The Trump administration is preparing to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act as soon as today, according to reporting from Axios. This would mark the most significant federal cannabis policy shift in decades. It is not legalization. Here’s what you need to know right now.

As of publication, cannabis rescheduling has not been officially announced. No final rule had been publicly issued. This story will be updated as developments occur.

The Trump administration is prepared to move forward with cannabis rescheduling, Axios reported Wednesday, citing an administration official familiar with the matter. MJBizDaily confirmed the reporting through two sources close to the process. “Today’s the day,” one source told the outlet, while adding that “some process” still remains ahead.

The move follows a December 18 executive order in which President Trump directed the attorney general to complete the rescheduling process “in the most expeditious manner possible.” Trump himself complained just days ago, during a Saturday signing ceremony for a separate psychedelics order, that federal agencies were “slow-walking” him on cannabis. “You’re going to get the rescheduling done, right, please?” he said, apparently addressing a DOJ or White House official in the Oval Office.

The rescheduling process has a longer history. The Biden administration launched a formal review in 2022. In 2023, Health and Human Services concluded that cannabis has accepted medical use and recommended Schedule III. The DEA process stalled. Hearings were delayed. Nothing was finalized before Trump took office for his second term.

What Schedule III actually means

Cannabis is currently classified as Schedule I, the same category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy — defined as having no accepted medical use. Schedule III drugs, such as ketamine and anabolic steroids, are recognized as having medical value but remain controlled. The reclassification would move cannabis into that category. State-legal markets would likely continue operating much as they do now, though legal tensions with federal law would remain. Federal prohibition would remain in place.

The 280E question — the real immediate stakes

For cannabis businesses, the most concrete near-term impact is the potential end of IRS code 280E. Because cannabis remains Schedule I or II, plant-touching businesses currently cannot deduct ordinary business expenses — rent, payroll, utilities — from their federal taxes. That has been devastating for independent operators. If finalized, rescheduling to Schedule III would remove that restriction and could provide major tax relief across the industry.

What comes next

The rescheduling process is not a single signature. The Drug Enforcement Administration still has to complete the rulemaking process, which could include a new administrative hearing. Legal challenges from opponents of cannabis reform are expected. Two Republican senators filed an amendment in January to block rescheduling, though it was not adopted. A Congressional Research Service report has noted that the DOJ could, in theory, reject or delay the president’s directive by restarting the scientific review process.

The process is being overseen by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said during his confirmation process that he would “give the matter careful consideration after conferring with all relevant stakeholders.”

Rescheduling is movement. It is not freedom.

High Times, December 2025

High Times has covered the rescheduling debate extensively. We called this moment before it arrived, and our position has not changed. Schedule III is a meaningful step for the industry, particularly on taxes. It is not the end of federal prohibition, it does not repair the damage done by the war on drugs, and it does not free a single person still incarcerated for cannabis. The fight for full descheduling and legalization continues.

For deeper context, read our full coverage: Cannabis Rescheduling Questions Answered | What the Executive Order Doesn’t Do | Why Schedule III Could Be a Trap | Rescheduling Is Just the Opening Move

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Based on the ruling, products that are legal federally as well as at the state level can be reimbursed, which is a huge step forward, given that older policies prevented all cannabis-based substances from being reimbursed by insurance. However, we must be careful to take note of the nuances here; the ruling doesn’t treat cannabis as a primary medical treatment just yet but rather they are considered “specialized, non-primarily health-related benefits” by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

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The new partnership will spotlight the stories of people still behind bars for cannabis, support clemency and reentry efforts, and turn 4/20 into a call to action for the people legalization left behind.

High Times and Last Prisoner Project are launching an ongoing partnership focused on one of the cannabis movement’s clearest unfinished fights: bringing cannabis prisoners home.

Announced on 4/20, the partnership will spotlight the stories of people still incarcerated for cannabis offenses, amplify clemency and resentencing efforts, and support the legal, policy and reentry work needed to help those still paying the price for prohibition. High Times has also designated Last Prisoner Project as an official nonprofit partner.

The timing is deliberate. For millions of people, 4/20 is a day for celebration. But it is also a reminder that while cannabis has become legal, normalized and profitable in much of the country, thousands of people remain behind bars for conduct that now fuels a multibillion-dollar industry.

“Legalization brought freedom and opportunity to many, but not to everyone. There are still tens of thousands of people in prison for nonviolent cannabis offenses, and the burden of that injustice fell disproportionately on African American and Latino communities. On 4/20, while we celebrate cannabis culture, we should also remember the people who paid the price for the freedoms others now enjoy and support the work needed to bring them home.”

Javier Hasse, Editor-in-Chief, High Times

What Last Prisoner Project has accomplished

Last Prisoner Project has become one of the most visible organizations working in that space, combining direct legal support with clemency campaigns, policy advocacy and reentry assistance.

“The cannabis industry is thriving, and the people who sacrificed the most to make that possible are still sitting in prison cells. That is an injustice we cannot celebrate our way past. This 4/20, we’re asking everyone who has benefited from legalization to put something back, donate, take action, and help us bring these people home.”

Stephanie Shepard, Executive Director, Last Prisoner Project

For High Times, the partnership is not about adding a charitable badge to the page. It is about using the platform to keep this issue visible and urgent. Through the collaboration, High Times will feature stories about cannabis prisoners across its channels and help direct readers toward actions that can support real people and real cases.

“I’ve spent over twenty years in this industry, and I believe with everything I have that everyone who benefits from legal cannabis has a moral obligation to the people still suffering under prohibition. These are real people: parents, grandparents, sons, and daughters who have lost decades of their lives. Your donations fund the legal work, the clemency campaigns, the policy work and the reentry support that give them a real shot at coming home and rebuilding their lives.”

Mary Bailey, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Last Prisoner Project

That is the point of this partnership. Not to make 4/20 feel heavier than it already is, but to make sure the culture does not drift too far from the people who carried its risks long before there was legal revenue, polished branding or public celebration.

“There is no more fitting partner for this fight than High Times. For more than fifty years, High Times has been the cultural backbone of the cannabis movement — a platform that has always stood for something bigger than business. Their willingness to use that platform to shine a light on the people still behind bars is exactly the kind of leadership this moment calls for.”

Stephanie Shepard, Executive Director, Last Prisoner Project

On 4/20 and beyond, the message is simple: enjoy the freedom, but do not forget the people still waiting for theirs.

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The drug’s history of healing and experimentation stretches from ancient China to American counterculture — yet its promise remains trapped in a legal straitjacket.

This article is adapted from The MIT Press Reader and reprinted with permission. It is adapted from Cannabinoids by Linda A. Parker, published by MIT Press.

An altered state of consciousness, euphoria, relaxation, increased enjoyment of food tastes and aromas, distortion in time perception, joviality, introspection, and a heightened sense of creativity: These are some of the reported “psychoactive effects” often experienced by cannabis users, and they are the same effects that the drug has had on people throughout the arc of human history.

The earliest evidence of cannabis cultivation dates to over 10,000 years ago in modern-day China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. It was likely used primarily as a fiber (for making ropes, nets, and other textiles), as a food (for protein from hemp seeds), and as a ritualistic drug (for ceremonial or psychoactive use).

But the systematic medicinal applications of cannabis for treating numerous pathologies were not documented until thousands of years later. The earliest of such applications we know of began with the legendary Emperor Shen Nung (2700 BCE), a quasi-legendary figure known as the “father” of Chinese medicine. He is said to have taught Chinese people to practice agriculture, cultivating not only cereals and tea, but also cannabis, which he apparently saw as an alternative to magic in fighting disease.

The first known Chinese pharmacopoeia — the “Shen Nung Pen Ts’ao Ching,” written in the first century BCE — lists all the traditional remedies that have been handed down orally for over 2,000 years, dating back to the mythical Emperor Shen Nung’s reign. In it, a concoction of female cannabis flowers was prescribed for all conditions associated with pain, constipation, malaria, and gynecological disorders. It was considered a safe, highly effective herb. In this ancient text, there is limited reference to psychoactive properties, except that too much cannabis could cause the person to “see demons” and allow a person to “communicate with the spirits.” It is likely that the psychoactive use of cannabis was limited to shamans at the time. However, by the time of the Shang dynasty, which placed restrictions on practices such as divination and ritual healing, many shamans had begun to leave China for India.

Most effects of cannabis that are only now being studied have been known throughout human history.

In ancient India, cannabis use spread rapidly as a source of drug-induced elation and was commonly used in religious rituals, as is reported in the sacred text “Atharva Veda,” an ancient collection of holy writings (around 2,000 BCE). The sacred bhanga, as the drug was called, was considered the optimal treatment for anxiety and was used to treat pain, produce anesthesia, reduce spasms and convulsions, and induce hunger. By around 800 BCE, cannabis was used for its intoxicating and therapeutic effects in Assyria and in ancient Persia, as well as in medieval Arab societies.

Despite cannabis’s long and widespread history of recreational use, it would take many, many millennia for the plant to come under official scientific scrutiny.

The first to study its pharmacological and toxicological properties was Irish chemist and physician William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, who researched the drug’s use in India from 1833 to 1840. After conducting a series of human and animal experiments to explore the drug’s therapeutic effects on pain, rheumatism, and convulsions, he brought his findings back to the European medical community. O’Shaughnessy concluded that cannabis was a useful analgesic, muscle relaxer, and the most useful treatment known for convulsions.

O’Shaughnessy was not alone: French psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau introduced cannabis to Europeans in the mid-1800s as a psychoactive drug based on observations made during travel in the Middle East. He used the scientific method to detail the drug’s psychoactive effects, which he believed offered a way for psychiatrists to better understand mental illness. Soon enough, in Paris, the drug’s psychotropic use extended beyond the therapeutic; numerous artists, such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Charles Baudelaire, wanted to try cannabis. During monthly meetings, Moreau dispensed dawamesk (a mixture of hashish, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pistachio, sugar, orange juice, butter, and cantharides) to eminent people who had assembled to ingest the drug.

“There are two modes of existence — two modes of life — given to man,” Moreau mused. “The first one results from our communication with the external world, with the universe. The second one is but the reflection of the self and is fed from its own distinct internal sources. The dream is an in-between land where the external life ends, and the internal life begins.”

With the aid of hashish, he felt that anyone could enter this in-between land at will. As Moreau studied hashish, he noted a relationship between the amount of the drug taken and its effects. A small dose produced a sense of euphoria and calm. With higher doses, however, attention wandered, ideas appeared at random, minutes seemed like hours, thoughts rushed together, and sensory acuity increased. As the dose increased further, dreams began to flood the brain, like hallucinations of insanity. Indeed, it is now understood that cannabinoids exhibit biphasic effects, in which low doses produce the opposite effects of high ones.

By the early 20^th century, cannabis had become well-known throughout the world. It was the drug of choice for many early jazz musicians, such as Louis Armstrong, as well as reggae artists like Bob Marley. In the beatnik community, writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg used it for creative inspiration. And by the ’60s, cannabis had become what some might consider the symbol of American counterculture.

Today, most of the effects of cannabis that are only now being studied are hardly new. For instance, it has been known for centuries that the drug is effective in treating seizures. We now know that CBD is the constituent of cannabis responsible for this effect. CBD was approved for the treatment of childhood epilepsy by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States in 2020, yet it was shown in early clinical trials to be effective in treating epilepsy as early as 1978. Why has it taken so long to determine how this drug produces its effects? Prohibition, at least in America, has played a major role.

The fall of medicinal cannabis research — fueled by those like O’Shaughnessy and Moreau — came in 1937 with the enactment of the Marihuana Tax Act. Thanks in part to a moral panic stoked by Harry Anslinger, then the supervisor of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, cannabis was made too cost-prohibitive and legally risky to research, despite appeals from the American Medical Association. In 1941, the drug was altogether removed from the United States Pharmacopeia-National Formulary, which helped shift public perception away from thinking of cannabis as a medicine.

Then came perhaps the largest setback: In 1961, an international treaty called the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs placed psychoactive substances into four schedules. Schedule I, the most restrictive, contained drugs viewed to be particularly dangerous for abuse with little therapeutic value. At a subsequent 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances, the cannabis plant, its resin, extracts, and tinctures were all placed in Schedule I, which prohibited all use except for scientific purposes and very limited medical purposes by duly authorized persons. Phytocannabinoids other than THC (such as CBD) were excluded from this control by many countries, such as Britain. But the United States and Canada chose to restrict any constituent of cannabis under the same restrictive schedule as THC.

Cannabis is a drug worth studying, rather than one we should put in a legal straitjacket.

Since then, restricted access to cannabis and its constituents in America has had a negative impact on the scientific world and beyond. We could have spent decades conducting experiments on cannabis as a drug of both abuse and therapy, the results of which might have greatly informed the legalization of cannabis in several U.S. states. Indeed, well-powered, placebo-controlled investigations are still critically needed to disentangle pharmacologic efficacy from expectation.

However, these studies have been nearly impossible to conduct, partially because of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA’s) Schedule I labeling of the cannabis plant and its constituents. Removal of research barriers like this is currently under active discussion. Many lawmakers have suggested that cannabis should be descheduled and decriminalized entirely.

Whatever the case may be, thousands of years of history show us that cannabis is a drug worth studying, rather than one we should put in a legal straitjacket. We have merely scratched the surface of this drug’s potential for harm and good. Going forward, only quality science, with data that helps us assess the drug’s societal risks and benefits, will allow us to make responsible decisions about its use.

Linda A. Parker is University Faculty Emeritus and the former Canada Research Chair in Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. She has published over 200 scientific articles and written several books, including “Cannabinoids,” from which this article is adapted.

This article was originally published by The MIT Press Reader and is reprinted with permission.

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Colombia is moving forward with a controversial plan to euthanize dozens of invasive hippos descended from Pablo Escobar’s private collection, as their population continues to grow uncontrollably. The decision highlights a complex clash between environmental protection, public safety, and animal welfare, with no easy solution in sight.

As early as 2022, Colombia’s growing hippopotamus population had become a topic of concern. And for good reason: although hippos have not caused a single death in the country, Colombian authorities recognize that this wild population does not belong to the local ecosystem. As a result, it has no natural predators, allowing unchecked expansion and widespread disruption of the landscape. 

And that’s not all: even though they haven’t caused major incidents in Colombia, data from Uganda—where hippos are native—shows that 87% of encounters between this species and humans have been fatal.

But these aren’t just any hippos. They were once the pets of one of Latin America’s—and arguably the world’s—most notorious drug traffickers: the infamous Pablo Escobar Gaviria. Today, Colombia still holds Escobar responsible for this relentless expansion and is actively seeking ways to curb it. Current projections estimate that the population could reach around 500 hippos by 2030—and double just five years later.

How Did Non-Native Hippos End Up in Colombia, and Why Are They a Concern for the Government?

In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar Gaviria brought four hippos to Colombia as part of his private collection. They lived on his Hacienda Nápoles estate alongside other exotic animals, including giraffes, elephants, zebras, ostriches, rhinos, and buffalo. 

But in 1993, the narco-empire collapsed with the death of the powerful drug lord, leaving the estate completely abandoned. Some animals were relocated, but no one wanted to take in the hippos. Left behind, they escaped and spread throughout the Magdalena River basin. 

Decades later, their numbers have risen in ways few could have predicted. What began with just four animals has grown to an estimated 169 to 200 hippos today, according to various sources. Projections suggest that the number could climb to 500 by 2030 and 1,000 by 2035, making this the only wild hippo population outside of Africa. 

Hippos devour, compete, disrupt, and reshape

Officially designated an invasive exotic species since 2022, hippos have no natural predators in Colombia, giving them “free rein” to devour large quantities of native flora, compete with local wildlife, disrupt the ecosystem, alter the landscape with their footprints (they weigh over a ton), and pollute the water with their excrement.

Furthermore, they impact species such as manatees and river turtles by altering water quality, reducing aquatic vegetation, and altering the ecosystems on which these species depend for feeding and reproduction.

They have also affected humans, encroaching on fishing areas, rural communities, and even a schoolyard. Fishermen are afraid of them, and they make their work more difficult. Additionally, encounters between children, residents, and these animals create ongoing tension in many areas due to the risk of attack they pose.

So how have they thrived so successfully in a non-native environment?  The expansion of hippos in Colombia comes down to two key factors that have enabled their growth: plenty of water and abundant food. They live like kings—at least for now. 

Colombia plans to euthanize at least 80 hippos

Initially, Colombia considered “relocating” some of the animals to avoid resorting to lethal measures. In fact, as mentioned earlier, nearly all the animals from Escobar’s private zoo were eventually rehomed, except for the hippos. But why did no one want them? 

The problem is that all of Colombia’s hippos are direct descendants of the original four that Pablo Escobar brought in. In other words, they are all closely related. In biology, when there is little genetic diversity, the same genes are repeated over and over again, which increases the likelihood of genetic defects.

If greater genetic diversity means better health, this situation is the exact opposite. If a population descends from a small number of individuals and breeds within the same family, there is a higher risk of disease and a lower capacity for adaptation. This can lead to birth defects, malformations, health problems, reduced disease resistance, and more reproductive issues. 

This lack of genetic diversity is one of the main reasons other countries and zoos have shown little interest in taking them in: they are not particularly suitable for conservation programs because they do not contribute to genetic diversity, are more prone to health complications, and are more costly and complex to maintain. This is why the Colombian government has found it so difficult to relocate Pablo Escobar’s hippos, whose numbers have grown exponentially in recent decades. 

In addition to the idea of transferring them to other zoos, Colombian authorities have also attempted chemical sterilization and explored exporting the animals abroad. It’s not that solutions weren’t pursued; none proved effective at slowing population growth. This leads to the current plan: euthanizing 80 hippos in an effort to reduce the population in a controlled, sustained way.

The new plan was announced by Minister Irene Vélez, who stated that the goal is to reduce the population by at least 33 individuals per year under the Plan for the Prevention, Control, and Management of the Invasive Exotic Species Hippopotamus, with a total budget of COP 7.2 billion (approximately USD 2 million). 

Each procedure will cost COP 50 million (USD 14,000) per animal, not including additional costs such as international transport (which is very costly) and mandatory burial for health reasons.

The process is expected to be quick: the animals will be injected, and some will be shot with darts, following a protocol described as “ethical, safe, and responsible.” According to the government, this measure—while unfortunate—is scientifically necessary and was considered a last resort after multiple failed attempts at alternative solutions. 

Experts warn that without immediate action, the situation could spiral out of control within the next 10 to 20 years. Animal rights groups, however, strongly oppose the plan, and Senator Andrea Padilla has even described the measure as “short-sighted and cruel”. They argue that if the animals were brought into the country as victims of human decisions, then non-lethal solutions should be prioritized. The dilemma is complex: animal ethics versus ecological preservation, and human responsibility versus damage control.

But the challenges are clear, and the obstacles significant: dozens of countries have already made it clear that they are not willing to take in the hippos that were once the pets of the region’s most notorious drug trafficker; the logistical cost of relocation is extremely high (though it would need to be weighed against the cost of euthanizing 80 animals); the genetic issues these hippos have reduced their “value” for conservation; previous measures have failed; and the population of this species continues to grow.

It is clearly a one-of-a-kind case: African wildlife that has become a Latin American pest. Anecdotal and peculiar, sure, but it has turned into a real and problematic environmental crisis that poses significant environmental and public safety concerns. 

Photo by Colombian National Police, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (edited)

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Imported hashish sustained mountain economies for centuries—until modern legalization and market economics erased it almost overnight.

Traditional imported hashish—hand-rubbed Nepali charas, Lebanese blonde, Moroccan temple balls, Afghani black—has effectively vanished from North American markets. This is not a story about enforcement or interdiction. This is a story about market economics and how legalization ironically destroyed demand for the very craft products it claimed to celebrate.

The Traditional Trade

For decades, hashish followed established routes from producing regions to Western markets. Afghan hashish moved through Pakistan to Karachi, then by sea to European and North American ports. Lebanese product traveled via Cyprus across the Mediterranean. Moroccan hash crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into Spain, then dispersed throughout Europe and beyond. Nepali charas and Indian hashish moved through Delhi and free-trade zones. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, these traditional trade routes developed primarily during the late 1960s and early 1970s when Western demand for hashish expanded dramatically alongside the counterculture movement.

The volumes were modest by modern cannabis standards—tens of barrels annually from individual producing regions, not the tons that flow through contemporary licensed facilities. But the trade was stable, the product carried centuries of accumulated knowledge, and mountain farming communities from the Hindu Kush to the Rif depended on it for economic survival.

The Quality Collapse

By the early 1990s, something had changed. Moroccan hashish, which had come to dominate both European and North American markets, underwent a dramatic quality decline. Morocco alone supplied an estimated 70% of Europe’s hashish market during this period. The infamous “soap bar”—250-gram blocks of low-grade Moroccan resin—held what researchers described as a “quasi-monopoly” over Western markets. 

According to data from the European Monitoring Centre, the average THC content of these products measured only 8%. More troubling, studies found widespread adulteration. A survey of soap bar samples from 13 UK cities in the early 2000s found that 89% were impure, 29% contained visible plastic, and 20% were contaminated with diesel fuel. One analyzed sample was 80% soil.

The adulteration was not accidental. As domestic cannabis cultivation began rising in North America during the 1990s, import prices came under pressure. Moroccan producers, facing declining revenues, cut quality to maintain margins. They added beeswax, pine resin, and even glue to increase the weight and stretch the product. What had been craft production devolved into a race to the bottom.

The Economic Inversion

By the mid to late 1990s, a fundamental economic shift was underway. Medical marijuana legalization in California in 1996 and subsequent state programs created legal frameworks for domestic cultivation. Indoor growing operations perfected techniques that traditional outdoor farming could not match. Climate control, optimized lighting, and selective breeding produced flower that were consistently more potent than degraded imported hashish—and carried none of the smuggling risk.

The mathematics became impossible for importers. Traditional hashish required freight costs, import risk premiums, border crossing logistics, and payments to multiple intermediaries along established routes. A domestic grower faced none of these structural costs. As one Vermont concentrate producer who has been in the industry since the late 1990s explained, the calculation was straightforward.

“I started making bubble hash in 2002,” he said. “We were using trim and lower-grade flower that dispensaries couldn’t move as top-shelf product. The technique was simple—ice water extraction, no solvents, just patience and proper micron bags. What we produced tested consistently higher than any Moroccan hash I had seen in years, and we were making it from material that would have otherwise been wasted. The economics made importing obsolete. Why would anyone risk federal smuggling charges to bring in an inferior product when you could produce something better domestically with zero import risk?”

The question answered itself. Rational economic actors followed the money, and the money had shifted entirely to domestic production.

The Concentrate Revolution

What followed was a cascade of innovation that left traditional hashish production methods economically stranded. Bubble hash became standard production practice at scale by the mid-2000s. Butane hash oil and shatter emerged, offering potencies that hand-rubbed charas could never approach. In 2015, the rosin press technique was refined, enabling solventless concentrate production with minimal equipment investment.

The terminology itself reveals how completely the market transformed. Dispensary menus now list live resin, rosin, budder, badder, sauce, diamonds, crumble, and wax—each representing distinct extraction methods and consistency profiles. Kief, once considered a premium product, became the entry-level concentrate category. Even traditional dry sift, the closest domestic equivalent to imported hashish production methods, occupies a small niche market compared to solvent-based and rosin products.

Each innovation widened the gap. By the 2010s, legal dispensaries in medical marijuana states were retailing concentrates at roughly sixty dollars per gram—products that tested at 70-90% THC. Traditional imported hashish, even at its historical peak in quality, rarely exceeded 25% potency and commanded prices that could not compete with domestic production costs.

The state-legal market formalized what had already occurred in practice. Licensed concentrate producers operated at commercial scale with tested, trackable, lab-certified products. They carried no smuggling risk, no customs exposure, no border interdiction concerns. The traditional hashish trade, built on small-batch agricultural production in remote mountain regions, had no mechanism to compete with this industrial transformation.

The Routes Go Silent

By the late 2010s, traditional imported hashish had largely disappeared from North American markets. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime continues to report substantial hashish production in Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Lebanon, but the destination markets are primarily regional. Afghan hashish serves Middle Eastern and Central Asian markets. Moroccan product, which have since improved dramatically in quality through the adoption of hybrid genetics, supplies Europe. But North American seizure data and market reports show almost no presence of traditional imported hashish.

The Vermont concentrate producer confirmed what the data suggested. “I have not seen actual imported hashish—real Nepali temple balls, Lebanese blonde, any of it—in probably fifteen years,” he said. “It just does not exist in this market anymore. When someone talks about hash now, they mean rosin or live resin or maybe ice water hash if they are being specific about solventless methods. The traditional stuff is gone. It is not coming back.”

The Irony Legalization Created

There is a particular irony embedded in this extinction. The legalization movement spent decades arguing for the preservation of cannabis culture, the protection of craft production, the celebration of heritage and terroir. Advocates insisted that regulated markets would elevate artisanal products and reward quality over mass production.

What actually occurred was the opposite. Legalization created market conditions that made traditional craft imports economically impossible. The regulatory frameworks that emerged prioritized manufacturing compliance, laboratory certification, and trackable supply chains—all of which favored domestic industrial production over small-batch agricultural imports from mountain farming regions half a world away.

The hand-rubbed charas that sustained Himalayan villages, the temple balls pressed in Moroccan cooperatives, the Lebanese blonde that financed Bekaa Valley farmers—all of these products carried something that lab-certified domestic concentrates could never replicate. They carried accumulated knowledge, specific terroir, human contact, and cultural continuity spanning generations.

Modern markets tend to prioritize other qualities. Modern markets value quantifiable THC percentages, consistent potency, regulatory compliance, and competitive pricing. Traditional hashish offered few of these competitive advantages and struggled to adapt to provide them.

In the end, traditional hashish did not disappear because governments stopped it. It disappeared because the market no longer needed it.

This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.

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By Eric Offenberger via Cannabis Confidential

69% of cannabis consumers have no brand preference. 18% say brand influences their purchase at all. The durable competitive moat in this business is not the brand on the package. It is the licensed retail door through which that package reaches the consumer.

Editor’s note: Eric Offenberger is the CEO of Vext Science, a multi-state cannabis operator with dispensaries in Arizona and Ohio — which means he has a direct stake in the argument he’s making here. We’re republishing this piece from Cannabis Confidential because the argument is worth the industry’s attention, and because we believe our readers can weigh a strong point of view on its merits. The views are his own.

There’s an old football axiom: offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships.

I have spent the better part of 40 years watching that principle play out in business— first across the steel service center and commodity distribution industries, and now in cannabis.

The flashy play always draws the crowd. The disciplined work always wins the game.

The cannabis industry is still captivated by brands, despite the shakeout playing out across the sector.

Which cultivar will break through?

Which edible SKU will achieve shelf velocity?

Which logo will resonate with the adult-use consumer?

These are legitimate questions—but in a pre-consolidation industry that remains fragmented along state lines and structurally oversupplied, they are the wrong priority.

The structural advantages in this business have not yet been locked up. The operators who recognize what those advantages actually are will be the ones still standing.

My argument is more direct: in a heavily regulated, regionally fragmented, supply-constrained industry, the durable competitive moat is not the brand on the package.

It is the licensed retail door through which that package reaches the consumer.

When the data shows that 69% of cannabis consumers have no brand preference whatsoever—and that only 18% say brand influences their purchase decision at all— what you are looking at is a consumer who walks in the door and decides at the shelf.

That is not a brand story. That is a distribution story.

This may be a contrarian view, or perhaps one some of you are already recognizing, and I cannot prove a negative. But the data, the capital markets, and the history of analogous industries all point in the same direction. Let me walk through why.

The Growth-at-All-Cost Hangover

The first chapter of the cannabis industry was written in an OPM-fueled frenzy.

Other People’s Money.

Capital flooded in from 2017 through 2021 chasing a simple thesis: legalization was inevitable, the total addressable market was massive, and the first movers would lock up brands, licenses, and consumer loyalty before the dust settled.

A word on those brands.

A real brand—in any industry—is not packaging. It is years of consistent consumer experience, earned trust, the kind of customer relationship that survives a competitor undercutting your price by 20 percent.

Building one takes time and discipline that the OPM era did not reward. What the industry largely built instead was high-end design wrapped around a commodity product, and called those packaged products brands.

The distinction matters because investors spent real capital on the premise that those commodity products had durable brand value.

Back to the broader story.

The result was an industry-wide sprint toward scale—cultivation first, brands second— with multi-state operators funded initially by a seemingly endless supply of equity capital.

Once that equity became expensive, they shifted to high-cost debt from private lenders, traditional bank financing remaining largely inaccessible under federal prohibition, and executed sale-leaseback arrangements on cultivation facilities and dispensary real estate to generate liquidity.

These structures locked in significant long-term lease obligations, adding fixed costs to balance sheets precisely when the industry needed flexibility.

The capital markets data tells the rest of the story.

The U.S. cannabis industry is currently carrying an estimated $6 billion in debt, with meaningful maturities concentrated in 2026 and 2027.

The operators who structured their balance sheets conservatively during the growth phase—who avoided locking in long-term fixed obligations at peak valuations—are entering this period with options.

Those who did not are facing a much narrower set of choices.

This is not a story about brands failing.

It is a story about what the growth-at-all-cost era cost the operators who lived it most aggressively.

When Supply Overwhelms the Wholesale Market

The second chapter has been written by Economics 101.

As cultivation capacity expanded across licensed markets, wholesale prices fell—in many cases dramatically.

Across the major U.S. markets, wholesale flower prices declined 30 to 35% between 2022 and 2024, with national prices swinging as much as 21% within a single four-month stretch.

The pattern is consistent and directional: mature cannabis markets are structurally oversupplied, and wholesale prices reflect it.

For operators who built their model around wholesale as a primary revenue driver, that compression has been devastating—volumes up, revenues flat or declining, over a substantial fixed cost base.

The fundamental problem is structural, not cyclical.

Interstate commerce is prohibited, which means each state operates as an isolated supply chain.

Oversupplied states like Oregon and California cannot export their excess.

Undersupplied emerging markets like New Jersey saw wholesale flower prices near $2,600 per pound in mid-2025—roughly triple California rates. The market cannot self-correct across state lines.

And for those waiting on federal rescheduling or interstate commerce to resolve the imbalance—that road is longer than the optimists suggest.

States have powerful incentives to protect their licensed operators, their tax revenue, and local employment.

The pressure to keep commerce within state lines will outlast near-term federal action.

Operators in mature markets need to find a different answer to the imbalance, because the structural inefficiency is not going away.

“The operator who controls the retail door controls the conversation. The wholesale supplier is at the mercy of whoever opens that door.”

The Cable Industry Playbook

I want to step back from cannabis for a moment and talk about cable television, because I believe it offers an instructive parallel in American business history for what is unfolding in our industry.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the cable industry was a fragmented, capital-intensive, heavily regulated business with a simple and powerful characteristic: whoever held the franchise agreement controlled the distribution pipe to the customer.

Content creators—ESPN, HBO, CNN—were important. But they needed the pipe.

The pipe did not need any single piece of content.

John Malone understood this before almost anyone else.

His strategy at Tele-Communications Inc. was not to build better content. It was to acquire cable systems—subscriber relationships, local franchise agreements, and geographic footprint.

From 1973 to 1998, TCI generated a 30.3% annual return, compared to 14.3% for the S&P 500 over the same period.

TCI was eventually acquired by AT&T for $43.5 billion, and its assets ultimately flowed into Comcast, which spent decades consolidating the remaining regional operators into contiguous geographic clusters, maximizing operational efficiency.

The goal was not merely to eliminate competition—local franchise agreements meant cable operators typically did not compete with one another anyway.

The goal was to own the connection to the household.

And that connection proved durable across multiple technological revolutions.

When satellite threatened linear television, Comcast was not dependent on any single content relationship; it owned the customer.

When broadband became the primary product, the same physical infrastructure carried internet traffic.

When streaming disrupted the bundle, Comcast had the subscriber relationship and the pipe to adapt.

The asset was never the content.

The asset was the household connection.

Now apply that logic to cannabis—and let the data do the work.

Per New Frontier Data, 69% of cannabis consumers have no brand preference.

BDSA and Deloitte show that 18% of purchase decisions are influenced by brand.

New Frontier Data also reports that 72% of consumers choose based on THC potency and 64% identify price as a primary driver—two variables the retailer controls through stocking decisions, pricing, and promotional strategy, not the brand.

Consumer purchase behavior consistently reinforces this dynamic—the most price-competitive, highest-potency products on a dispensary’s shelf, regardless of brand, drive the majority of transactions.

The consumer’s loyalty belongs to the store, not to the label.

Cannabis brands are in the same position cable content was in 1985.

They are real, they matter at the margin, and the best ones will find homes on productive shelves.

But they need the shelf. The dispensary does not need any single brand.

The consumer’s loyalty—to the extent it exists—belongs to the store.

They go where it is convenient, where the value is right, where the staff knows them.

What they walk out with is largely what is available, priced well, and supported by an efficient supply chain to that shelf.

That is not an indictment of brands. It is a description of a market structure that permanently favors the distribution endpoint.

Critically—unlike cable, where new technology could eventually route around legacy infrastructure—the licensed cannabis retail door is protected by regulatory design.

It is the platform from which you respond to whatever comes next: federal rescheduling, shifts in consumption format, new product categories.

The franchise agreement in cannabis is the dispensary license.

The state regulatory framework is the territory.

No amount of brand equity changes that math.

Brands change.

The door remains.

Ohio as Proof, Not Postscript

That last point deserves more than a theoretical argument, so let me make it with a specific market.

Ohio launched adult-use cannabis in August 2024 with an existing network of medical dispensaries and a deliberately constrained supply base.

The results were immediate: $675 million in legal cannabis sales in 2024, a 40% increase over the prior medical-only year, with adult-use recreational sales reaching $829 million in 2025 alone.

According to LeafLink market data, Ohio dispensaries averaged $5.8 million in annual sales per store by mid-2025, more than double the national per-store annual average of $2.8 million.

What drove that performance?

The Ohio Division of Cannabis Control prioritized converting existing medical operators before opening new licenses, creating a market where demand grew faster than supply could expand.

Market analysts have noted that Ohio’s success reflects early demand strength coupled with constrained license caps and modest vertical integration—a framework that leads to sustained per-store performance and fewer boom-bust cycles.

But Ohio’s regulatory architecture tells the more important story.

Senate Bill 56 implemented an eight-dispensary ownership cap per entity, mandatory one-mile spacing buffers between locations, and a 400-store market cap that survived a referendum challenge.

These provisions are not administrative details. They are the structural equivalent of a local cable franchise agreement—they cap the number of pipes, define the territory, and make the licenses that already exist genuinely scarce.

This is exactly the regulatory framework that, in cable, separated the operators who built durable businesses from those who did not.

In Ohio, the operator who holds quality dispensary licenses in productive markets has an asset that cannot be easily replicated, regardless of what brands are on the shelf.

Market selection matters here too.

Not every state will structure its market this way, and operators who chose carefully—entering markets with supply discipline and rational license caps—will look very different in five years from those who chased volume in oversupplied states with no structural floor.

Forty Years of Watching This Movie

I have had the good fortune of watching this pattern play out across industries most people would consider unrelated.

Early in my career I worked in consumer goods—a Coca-Cola bottler as an intern, then Land O’ Lakes—before spending decades in the steel service center industry.

Consumer brands, commodity distribution, and now cannabis.

Three different industries, three different product sets, and the same fundamental cycle playing out each time.

The parallels are not abstract to me. They are lived experience.

The steel service center business is a distribution business at its core.

You buy flat-rolled or long products from the mills, process them to customer specifications, and deliver to manufacturers and fabricators.

The brand of steel matters very little.

What matters is whether you can deliver the right material, in the right form, at the right time, with the cost structure to do it profitably.

Every cycle began with capital chasing growth.

New entrants expanded capacity, warehouses multiplied, and service centers competed aggressively for mill allocations and customer relationships.

Then the cycle turned. Demand softened, inventory grew, prices compressed, and the weaker operators — those carrying high fixed costs, poor inventory discipline, and thin margins — were the ones that did not survive.

The operators that weathered those cycles were invariably those who had controlled their costs, maintained their balance sheets, built efficient back-office operations, and secured the customer relationships the market could not easily replicate.

And coming out of those down cycles, they became even stronger because the field had thinned and the consolidators were ready.

Cannabis is playing out the same script, compressed into a shorter timeline because of the regulatory overlay and the capital markets dynamics unique to a federally illegal industry.

“The operators that survive the shakeout and are positioned to consolidate will be those who controlled distribution and managed their balance sheet while everyone else was building brand decks.”

The Balance: Where Manufacturing Meets Retail

I want to be precise about what I am and am not arguing.

I’m not saying product quality, consumer experience, or brand perception are irrelevant.

I’m saying that in a regulated, supply-constrained market, those factors are necessary but not sufficient.

The operator who has invested in a superior brand but lacks control of the retail channel is ultimately dependent on someone else’s willingness to stock and promote that product.

In a market with wholesale price compression, that dependency becomes increasingly unfavorable.

What creates durable advantage is the balance between what you produce internally and what you can sell through your own retail footprint.

A vertically integrated operator who can rationalize cultivation and manufacturing output to match actual retail throughput, rather than producing to wholesale capacity and hoping the market absorbs it, has a structural advantage that no amount of branding can replicate.

You are not at the mercy of wholesale pricing. You are setting your own transfer price, capturing the full margin stack, and matching supply to demand in real time through a channel you control.

The corollary is equally important: the smart operator watches the signals. When wholesale prices compress, that is the supply-demand system sending a message. If you control your own retail outlet, you can respond—pull back cultivation output, shift product mix, protect your margin.

If you are dependent on wholesale sales as a large part of your model, you absorb the compression. The back-office disciplines—inventory management, cost accounting, cash flow monitoring, balance sheet management—are what separate operators who see those signals early and respond from those who see them late and react.

This is not glamorous work.

It does not generate press releases.

But it is what determines who is still standing when the cycle turns.

The Consolidation Thesis

Where does this lead?

I believe the cannabis industry is in the early stages of a consolidation cycle that will ultimately resemble both the cable rollups and the regional banking consolidations of the 1990s and 2000s.

In both cases, the surviving entities were not those with the best product or the most recognizable name. They were those with the most efficient operations, the strongest balance sheets, and the most defensible distribution networks in their core geographies.

The operators positioned to benefit from that consolidation are those doing the unglamorous work right now: rationalizing supply chains, matching cultivation output to retail demand, building back-office infrastructure that scales without proportional cost growth, managing cash carefully, and protecting their licensed retail locations as the irreplaceable assets they are.

The operators on the wrong side will be those still chasing wholesale market share in oversupplied states, servicing high-cost debt and sale-leaseback obligations underwritten on projections that did not materialize, and hoping a brand investment substitutes for the distribution control they do not have.

I have watched this movie before, in multiple industries, across multiple cycles.

The ending is not a surprise.

The only question is which side of it you are on when the credits roll.

The Price Is Never Too High for the Spectator

One final thought, drawn from four decades of making payroll in industries that have seen this cycle before: the price is never too high for the spectator.

There will always be voices—investors, advisors, brand consultants, industry observers—enthusiastically recommending strategies they do not have to execute, obligations they will not have to service and bets they won’t have to cover when the market turns.

Most are collecting fees on the front end.

They are not creating anything.

They are intermediating something someone else created.

There is a useful discipline in remembering where value actually originates.

Economists have long recognized that real wealth is created in three ways: you grow it, you manufacture it, or you mine it.

Cannabis is one of the rare industries that does two of the three.

We grow a plant.

We manufacture it into products.

That is genuine value creation—not financial engineering, not brand storytelling, not a clever capital structure.

The operators who recognize that, who right-size their cultivation and manufacturing to serve their own retail footprint, and control the licensed door through which the finished product reaches the consumer, are the ones building something real.

The shakeout will be uncomfortable.

But for the disciplined operator who has been paying attention to the fundamentals all along, it will also be an opportunity.

Eric Offenberger is the Chief Executive Officer of Vext Science, Inc. and its operating subsidiary Herbal Wellness Center, a multi-state cannabis operator with licensed retail dispensaries and vertically integrated manufacturing operations in Arizona and Ohio. Prior to entering the cannabis industry in 2018, Eric served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Delta Steel, a Reliance, Inc. company. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and brings over 40 years of experience in operations, finance, and executive leadership across the commodity, distribution, and consumer goods industries.

The views expressed are those of the author in his personal capacity and do not constitute investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell securities.

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Doja Pak helped popularize Permanent Marker, contributed to the rise of Zoap and RS11, and spent years building one of the most respected names in California cannabis culture. Now it is moving into the regulated European medical market — and it has a specific complaint about what it is finding there.

The brand, founded by Ryan Bartholomew and rooted in Northern California’s cannabis heritage, has announced a partnership with CP Medical to enter Germany and the United Kingdom through exclusive arrangements with Bloomwell and Mamedica respectively. The first products to reach German patients are Doja Z and Doja Permanent Marker. The UK launch follows closely, adding CP Z and CP Super Lemon Haze to the lineup.

Doja Z marks the first introduction of the multi-award-winning Z genetic into Germany’s medical sector. Doja has served as custodian of the original breeder cut for over seven years. Permanent Marker — named Leafly’s 2023 Strain of the Year and originally commercialized by Doja Exclusives — brings one of the most recognizable cultivars in recent cannabis history into a fully regulated pharmaceutical framework for the first time.

The quality problem they’re trying to solve

The partnership is built around a pointed critique of the European medical cannabis market as it currently operates. According to CP Medical, compliance has become the endpoint rather than the starting point — and the gap between regulatory approval and actual product quality is significant.

The specific issues they identify: genetics selected for ease of cultivation rather than consumer experience, seed selections passed off under commercial strain names with no meaningful connection to original genetics, and a near-total absence of legacy cultivation expertise in production decisions. The result, they argue, is compliant cannabis that lacks the terpene depth, genetic authenticity and experiential quality that long-term consumers recognize.

One of their more direct critiques targets irradiation, which much of the industry uses to meet microbial limits. CP Medical argues this reflects upstream failures in cultivation hygiene rather than a genuine solution — and that irradiation can degrade terpene profiles, including the sulphur-containing compounds responsible for the “gas” or “dank” character of premium flower. Their alternative is to control sterility from the beginning: hospital-grade SOPs, tissue culture germplasm, DNA sequencing for genetic verification, and clean cultivation environments that make irradiation unnecessary.

“We only sell what we smoke, and we only smoke what we sell.”

Ryan Bartholomew, Founder, Doja Pak

How the supply chain works

All genetics enter the supply chain as original breeder cuts imported in tissue culture under phytosanitary controls. Cultivation takes place in Thailand under GACP standards, with GMP processing handled through Blossom Pharma in Portugal before qualified-person batch release in Germany and the UK. Temperature-controlled pharma-grade logistics are used throughout.

Doja’s involvement is not limited to genetics and brand licensing. The team maintains active input across cultivation strategy, post-harvest handling and finished-product review — including the burn characteristics, ash profile and smoke quality that the brand considers non-negotiable markers of quality.

What comes next

Following the Germany and UK launches, CP Medical and Doja plan to expand into additional regulated medical markets globally. A collaboration with Burning Rope Pharms is already part of the initial launch and further details are expected to follow.

The partnership between CP Medical and Doja is eight years in the making, rooted in a working relationship that predates CP Medical’s current form — the company evolved from CP Exotics, which was active in California during the early rollouts of RS11 and Zoap.

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Oakland built the cannabis culture before there was a legal market. Now the city has a certification mark to prove it.

The City of Oakland launched the nation’s first cannabis equity certification mark on April 20, giving consumers a way to identify businesses owned by operators who were most impacted by the War on Drugs and who helped build the culture the legal industry now profits from.

The program is called Oakland Legendary. Verified equity operators can display the certification mark on packaging, advertising and retail windows. The mark is intentionally tilted, with the word “Legendary” ascending — a design choice meant to reflect the upward trajectory of equity operators who built their businesses against the odds and are still here.

“These are the operators who defined the culture and perfected the craft long before there was a legal market,” said Dale Sky Jones, Executive Chancellor of Oaksterdam University, which is supporting the campaign. “When you buy Oakland Legendary, you aren’t just supporting a local business; you are getting access to the most authentic, high-caliber cannabis in the world.”

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, who co-chaired the Cannabis Caucus during her time in Congress and introduced the first federal bill calling for cannabis equity programs, framed the launch as a direct response to the harm the drug war caused Black and Brown communities.

“Today, the Oakland Legendary label puts power back where it belongs, helping consumers make informed choices and ensuring those most impacted are leading and thriving in today’s economy.”

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee

Oakland was the first city in the country to create a cannabis equity program, establishing it in 2017 to prioritize people most harmed by prohibition and minimize barriers to entry into the legal market. The Oakland Legendary campaign builds on that foundation, adding a consumer-facing signal that connects purchasing decisions to equity outcomes.

Verified equity businesses participating in the launch include Ceremonium, Conscious Mindz, Dakota West Coast, Muse Cannabis Company, Next Level Edibles, Old Money New Ink (O.M.N.I.) and The Weed Lady. Certified Oakland Equity retailers carrying their products include Root’d in the 510, which features a lounge, and Oakanna Dispensary. True Deliveries offers delivery.

“These legacy equity brands are the rooting ecosystem of our culture; the bigger and stronger the roots, the healthier the culture is.”

Rickey McCullough, Root’d in the 510

McCullough has a long history in the cannabis industry and was featured on the front page of the New York Times as one of the first equity dispensary owners in the country.

The Oakland Legendary awareness campaign runs through April 2028 and is supported by the Equity Trade Network. More information and a directory of verified operators is available at legendary.green.

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Thirty years into the transition to regulated cannabis markets, teen use and ease of access are at or near the lowest levels ever recorded. It’s prohibition — not legalization — that put kids most at risk.

This is an op-ed contribution from Adam J. Smith, Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project. The views expressed are his own.

Legend has it that 420’s association with cannabis began in 1971 with a small group of California high school students who used “420” as a code to meet after school, at 4:20 pm, to get high.

In 1971, cannabis was illegal everywhere and there were more than 400,000 cannabis arrests across the U.S. Despite that, those kids had no trouble buying weed. Over the next quarter century of zero tolerance policies and rising arrest rates, teens’ access only increased.

By 1996, when California became the first state to legalize cannabis for medical use, arrests surpassed 700,000 per year. That would rise to more than 870,000 before Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize adult-use markets in 2012.

Those millions of arrests, and convictions, and quite often incarcerations, and the cascading negative externalities that go with them, fell overwhelmingly — in every single state — on the young, the poor, and people of color.

Today, 24 states have legal adult-use cannabis markets, and those states have reduced arrests by an average of 84%, driving annual U.S. cannabis arrests down from nearly 900,000 to just over 200,000.

They were wrong

Thirty years into our transition to regulated markets, teen use and ease of access are at or near the lowest levels ever recorded. It’s prohibition, not regulated markets, that increases kids’ access to cannabis and puts them most at risk.

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse’s Monitoring the Future, the largest longitudinal teen drug use survey in the United States, the percentage of eighth graders reporting that cannabis is “easy” or “fairly easy” to obtain has fallen from a high of 55% in 1996 to 25% today. Among tenth graders, “easy” or “fairly easy” access is down from 80% to 41%; and among twelfth graders, from more than 90% to 65%.

And it’s not just access. CDC data shows that past-month teen cannabis use has declined significantly in virtually every state that has established a regulated market.

It is illicit sellers — not licensed dispensaries with mandatory ID checks — who are the primary source of cannabis for teenagers.

Adam J. Smith, Executive Director, Marijuana Policy Project

Why regulated markets work better for kids

When adult consumers move from illicit into regulated markets, demand in the illicit market falls, and with it, the number of sellers. And it is illicit sellers — not licensed dispensaries with mandatory ID checks — who are the primary source of cannabis for teenagers.

We can do a better job of keeping cannabis away from kids, specifically those under 18, but we’re already making good progress. It starts by moving as much of the cannabis trade as possible off the streets and into regulated markets and the hands of licensed sellers with every legal and economic incentive to refuse to sell to anyone under 21.

And we know that people who delay substance use into adulthood have far lower rates of substance abuse than those who started as teens.

The plot twist in the 4/20 origin story

Those kids in California in 1971 getting high after school at 4:20 had no trouble buying marijuana under prohibition, despite hundreds of thousands of arrests per year. Today, cannabis is legal for adults in California, and in 23 other states, arrests are way down, and kids have a much harder time getting access to it.

The 420 crew probably would have hated legalization for just that reason. But they’re senior citizens now, and I’m guessing they support it. Because despite having launched the most successful cannabis meme in history, which inspired the plant’s unofficial holiday, they probably don’t want their teenage grandkids smoking weed.

Adam J. Smith is the Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project, the nation’s largest cannabis policy organization. Data cited from the NIH Monitoring the Future survey and CDC. Links to source reports to be added before publication.

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