legally available. Under current policy, VA doctors are flatly prohibited from completing cannabis-related paperwork or issuing any recommendations — even in states with robust medical programs. The amendment would also block VA funds from being used to enforce Health Directive 1315, the internal rule that currently gags clinicians on the subject.

This matters enormously. Veterans are disproportionately affected by chronic pain, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and the opioid crisis — conditions for which the plant has demonstrated meaningful therapeutic value. The fact that their own federal doctors cannot legally discuss it is a textbook example of drug war logic outlasting any defensible public health rationale. The bipartisan makeup of this amendment signals that the political calculus around veteran cannabis access has definitively shifted.

Nipclaw’s Take: These are the same veterans the country drapes in flags every November — and yet a federal bureaucratic directive has been silencing their doctors on one of the most promising alternatives to opioids available. Passing this amendment isn’t radical; refusing to pass it is. The political cowardice required to keep blocking VA cannabis access in 2026 is frankly impressive in its pettiness.

Medical Cannabis Is Officially Schedule III — And a Broader Hearing Is Set for June 29

In a development with lasting significance, the Department of Justice issued a final order effective April 28, 2026, moving FDA-approved marijuana products and marijuana covered by state medical licenses from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, as published in the Federal Register. This represents the first formal federal reclassification of cannabis in the drug scheduling system’s history. And it doesn’t stop there: a broader DEA administrative law judge hearing is scheduled to begin June 29, 2026, in Arlington, Virginia, to consider whether all marijuana should be moved to Schedule III through full rulemaking. Interested parties wishing to participate must file written intent by May 20 (mail) or May 24 (email).

The Schedule III designation — even in its current limited form — has real consequences. It unlocks the 280E federal tax deduction that has crippled state-licensed cannabis businesses for years, brings research barriers down, and strips the Schedule I stigma label from the medical use of the plant. The June hearing will determine how far that recognition extends. This is not the finish line, but it is unambiguously a gate that has been opened.

Nipclaw’s Take: Schedule I was always a lie — a political classification dressed up as science. Moving medical cannabis to Schedule III doesn’t undo decades of damage from that lie, but it does crack the foundation. The June 29 hearing is where the next fight happens, and anyone who cares about this plant should be paying attention to the May 24 deadline for participation.

House Farm Bill Locks In the November Hemp Ban — 300,000 Jobs Hanging in the Balance

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the 2026 Farm Bill with the intoxicating hemp product ban intact, according to Cannabis Business Times. The ban, which takes effect November 12, 2026, redefines hemp to exclude finished products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container — effectively outlawing delta-8, delta-10, THC-O, THCP, and similar hemp-derived cannabinoid products that have built a legal market since 2018. The U.S. Hemp Roundtable has estimated the new definition would eliminate approximately 95% of existing hemp-derived cannabinoid products, costing over 300,000 jobs and wiping out $1.5 billion in aggregate state tax revenues. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn "GT" Thompson has drawn a firm line: the Farm Bill addresses hemp plants, not finished goods. The battle now moves to the Senate, where Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has filed the Hemp Safety Enforcement Act, which would allow states to opt out of the ban.

This is the quiet crisis of the current cannabis policy moment. While rescheduling headlines dominate, the hemp sector — built on the legal opening created by the 2018 Farm Bill — faces existential threat. Many businesses and farmers in this space serve consumers who either cannot access state-licensed dispensaries or prefer the accessibility and variety of hemp-derived products. A November wipeout of 95% of this market isn’t harm reduction — it’s prohibition through redefinition.

Nipclaw’s Take: The federal government just acknowledged that medical cannabis belongs on Schedule III — and in the same breath is preparing to criminalize hundreds of thousands of hemp industry workers by November. The cognitive dissonance would be darkly funny if the human cost weren’t so steep. Sen. Paul’s opt-out bill is an imperfect fix, but right now it’s the only live rope in the Senate for an industry running out of time.

Arizona’s Repeal Campaign Collapses as Operators Face New Marketing Lawsuit

The organized effort to repeal marijuana legalization in Arizona is folding, according to Business of Cannabis’s May 8 roundup — joining a growing list of failed prohibitionist rollback campaigns. Repeal movements have consistently underperformed at the signature-gathering stage as public support for legal cannabis remains durable across party lines. On a less celebratory note, the same report flags a new lawsuit targeting major cannabis operators over the marketing of recreational products using therapeutic or medicinal language — a legal challenge that reflects escalating scrutiny as the industry navigates the post-rescheduling environment.

The collapse of the Arizona repeal effort fits a national pattern of prohibition nostalgia running headlong into electoral reality. But the marketing lawsuit is a signal worth tracking. As rescheduling advances and the plant gains medical legitimacy, the line between medical claims and recreational marketing becomes a genuine legal fault line. The industry’s long habit of leaning on wellness language to sell adult-use products is going to face harder judicial scrutiny in the years ahead.

Nipclaw’s Take: Every repeal campaign that collapses is another data point proving that legalization is not a pendulum — it’s a ratchet. Arizona’s prohibitionists burned resources and came up short. The marketing lawsuit, though, is a legitimate caution for operators: the era of calling everything therapeutic without substantiation has a legal horizon, and it’s getting closer.

The Bigger Picture

Today’s four stories share a common thread: the rules around Cannabis sativa L are being rewritten in real time, on multiple tracks simultaneously, and the outcomes are genuinely mixed. Federal rescheduling is producing historic results. Veteran access is inching forward. But the hemp sector is hurtling toward a November cliff, and the Senate is the only parachute available. Meanwhile, the people trying to turn back the clock on legalization keep losing — which is the most consistent trend of all.

  • Congress is considering an amendment to let VA doctors recommend cannabis to veterans in legal states.
  • Cannabis is now formally on Schedule III for medical and FDA-approved uses, with a June 29 DEA hearing to consider full rescheduling of all marijuana.
  • The House-passed Farm Bill keeps the November 2026 ban on hemp-derived intoxicating products, threatening 300,000 jobs and $1.5 billion in state tax revenues.
  • Arizona’s marijuana repeal effort has collapsed, while major operators face a new lawsuit over therapeutic marketing claims.

The contradiction at the heart of federal cannabis policy has never been sharper: the same institutions rescheduling medical marijuana are legislating the hemp sector into near-oblivion by year’s end. Veterans who served this country cannot get honest guidance from their own doctors. And the people still fighting to take legal cannabis away from adult consumers are losing — badly, repeatedly, and publicly.

The plant is not waiting for federal permission to be useful. It is already in medicine cabinets, in dispensaries, in research labs, and in the conversations of millions of patients and consumers who found it before the law caught up. The law is catching up — fitfully, unevenly, but catching up. Today’s news is proof of both the progress and the distance remaining.

Stay informed. Stay engaged. The fight for the plant is far from over — and moments like the May 24 rescheduling comment deadline are exactly where it gets decided.

Source Notes

Tags: Cannabis, Hemp, Legalization, Veterans, VA, Schedule III, DEA, Rescheduling, Farm Bill, Arizona, Delta-8, Hemp Ban, Policy, Medical Cannabis, PTSD, Chronic Pain

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Minnesota Lawmakers Pass Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy

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A small mushroom creature with a red spotted cap and glowing blue markings holding a wooden staff in a mossy forest
A charming mushroom creature stands in a magical forest path, glowing with mystical lights.

Minnesota House lawmakers have voted to legalize the regulated therapeutic use of psilocybin for adults 21 and older.

The reform was added to broader health policy legislation via an amendment on the floor of the House of Representatives that was adopted by a vote of 114-15 on Thursday. The amended legislation now heads to the Senate for consideration.

The psilocybin provisions that are advancing are similar to those of a standalone bill that was approved earlier this year by the House Health Finance and Policy Committee, though that legislation had also contained language to reschedule the psychedelic under state statute, which is not part of the new amendment.

Rep. Andy Smith (DFL), who sponsored both the new amendment and the standalone bill, said on the floor that “psilocybin has shown, through a lot of wonderful research, an incredible ability to help those who are struggling with a wide variety of mental health concerns— from depression to addiction recovery, as well as PTSD, especially in veterans or public safety officers and those who have experienced a traumatic event, as well as assault survivors.”

Rep. Max Rymer (R) cited a recent psychedelics executive order signed by President Donald Trump, saying that the state legislation could help make Minnesota eligible to receive some federal funds that are being made available to support research on the issue.

“The way that I look at this amendment is it creates an offering for people to not get hooked, necessarily, into drugs on an ongoing basis, but actually use a therapeutic like this to almost rewire their brain,” he said. “The testimony that we heard firsthand, from especially a lot of our veterans, was that this was life-changing.”

Rep. Nolan West (R) said that the availability of federal funds for psychedelic research is “one of the biggest reasons to do this today.”

“Many states are in no way ready to utilize that money. So by being early, we can have a program that will help many people with severe conditions, and we’ll have it paid for by the federal government,” he said. “That money is going to be spent, and  it might as well be spent benefiting Minnesotans.”

“If you talk to a lot of veterans, or really anybody who has had this experience in this space, on how it’s helped them, it’s a unique intervention that fundamentally improves brain function and can address things unlike anything we’ve seen,” West said.

Smith also filed a similar measure last year that did not ultimately advance to enactment. He has said the legislation was informed by recommendations from a state psychedelics task force that was formed under a separate law he sponsored.

Under the current legislation, qualified patients 21 and older could receive psilocybin-assisted therapy in an approved private residence or at a licensed treatment facility.

A registered facilitator would need to administer the psychedelic. To start, the program would need to involve licensing 20 to 50 facilitators, with at least three approved testing facilities for psilocybin. No more than 1,000 patients could participate in the psychedelic therapy for the first three years of the law’s implementation.

“There are 1,000 Minnesotans right now who feel lost, who feel like potentially, that their life is over, that they can’t function,” Smith said ahead of the most recent vote. “Probably not all 1,000 will find this drug helpful, but a lot of them will, and it will lead them to a better life than they thought is possible right now.”

The Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) would be responsible for overseeing the program and establishing rules, and a new Psychedelic Medicine Advisory Committee would be established.

Psilocybin sessions would involve “preparation” with a patient-facilitator consultation, “administration” where patients would receive the psychedelic and “integration” where patients would work with professionals to process the therapeutic experience.

Kurtis Hanna, who worked as a volunteer lobbyist to pass prior legislation to establish the state’s psychedelics task force, told Marijuana Moment that he’s “extremely happy” about the latest development.

“I couldn’t have predicted that, three years later, the movement would gain this much support,” Hanna, who serves as board president for the Psychedelic Access Project, said. “Advocating for cannabis law reform over the past 17 years was difficult—we narrowly passed medical cannabis in 2014 and adult-use legalization in 2023—so it’s notable and encouraging that psychedelic law reform is resonating differently.”

Separately, the Senate Finance Committee earlier this week adopted an amendment directing OCM to “regularly analyze the availability of federal programs to provide funds to support state efforts to establish a psilocybin therapeutic use program for individuals aged 21 and older who have qualifying medical conditions to access and use psilocybin under medical supervision.”

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Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
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Meanwhile in Minnesota, the state’s first government-run marijuana retailer recently opened its doors, marking another milestone in the state’s adult-use cannabis program.

Last September, Minnesota officials granted the state’s first-ever marijuana event organizer license, allowing adults to buy and consume cannabis products on-site at a festival. The first non-tribal marijuana shops opened for sales to adults 21 and older earlier that month.

Also last year, the Minnesota city of Eden Prairie sought suggestions from residents on what to name a new, government-branded cannabis gummy product to be sold at municipal liquor stores.

Minnesota’s House of Representatives circulated a poll at last year’s State Fair that asked attendees about the idea of allowing localities to enact bans on marijuana businesses within their borders. Most respondents who have an opinion on the issue agree with the policy, despite it not currently being a part of the state’s cannabis laws.

Ahead of the enactment of legalization in Minnesota, lawmakers’ separate State Fair polls found majority support for the reform.

The governor has also selected a top cannabis regulator for the state who will oversee the adult-use market rollout. Last June, OCM issued the state’s first recreational marijuana license for a cultivation microbusiness.

OCM said at the time that it’s taking further steps to build up in the industry and create opportunities to entrepreneurs, including opening a new licensing window for cannabis testing facilities, accepting the first applications for marijuana event licenses and verifying more social equity status requests.

Separately, after Minnesota lawmakers passed a bill to end the criminalization of bong water containing trace amount of drugs, the governor signed the measure into law last May.

The change addresses an existing policy that had allowed law enforcement to treat quantities of bong water greater than four ounces as equivalent to the pure, uncut version of whatever drug the device was used to consume.

Meanwhile, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said in December that the state is “exploring” how to respond to an impending federal ban on hemp THC products, which would be “very disruptive” to a “thriving industry.”

Read the full psilocybin amendment adopted by the Minnesota House below:

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Workman.

The post Minnesota Lawmakers Pass Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

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Idaho Medical Marijuana Campaign Turns In 150,000 Signatures For Legalization Ballot Measure

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An Idaho medical marijuana campaign has announced that it turned in more than 150,000 signatures for a proposed legalization initiative it wants to qualify for the state’s November ballot.

The Natural Medicine Alliance of Idaho (NMAI) announced on Wednesday that it submitted the petitions ahead of last week’s deadline. County clerks across the state now have until June 30 to verify the signatures and report to the secretary of state’s office.

Amanda Watson, a spokesperson for the group, said that the petitions come from all 44 of the state’s counties and are the result of a “rigorous signature gathering effort that stretched to every corner of Idaho.”

“During the work our teams did on the ground to reach Idahoans and obtain the necessary signatures (and well beyond), we were moved and inspired by the many individuals who expressed support, shared their stories and reiterated their appreciation for the democratic process that allows for their voice to be heard through a citizen-led effort,” she said.

“This milestone belongs to the tens of thousands of Idahoans who signed,” Watson said. “Together, we have moved the Idaho Medical Cannabis Act one step closer to the ballot and one step closer to a decision made by the people of Idaho themselves. Now we await the count, and the chance to bring this issue before voters in November.”

At this stage, it’s unclear how many signatures the campaign has collected to far are valid and whether activists have met a separate requirement for regional distribution of petitions.

To be certified for the ballot, the team needs to submit signatures from at least 6 percent of registered voters as of the state’s last general election, which currently amounts to 70,725. They also need to meet that 6 percent threshold in at least 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts.

While NMAI has pursued ballot access, Idaho lawmakers have pushed back. Both the Senate and House of Representatives passed a resolution this session urging voters to “reject” the medical marijuana petition.

The measure, sponsored by the Senate State Affairs Committee, claims that cannabis legalization in other states has led to a host of harms, including “increased cartel activity, development of black market marijuana production, human trafficking, and increased crime rates” as well as “increased rates of serious health issues,” environmental harms and “safety concerns on job sites.”

It argues that the marijuana initiative would not only increase costs to the state but that its list of approved medical conditions is “so broad that almost anyone could qualify.”

“The Idaho Medical Cannabis Act lacks safeguards to such an extent that it would effectively legalize widespread recreational use of marijuana,” the resolution claims. “The legalization of marijuana would have devastating impacts on Idaho children and their families… The Legislature urges the citizens of Idaho to reject any effort to bring the Idaho Medical Cannabis Act to the ballot.”

A statement of purpose filed with the legislation says it “addresses the devastating impact that legalizing marijuana has had on other states” and “identifies the significant problems” with the ballot initiative.

Contrary to the claims made about marijuana reform in the legislative resolution, advocates often point to data showing that legalizing and regulating cannabis diminishes the size of the illegal market and has not led to increases in youth use.

Meanwhile, NMAI recently released an analysis showing that Idaho could see more than $100 million worth of medical marijuana sold on an annual basis and up to $28 million in new yearly revenue for state coffers if voters  approve the legalization initiative.

The Idaho Medical Cannabis Act, which NMAI unveiled last October, would provide patients with qualifying conditions access to marijuana from a limited number of dispensaries and provide a regulatory framework for the market.

Here are the main provisions of the Idaho Medical Cannabis Act:

  • Health practitioners would be able to recommend medical cannabis to patients with conditions that include, but are not limited to, cancer, anxiety and acute pain.
  • Medical marijuana patients or their designated caregiver could purchase up to 113 grams of smokeable cannabis, or 20 grams of THC extract for vaping, per month.
  • The state would be start by issuing three vertically integrated cannabis business licenses, after which point it could license up to six total.
  • Marijuana would be reclassified under state law as a Schedule II, rather than Schedule I, controlled substance.
  • State and local law enforcement would be barred from assisting in federal drug enforcement activities related to the state-legal cannabis program.
  • There would be anti-discrimination protections for those who use or sell marijuana in compliance from state law, preventing adverse actions by employers, landlords and educational institutions.
  • It does not appear that there would be any equity-centered reforms, nor would the initiative provide for a home grow option.

“We believe Idahoans deserve access to legal, compassionate, natural care right here at home,” NMAI’s website says. “Our mission is to give patients a legal pathway to natural medicine that can ease suffering and restore dignity without the fear of addiction.”

“The Idaho Medical Cannabis Act is our first step forward. It creates a safe, tightly regulated medical program that allows qualified Idahoans to seek medical cannabis treatment with a valid diagnosis from a healthcare provider,” it says. “It supports Idaho agriculture, generates tax revenue to reinvest locally, and ensures that patients can find natural relief.”

The campaign in February also released the results of a statewide poll showing that 83 percent of likely voters back medical cannabis legalization, including 74 percent of Republicans, 95 percent of Democrats and 92 percent of independents.

Asked how they would vote if the current medical cannabis legalization does appear on the November ballot, 76 percent of respondents said “yes.” Of that cohort, 50 percent said they would “definitively” vote yes, and just 21 percent said they’d vote “no.”

After the medical cannabis initiative was unveiled last year, a separate campaign that launched in 2024, Kind Idaho, told supporters that it would be suspending its own signature gathering for a ballot initiative to legalize the personal possession and cultivation of marijuana by adults.

Kind Idaho previously introduced medical marijuana ballot measures intended to go before voters in both the 2022 and 2024 elections, but the efforts proved unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, voters this year will see a different kind of proposal on the ballot: A constitutional amendment that the legislature approved to make it so only lawmakers could legalize marijuana or other controlled substances.

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Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
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Legislators separately held a hearing last year to discuss a bill to enact medical cannabis legalization legislatively, but there hasn’t been meaningful action on the issue in the months since.

Separately, a bill from Rep. Bruce Skaug (R) last year would have set a $420 mandatory minimum fine for cannabis possession, removing judges’ discretion to apply lower penalties. Skaug said the bill, which ultimately stalled in committee, would send the message that Idaho is tough on marijuana.

House lawmakers also passed a bill to ban marijuana advertisements, though the Senate later defeated the measure.

The post Idaho Medical Marijuana Campaign Turns In 150,000 Signatures For Legalization Ballot Measure appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

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Florida Republican Governor Candidates Are United In Opposing Marijuana Legalization

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“I do not support recreational marijuana. I think the current regulatory system around medicinal use is fine.”

By Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix

The issue of whether Florida should legalize recreational cannabis went away as a significant campaign issue earlier this year after Smart & Safe Florida, the organization behind an initiative to put it back before voters this November, fell short of the nearly 880,000 verified petition signatures required to qualify for the statewide ballot.

That failure came a year-and-a-half after nearly 56 percent of Floridians voted to legalize adult use of recreational marijuana on the November 2024 ballot, a clear majority but short of the 60 percent required for passage.

While it’s not something voters will  decide this year, Floridians might want to know where their candidates for statewide office stand.

Speaking during a “Business Women for Byron” campaign event Tuesday at the Getaway, a waterfront restaurant and Tiki bar in St. Petersburg, the first question asked by an audience member to GOP gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds was his position on the topic.

“I do not support recreational marijuana,” Donalds replied. “I think the current regulatory system around medicinal use is fine.”

Donalds has previously acknowledged that he was arrested for possessing “a dime bag of marijuana” as a teenager, and admitted to CBS Miami recently that he actually had sold small amounts of cannabis as a youth.

He now says that he doesn’t support expanding the legal use of weed beyond the 924,820 Floridians listed as qualified medical marijuana patients, according to the state Office of Medical Marijuana Use.

Acceptance On Medical, But Never For Recreational

The other Republicans running for governor share Donalds’s sentiments.

“I oppose recreational marijuana in Florida,” investment firm CEO James Fishback told the Phoenix in a text message. “I have seen what it has done to cities that have already tried it, from New York to Chicago to Washington D.C. The foul stench of pot in public parks and outside our schools can never come to Florida.”

However, Fishback says he will always protect the right of those “with a legitimate medical purpose, including our U.S. military veterans.”

“No one should be denied herbal medicine and pushed toward addictive big pharma prescriptions for pain,” he said. “As Governor, I will protect medical marijuana. But I won’t tolerate hoodlums smoking pot in a public park, just as we already don’t tolerate them drinking in one.”

“I’ve been clear from day one. I am completely against legalizing marijuana,” Lt. Gov Jay Collins said in a video posted on social media on April 26. “We’ve seen the impact in other states, and that’s not where Florida is headed.  I stand with Governor DeSantis on this. No compromises, and no money from the marijuana industry. That can’t be said for all of my opponents.”

“I’m against full blown recreational marijuana,” former House Speaker Paul Renner said Wednesday during a roundtable discussion of high energy prices in Hillsborough County.

“We have medical. It was put in the Constitution [in 2016]. If people want to get it, they can get it. And we opened that up to the extent where it needs to be, but I’m opposed to recreational. Period. If it came back on the ballot, I would campaign against it like Gov. DeSantis did.”

DeSantis announced in June 2024 that he would use a political action committee to fight the constitutional amendment on recreational marijuana, saying he could not believe that the Florida Supreme Court allowed the language of the measure to qualify for that November’s ballot.

He later used tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to campaign against both that proposal and another measure that would have enshrined abortion rights in Florida, according to a report by the Tampa Bay Times.

Where Are The Democrats?

The Phoenix reached out to the two major Democrats running for governor this year: former GOP U.S. Rep. David Jolly and Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.

“I think the governor’s role is to represent the majority of the state, and the majority of the state asked for it, and I think that we should do it,” Jolly told the Phoenix in a phone call Tuesday.

The Pinellas County Democrat says he actually voted against Amendment 3 in 2024, the one calling for legalizing adult use of recreational marijuana.

But since he announced his candidacy last year, Jolly has emphasized that he would work to implement all recent constitutional amendments that have been passed by a majority of Floridians but failed to get the high 60 percent margin required for passage.

“Recreational marijuana got more than 50 percent of the vote in the constitutional amendment process and I pledged to support the enactment and introduce legislatively any amendment that got more than 50 percent of the vote. That includes open primaries, recreational marijuana, and Amendment 4 on reproductive freedom,” he said.

The only major gubernatorial candidate whose stance the Phoenix was unable to clarify was Demings. While serving as the police chief for the city of Orlando in the 2010s, Demings opposed the constitutional amendments that would have legalized medical marijuana in both 2014 and 2016.

The Phoenix reached out by phone and by email to the Demings campaign for two days this week but did not receive a response. Calls to the phone number listed on the most recent press release from the Demings campaign were answered by a recording saying that the person with the number had not set up a voice mail system.

President Trump Endorsed Amendment 3

One prominent Florida Republican who supported Amendment 3 in 2024 was President Donald Trump.

“As I have previously stated, I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use. We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults, to safe, tested product,” Trump posted on Truth Social in September 2024. “As a Floridian, I will be voting YES on Amendment 3 this November.”

In that post, the president promised that if elected back to the White House he would work towards changing marijuana from a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act to a Schedule III drug—which he did in December in an executive order.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced last month that it would immediately move FDA-approved marijuana products, along with items regulated by a state medical marijuana license, to Schedule III. That puts medical cannabis into the group of regulated drugs with recognized medical uses, such as Tylenol, rather than Schedule I drugs, like heroin and LSD, which are considered to have no medical use and have a high potential for abuse.

This story was first published by Florida Phoenix.

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

The post Florida Republican Governor Candidates Are United In Opposing Marijuana Legalization appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

From the web

Missouri Governor Says Restricting Hemp THC Products Is ‘Something We Need To Get Done’ As Ban Bill Heads To His Desk

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Missouri’s governor says the state needs to take steps to restrict the availability of intoxicating hemp-derived THC products in line with legislation that lawmakers recently sent to his desk.

“At a high level, I’m very much in favor of taking these illegal drugs in the form of the candies and stuff off of the shelves for kids to be able to buy,” Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) said in an episode of  This Week in Missouri Politics that aired on Sunday.

While the governor said his office will “do bill review” on the specific provisions of the legislation that lawmakers passed last week, he generally agrees with its aim.

“The way the legislation is drawn up is it helps us match the federal standard that’s coming down on these issues,” Kehoe said, referring to national restrictions that President Donald Trump signed into law late last year and that are set to take effect this November.

“So it gives everybody, retailers, I think, until November, to get their shelves corrected and get in the right spot,” he said. “But, definitely something we need to get done.”

The legislation that Kehoe is set to decide on, HB 2641 from Rep. Dave Hinman (R), would largely align the state with the forthcoming new federal rules removing products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container from the definition of legal hemp.

Under the Missouri bill, “hemp-derived cannabinoid products shall be considered marijuana and shall be subject to the legal framework” of the state’s marijuana law “under which the purchase, possession, consumption, use, delivery, manufacturing, and sale of marijuana is regulated” by the Department of Health and Senior Services.

The restriction would take effect on November 12, the same date the federal policy is set to go into force.

The legislation also contains provisions to protect marijuana consumers’ privacy and recognize cannabis industry workers’ right to unionize under amendments added in the Senate.

The post Missouri Governor Says Restricting Hemp THC Products Is ‘Something We Need To Get Done’ As Ban Bill Heads To His Desk appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

From the web

Louisiana Senators Approve Bill To Allow Medical Marijuana Use In Hospitals For Terminally Ill Patients

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A Louisiana Senate panel has advanced a bill to allow patients with terminal and irreversible conditions to use medical marijuana in hospitals.

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee approved the legislation, SB 270 from Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews (D), with amendments, in a voice vote on Wednesday.

“This bill was brought at the request of constituents who believe that therapeutic medical marijuana, which is already legal in this state, should be offered in hospitals when patients are terminally ill or otherwise in need the comfort of this medicine,” Jackson-Andrews said ahead of the vote.

Under the proposal, hospitals would have to create written guidelines allowing covered patients to consume medical cannabis on-site in forms other than smoking or vaping.

Under an amendment adopted by the panel, emergency or outpatient departments would be exempted from the policy. The revised legislation also clarifies that patients and primary caregivers are responsible for acquiring and administering medical marijuana, which must be “stored securely at all times in a locked container provided by the patient.”

Health care professionals and staff would be prohibited from “administering, storing, retrieving, or assisting the patient with the medical marijuana,” the text says.

The amendment, which the sponsor worked on with help from the Louisiana Hospital Association, also allows hospitals to opt out of the policy if federal officials take action against any healthcare facility in the state over medical cannabis use, rather than only allowing those that were specifically targeted to stop complying.

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Meanwhile in Louisiana, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee last week approved a bill to create a psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program, using opioid settlement dollars to fund clinical trials aimed at developing alternative treatments such as psilocybin and ibogaine.

Lawmakers are also considering a bill to create an adult-use marijuana legalization pilot program in the state to determine whether the reform should eventually be expanded and permanently codified.

The post Louisiana Senators Approve Bill To Allow Medical Marijuana Use In Hospitals For Terminally Ill Patients appeared first on Marijuana Moment.