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As of June 2021, 18 states and Washington, D.C., had legalized the possession and personal use of marijuana for recreational purposes.

At the federal level, the cultivation, distribution, and use of marijuana have remained federal offenses.^[1]

Overview

Recreational marijuana

As of June 2021, 18 states and Washington, D.C., had legalized marijuana for recreational purposes; 12 through citizen initiatives, one through a legislatively referred constitutional amendment, and six through bills approved by state legislatures and signed by governors. An additional 13 states had decriminalized recreational marijuana usage. In those states, while recreational marijuana usage was illegal, violation typically results in a fine rather than arrest or jail time for first-time offenders.^[6] Based on 2019 population estimates, roughly 40% percent of Americans lived in a jurisdiction with legalized recreational marijuana.

In 2012, Voters in Colorado and Washington became the first to legalize recreational marijuana when they did so through citizen-initiated measures.

The Vermont State Legislature approved a bill in mid-January 2018 to allow recreational marijuana, and Gov. Phil Scott (R) signed it into law on January 22, 2018. Vermont was the first state to legalize recreational marijuana without voters approving a citizen initiative.^[2][7] The following states also legalized recreational marijuana through legislative action instead of a ballot measure:

• On June 25, 2019, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law legalizing the use and possession of recreational marijuana.^[8]
• On March 31, 2021, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a marijuana legalization bill.
• On April 7, 2021, the Virginia Legislature approved a gubernatorial substitute for a bill designed to legalize recreational marijuana effective July 1, 2021.
• On April 12, 2021, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) House Bill 2 legalizing and regulating recreational marijuana.
• On June 22, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed a bill to legalize recreational marijuana.

Ballot measures legalizing recreational marijuana were approved by voters at the November 2020 election in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota.

The New Jersey measure was the first legislatively referred measure to legalize recreational marijuana.

The measure in South Dakota was ruled unconstitutional on February 8, 2021. The case was appealed to the state supreme court, which upheld the lower court ruling.

The map below details the legal status of recreational marijuana by state as of March 2021.

The following table provides information about when and how recreational marijuana became legal.

South Dakota voters approved a recreational marijuana legalization initiative on November 3, 2020. The measure was overturned, however, by a circuit court and by the state supreme court upon appeal.^[9]

Medical marijuana

See also: Medical marijuana

As of May 2021, 36 states and Washington, D.C., had passed laws legalizing or decriminalizing medical marijuana. Additionally, 10 states had legalized the use of cannabis oil, or cannabidiol (CBD)—one of the non-psychoactive ingredients found in marijuana—for medical purposes.^[10] In one state—Idaho—medical marijuana was illegal, but the use of a specific brand of FDA-approved CDB, Epidiolex, was legal.^[11] Based on 2019 population estimates, 67.5 percent of Americans lived in a jurisdiction with access to medical marijuana.

Unique instances

Idaho: In 2015, the Idaho State Legislature passed a bill legalizing certain types of CBD oil that was later vetoed by Governor Butch Otter (R). In response, Otter issued an executive order allowing children with intractable epilepsy to use Epidiolex in certain circumstances. ^[12]

South Dakota: In 2019, the South Dakota State Legislature passed a bill amending one section of law by adding Epidiolex to its list of controlled substances. The bill also exempted CBD from the state’s definition of marijuana in that section.^[13] Elsewhere in state law, CBD was not exempted from the definition of marijuana. This discrepancy led to confusion that left the legal status of CBD in the state unclear for a year.^[14]

After the 2019 changes, Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (R) issued a statement, wherein he argued all forms of CBD oil, apart from Epidiolex, were illegal under state law.^[15] Several state’s attorneys expressed disagreement with the Attorney General’s statements. Aaron McGown and Tom Wollman, state’s attorneys for Minnehaha and Lincoln counties, respectively, issued a joint statement where they said the discrepancy left legality open to differing interpretations. Mark Vargo, the Pennington County state’s attorney, said his office would not prosecute CBD cases based on his interpretation of the state law.^[14]

On March 27, 2020, Gov. Kristi Noem (R) signed House Bill 1008 into law, which legalized industrial hemp and CBD oil in the state.^[16]

Trifecta analysis

A state government trifecta occurs when one political party holds the governor’s office, a majority in the state Senate, and a majority in the state House. At the start of 2021, there were 15 Democratic trifectas, 23 Republican trifectas, and 12 states with a divided government.

Of the 18 states that had legalized recreational marijuana as of June 2021, 12 had Democratic trifectas, two had Republican trifectas, and four had divided governments.

Background

History

Marijuana has been illegal in the United States since 1937, when Congress prohibited its use for recreational, industrial, and therapeutic purposes with the Marihuana [sic] Act of 1937. Under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the drug and all its cannabinoid forms were classified as Schedule I substances, belonging to the same class as heroin (cocaine, by contrast, is a Substance II drug). Schedule I substances are considered to have a high potential for dependency and no accepted medical use; being classified as such made distribution of marijuana a federal offense. The table below compares Schedule I and Schedule II substances.^[17]

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been the federal agency working to eradicate the growth of marijuana on American soil since 1979 through its Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program (DCE/SP). In 2014 the program “was responsible for the eradication of 3,904,213 cultivated outdoor cannabis plants and 396,620 indoor plants for a total of 4,300,833 marijuana plants … In addition, the DCE/SP accounted for 6,310 arrests and the seizure in excess of 27.3 million dollars of cultivator assets. The program also removed 4,989 weapons from cannabis cultivators.”^[18]

Legalization in the United States

Medical:

The first marijuana-related ballot measure appeared on California’s ballot in 1972. Proposition 19, which would have decriminalized the use of marijuana by adults, was defeated, with 66.5 percent of voters opposing the measure. Twenty-four years later, California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana with 1996’s Proposition 215. Alaska and Oregon followed suit in 1998.

Recreational:

History of marijuana on the ballot

See also: History of marijuana on the ballot

• The first time a marijuana legalization measure appeared on the ballot was in California in 1972, when voters rejected Proposition 19.

• Between 1972 and 2020, voters in 21 states voted on 75 marijuana-related ballot measures. Of these measures, not all were marijuana legalization efforts; some were bans, some were related to medical marijuana, and some were related to taxing medical or recreational marijuana. Most of these ballot measures, however, were designed to move statewide marijuana laws in the direction of legalization and decriminalization.

• The first state to legalize medical marijuana was California in 1996. As of 2018, the most recent defeat of a medical marijuana measure was in Florida in 2014.

• Voters in Alaska opted to criminalize marijuana through a ballot measure in 1990. Voters in Alaska voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2014.

• As of 2021, voters had approved ballot measures to legalize recreational marijuana in the following states:
  • Alaska (2014),
  • Arizona (2020,
  • California (2016),
  • Colorado (2012),
  • Maine (2016),
  • Massachusetts (2016),
  • Michigan (2018),
  • Montana (2020),
  • Nevada (2016),
  • New Jersey
  • Oregon (2014),
  • South Dakota^[19], and
  • Washington (2012).

• South Dakota’s measure was overturned by a court ruling.

• As of 2021, Vermont (2018), Illinois (2019), New Mexico (2021), New York (2021), Virginia (2021), and Connecticut (2021) had legalized recreational marijuana through legislative bills.

Major issues

Usage

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an estimated 27.7 million American citizens aged 12 and older were current marijuana users in 2018 (meaning that they had used marijuana within the past month). This amounted to roughly 10.1 percent of the population aged 12 and older. See the table below for further details, including breakdowns by age bracket.^[20][21]

Crime and incarceration

According to the FBI, there were 10,310,960 total arrests in the United States in 2018, the most recent year for which full data were available. Of that total, an estimated 1,167,296 arrests were related to drug abuse violations. Marijuana violations comprised the highest percentage of that subtotal. Of all drug-related violations, 36.8 percent, or 429,565, were related to marijuana possession; 4.4 percent, or 51,361, were related to the sale or manufacture of marijuana.^[22]

Arguments supporting marijuana legalization

Proponents of the legalization of recreational marijuana make the following general arguments in support of their position:^[1]

1. Increased revenues for state and local governments: Proponents argue that, by making recreational marijuana legal, state and local governments can levy taxes on cannabis products, thereby generating revenues for government services.
2. Enabling law enforcement officers and criminal justice officials to focus on other crimes: Proponents argue that, If recreational marijuana use is legalized, law enforcement officers and criminal justice officials will be able to spend more time pursuing other crimes, such as violent offenses.
3. Improved safety via regulation: Proponents argue that, if marijuana is legalized, it will be subject to government regulation, which may result in a safer product.

Arguments opposing marijuana legalization

Opponents of the legalization of recreational marijuana make the following general arguments in support of their position:^[1]

1. Addictiveness: Opponents argue that any revenues generated by marijuana legalization could be offset by the costs of treating users who become addicted the drug.
2. Gateway drug: Opponents argue marijuana functions as a gateway drug, leading users to experiment with and become addicted to other drugs, such as cocaine and heroin.
3. Health: Opponents argue that marijuana use can lead to a host of health problems, including lung cancer, cardiovascular conditions, and mental health conditions.

Public opinion

Gallup, a national polling firm, first began surveying Americans about legalizing marijuana use in 1969. At that time, only 12 percent of all adults supported legalization. Since then, support for legalization has increased significantly. In 2019, a majority of American adults—66 percent—supported legalization. The table below breaks down support for legalization by age bracket.^[23][24]

Support for legalization by political party affiliation

According to a 2019 poll by Quinnipiac University, support for marijuana legalization differed according to political party affiliation, with Democrats and independents generally favoring legalization and Republicans generally opposing legalization. See the table below for further details.^[25]

However, the same poll found significantly higher support across all partisan affiliations for the legalization of medical marijuana. See the table below for further details.^[25]

Federalism question

See also: Preemption conflicts between state and local governments

At the federal level, the cultivation, distribution, and use of marijuana have remained federal offenses. When states began to legalize it, first for medical and then for personal use, enforcement became more complicated because states enforce their own narcotics statutes. This caused a conflict between the federal and state governments: what was illegal at the federal level was now legal in some places at the state level. Consequently, the Obama administration in October 2009 encouraged federal prosecutors not to prosecute individuals distributing or using marijuana for medical purposes in accordance with state law.^[26]

On August 29, 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice made another announcement regarding its marijuana enforcement policy: “In a new memorandum outlining the policy, the Department makes clear that marijuana remains an illegal drug under the Controlled Substances Act and that federal prosecutors will continue to aggressively enforce this statute … Based on assurances that those states will impose an appropriately strict regulatory system, the Department has informed the governors of [Colorado and Washington, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana in 2012] that it is deferring its right to challenge their legalization laws at this time.”^[27]

On August 11, 2016, the federal government rejected a proposal to declassify marijuana as an illegal Schedule I drug and to allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that marijuana has not been proven scientifically to be medically safe or effective; therefore, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) could not allow the drug to be declassified.^[28]

On December 20, 2018, President Donald Trump (R) signed the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, more commonly known as the 2018 Farm Bill, into law, which legalized the production of hemp by removing it from the Schedule I list of controlled substances under federal law. The bill defined hemp as any cannabis plant, or part of a cannabis plant, that contains less than 0.3 percent of THC, the substance that gives cannabis its psychoactive properties.^[29] By extension, cannabis oil, or cannabidiol (CBD)—one of the non-psychoactive ingredients found in marijuana—was also made legal under federal law so long as it contained less than 0.3% THC.^[30] Despite the legalization of hemp and CBD at the federal level, individual states retained the ability to prohibit the materials.