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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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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President Trump signed an executive order on April 18 directing the FDA to fast-track review of psychedelic therapies and committing $50 million to ibogaine research. The psychedelics community is cautiously optimistic, and watching closely.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Saturday directing federal agencies to accelerate research into psychedelic therapies and committing $50 million through HHS to support state-backed psychedelic research, with ibogaine as the primary immediate beneficiary. The signing took place in the Oval Office on April 18, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., podcast host Joe Rogan, veterans advocate Marcus Luttrell and Representative Morgan Luttrell among those present.

“I’m pleased to announce historic reforms to dramatically accelerate access to new medical research and treatments based on psychedelic drugs,” Trump said at the signing, as reported by The New York Times. Of ibogaine specifically, Trump added: “I never heard anything about it in the past. It was almost like, taboo. It’s not taboo anymore.”

FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said decisions on the drugs could come as soon as this summer, telling those assembled that drugs aligned with national priorities could get approved “in weeks, not a year or a year-plus,” according to CNN.

How Joe Rogan helped make this happen

Rogan, who backed Trump in 2024 and has devoted significant airtime to advocates for ibogaine’s use in treating veterans, described the moment from the Oval Office. He said he had sent Trump information about ibogaine, and that the response came back almost immediately: “Sounds great, do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it.” Rogan called it “literally that quick.”

What the order actually does

The executive order names ibogaine specifically and directs the FDA to prioritize eligible psychedelic therapies that have received Breakthrough Therapy designation, while broader compounds including psilocybin, LSD and MDMA may benefit under the order’s broader review framework. According to Reuters, federal officials said the reforms would pave the way for reclassification of substances following successful clinical trials. The federal funding will most immediately benefit Texas, which had already committed $50 million of its own to ibogaine research but recently failed to secure matching funds from a private drug developer.

Veterans at the center of the push

The signing was flanked by veterans advocates, including Marcus Luttrell and his brother, Representative Morgan Luttrell, a Texas Republican. Representative Michael McCaul joined Luttrell in vowing to pursue legislation to make the changes more durable. “We will continue working in Congress to build on the president’s leadership and expand access to this life-saving treatment,” the two said in a joint statement. “Our veterans answered the call for us. Now we must deliver for them.”

Ibogaine has drawn particular attention from veteran groups because of its reported efficacy in treating PTSD and opioid use disorder. Mexico currently has ibogaine treatment centers that have long attracted U.S. veterans who cannot legally access the treatment at home.

MAPS: opportunity and responsibility

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which has been conducting ibogaine research for over a decade, welcomed the executive order while stressing that speed cannot come at the expense of rigor.

“As federal agencies are directed to reduce barriers to clinical research and accelerate drug approvals for psychedelic substances, it is critical that these efforts remain grounded in transparent, evidence-based processes,” said Ismail L. Ali, J.D., co-executive director of MAPS. He noted that MAPS will publish a publicly available Investigator’s Brochure for ibogaine this summer, providing a comprehensive literature review of the compound’s known clinical and non-clinical data.

Ali also raised a critical concern about supply: because iboga is a limited natural resource, mass production of ibogaine carries real risks for the people, traditions and land where iboga is grown in Gabon. “As it is incorporated into medicine, we call for alignment with global public health principles, including cultural respect, sustainability, and community engagement,” he said.

“People living with addiction and trauma deserve our urgent attention, not just incremental change. We have both an opportunity and a responsibility.”

Betty Aldworth, Co-Executive Director, MAPS

Betty Aldworth, MAPS’s other co-executive director, was blunt about the stakes. “Today, people desperate for healing are traveling abroad or self-medicating with impure substances and little support,” she said, adding that acceleration of approval timelines must be paired with regulated access, provider training and robust insurance coverage. “When we ignore that evidence, we put our communities and future at risk.”

The clinical perspective

Tom Feegel, CEO of Beond, a clinical neurohealth center focused on ibogaine-assisted protocols, called the order a historic inflection point, though he emphasized that execution is everything.

“The opportunity now is not hype — it is execution: rigorous science, disciplined safety standards, physician-led protocols, and real-world outcomes data.”

Tom Feegel, CEO, Beond

“Ibogaine is not a conventional intervention,” Feegel said. “It works at the level of brain chemistry and neural signaling, opening a window of neuroplasticity where meaningful change becomes possible when guided by the right advanced clinical frameworks.” He stressed that ibogaine must be delivered in medically supervised environments with cardiac monitoring, careful screening and therapeutic integration, not as a standalone treatment.

The science and the caution

Ibogaine remains a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States. Early research, including a Stanford observational study on 30 special forces veterans, showed significant reductions in PTSD, depression and anxiety symptoms. But the compound carries real cardiac risks, including abnormal heart rhythms, and several deaths have been associated with its ingestion, though causation is not always definitively established.

Psilocybin and LSD have both received FDA breakthrough therapy designation in recent years. MDMA was declined by the FDA in 2024 for PTSD treatment, pending additional clinical trials after concerns were raised about the integrity of prior studies.

Scientists have expressed concern that the administration’s emphasis on speed could lead to bypassing rigorous research benchmarks and put patients at risk, according to CNN’s reporting.

Part of a broader pattern, with an important caveat

This is Trump’s second psychedelic-adjacent executive order in four months. In December 2025, he directed the attorney general to move forward with reclassifying cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III. The DEA has still not completed that reclassification. Executive orders direct agency action but do not guarantee it.

Whether this order moves faster than the cannabis rescheduling directive will depend entirely on follow-through from the FDA and DEA. The FDA Commissioner’s promise of decisions “in weeks” will be watched closely by researchers, veterans, operators and the broader psychedelics community.

The bipartisan resonance of Saturday’s signing is real and notable. Representative Lou Correa, a California Democrat, applauded the action publicly. Rogan, who has been openly critical of some of Trump’s other policies, was present and credited. That unusual alignment may give the order more political durability than it would otherwise have.

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From home labs and deadly butane blasts to solventless rosin, police raids, and a legal gray zone, Spain is entering a more potent and more volatile phase of cannabis culture.

On a cold night in late January 2025, a home lab in Espinardo (Murcia) ended in tragedy. Two young men were killed when a butane-based cannabis extraction attempt went catastrophically wrong. As the local press later reported, the pair had been attempting to produce highly concentrated hash oil –BHO, short for butane hash oil– by blasting cannabis with flammable gas. The blast leveled the walls, igniting a deadly fire.

According to police reports and recent busts, small-scale “labs” are popping up all over Spain, from Murcia to the Canary Islands.

“We can’t yet speak of a stable market, but we are seeing more frequent and sporadic appearances,” stated an inspector for La Verdad. “These are small groups have learned to cook the drug themselves, in private homes. There’s no organized criminal structure behind it, like there is with tusi or cocaine.”

The evidence points to a new chapter in Spain’s drug scene: a surge in potent cannabis concentrates, as ultra-pure hashish derivatives are increasingly appearing in labs and on the illicit market.

Home Labs and Drug Raids: Arona and Los Alcázares

Spain’s first major rosin lab bust occurred in February 2024 in Arona, Tenerife. National Police agents discovered what was considered Spain’s first cannabis concentrate production facility. Inside a suburban garage, five people —including a 29-year-old identified as the chief chemist— were arrested. The undercover team seized 1.7 kilos (3.75 pounds) of liquid rosin, along with 54 kilos (119 pounds) of cannabis and 145 fully grown plants. The lab was fully equipped with pressing machines, filters and safety lighting.

Police explained that the Arona team used a “bubble hash” technique to make rosin, which is way safer than the butane gas method. Wet cannabis buds were mixed with ice and water, filtered through a series of mesh screens to capture trichomes, and the collected paste was then freeze-dried and pressed into a highly purified resin. This solventless rosin extraction method avoids dangerous solvents, but still yields a concentrate far stronger than normal hash. Reportedly, 75 kilos (165 pounds) of plant material were needed to produce 1 kilo of the final product –a yield of just ~1.3%.

Just weeks later, in early March 2024, the National Police struck another rosin lab, this time on the mainland. They uncovered a massive processing operation in Los Alcázares, a coastal town of 18,500 people in the Murcia region. 17 suspects (mostly from Murcia and Alicante) were arrested, and two alleged ringleaders were sent to jail. Police reports noted six giant grow-rooms full of flowering plants, as well as a fully decked rosin “distillation” lab (with vacuum ovens, presses and cold storage). Altogether, investigators confiscated about 2,000 plants and 32 kilos (70.5 pounds) of cannabis buds, alongside 1.5 kilos (3.3 pounds) of liquid rosin. This was, at the time, “one of the largest rosin seizures at the national level”.

In October 2025, another national police operation in Murcia’s capital busted a family group on La Ñora street, seizing 4,300 cannabis plants and more than 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) of rosin, reported La Verdad.

Crucially, as the police stress, these are home labs —not “narcos”, not large-scale trafficking organizations moving bulk shipments across borders. A big motivation behind the surge of homemade labs and small operations is the low price. 

So what do these labs produce, and what do they earn from it? Rosin, by design, concentrates THC to extreme levels. Producing one kg of rosin takes roughly 75 kg (165 pounds) of buds. In a large dataset reported by the police, the price of a gram of naturally extracted resin ranges from EUR 20 to EUR 50, but is cheaper in clubs (going from EUR 4.5 to EUR 15). Rosin extracted without solvents and up to 90% THC can go for as much as EUR 100 (USD 114), as our sources in Alicante confirmed.

Extraction 101: Bubble Hash, Butane, and Fire

To truly understand rosin, it helps to grasp where the risks come from.

There are two main routes to cannabis oil: solventless (using heat and pressure) and solvent-based (usually with butane). Rosin strictly refers to solventless extracts. In practice, producers either soak buds in ice water to make bubble hash and press it, or they press fresh or frozen buds directly.

By contrast, BHO extraction relies on highly flammable solvents. Liquid butane (or a propane-butane mix) is passed through dried cannabis material in a closed tube. The solvent dissolves cannabinoids and terpenes; when warmed or air-purged, the butane boils off, leaving behind an amber oil (sometimes called shatter, budder or wax).

In Atarfe (Granada), a blast in April 2025 killed one person after a BHO extraction ignited. It mirrored the Espinardo explosion both in scale and cause. It only takes a single spark to ignite a butane vapor cloud.

But solventless rosin is different from a chemical perspective. This technique avoids hazardous gases and purges, relying instead on heat-controlled plates to squeeze resin from bubble hash or flower. Still, DIY setups can be dangerous: lack of hygiene, uncontrolled temperatures, or amateur equipment can produce impure products or result in burns. Nevertheless, it does not pose the explosion risk that can damage building structures and people.

Europe’s Trend Toward Concentrates

The rise of rosin in Spain is part of a broader European and global trend. For decades, cannabis policy and consumer tendencies were dominated by unprocessed flower and resin. But as legal markets have matured (in North America, for instance), demand has shifted strongly toward concentrates and edibles. The latest European Drug Trends Monitor notes a continued increase in the presence of highly concentrated products.

Spain in particular is moving in this direction. Its favorable climate for home growing has given rise to some of the strongest cannabis strains in Europe. With high-potency buds so common now, extract production became a logical next step.

Meanwhile, Spain’s legal framework hasn’t kept up with the changing reality. The law is essentially the same it’s been for decades: private possession and cultivation of small amounts is decriminalized (often enforced only with small fines), but public use or any trafficking is punishable.

Spain’s cannabis social clubs, for instance, operate in a legal vacuum. They are private associations where adults can share limited cultivation, but these clubs are increasingly wary of being linked to extract production. After the La Ñora raid, some clubs banned on-site pressing or even display of rosin.

At this stage, activists and some lawmakers argue for a regulated framework that includes concentrates. Suggested reforms include:

• Decriminalizing solventless extraction for personal use.
• Regulating cannabis clubs with explicit rules on extracts.
• Launching harm-reduction campaigns about BHO dangers.
• Expanding lab testing and safety guidelines.

Ultimately, Spain faces a choice: trying to suppress the rosin wave through raids and arrests, which will likely only increase the price of products and the temptation of making them in homemade and unsecure labs, or manage it with pragmatic regulation and safety education anchored in a harm reduction paradigm.

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A survey of more than 1,100 people with suspected or diagnosed CHS offers one of the clearest looks yet at the condition, including a notable finding: exclusive vape cartridge users reported symptoms appearing sooner than exclusive flower smokers.

By Riley Kirk, PhD and Codi Peterson, PharmD

Cannabis is known for helping fight nausea. It can calm the stomach and help patients deal with chemotherapy, chronic illness and pain. It is even FDA-approved for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in certain forms. But for a small group of heavy cannabis users, something strange can happen.

Instead of calming the stomach, cannabis can begin to trigger waves of nausea and severe vomiting. Some people end up going to the emergency room repeatedly before anyone realizes what is happening. The condition is called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS.

For years, CHS has existed in a gray area between cannabis culture and medical science. Many physicians fail to recognize it, leading to prolonged symptoms and repeated emergency room visits. At the same time, some patients are misdiagnosed with CHS simply because they disclose cannabis use. Many consumers have never heard of the condition, leaving those who develop it spending months, or even years, trying to understand why they keep getting sick.

Part of what makes CHS so confusing is the gap between cannabis use, the early onset of general symptoms and the later phase of relentless vomiting. People can consume for years, even decades, without getting sick, only to suddenly develop the syndrome. Researchers still do not know exactly what causes it, although previous work has suggested that there may be a genetic link that makes some people more likely to develop CHS than others. Many cannabis consumers have also wondered whether CHS could be related to pesticide exposure, other medications or compounds in the plant beyond THC.

CHS is also a touchy subject in cannabis media because the condition is real, but the hype around it often gets distorted or weaponized. That broader tension has surfaced before in High Times coverage, including “Is Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome Real? If So, Should It Be on Warning Labels?” and “CHS, Cannabis Vomiting Syndrome, Is Real. The Hype Is Weaponized.” From our perspective, ignoring CHS does not help patients, and exaggerating it does not help the cannabis community either.

As cannabis legalization spreads, researchers are finally starting to gather better data about the condition and the kinds of cannabis use patterns linked to it. Our team surveyed more than 1,100 people with suspected or diagnosed CHS, and our recently published research paper offers one of the largest looks yet at how people with the condition use cannabis and experience this still-mysterious syndrome.

Our research group is made up of independent cannabis researchers, clinicians and patients who support cannabis reform and medical cannabis use. At the same time, we believe the plant deserves the same careful study as any other medicine. No external funding was involved in this survey, and none of the researchers have conflicts with alcohol or pharmaceutical companies.

Why We Wanted to Research CHS

Our goal was to better understand the condition and figure out who in our community is being affected so doctors can provide better care and consumers can recognize the warning signs earlier.

Prohibition slowed cannabis research for decades, but broader legalization is now opening the door to better real-world data. Understanding rare side effects like CHS is part of that process. CHS may not be a “good look” for the cannabis industry, but ignoring it does not make it go away. If anything, it only increases the risks for the people affected.

While the underlying cause of CHS is still unclear, our goal is to better understand who in our community is affected and why, so we can support clinicians in providing better care and empower individuals with the knowledge needed to recognize and respond to it earlier. Cannabis has been consumed for centuries without documented CHS in the medical literature, but newer extraction techniques, emerging hardware devices and modified growing methods are introducing additional variables worth considering.

What CHS Actually Looks Like

Many people think CHS is just vomiting from taking too much cannabis. But while that can happen when someone overindulges, CHS is different and tends to follow some recognizable patterns. It causes repeated cycles of nausea, vomiting and stomach pain in some heavy cannabis users. Many patients report that hot showers or baths temporarily relieve symptoms.

Doctors often divide CHS into three distinct phases. The first is the prodromal phase. This is when symptoms begin but vomiting has not yet become severe. Many people feel nausea, stomach discomfort or loss of appetite during this time. One of the more important findings in our survey was that these early symptoms were most often reported in the morning. Many respondents described waking up feeling sick to their stomach before the day even started.

Weeks to months later, during the hyperemetic phase, the vomiting begins. Nausea and abdominal pain become much more severe, and this can happen several times a day, or even all day. Recognizing those early morning symptoms may help consumers and doctors identify CHS sooner and avoid months of confusion and harm from chronic vomiting.

Recognizing those early morning symptoms may help consumers and doctors identify CHS sooner and avoid months of confusion.

Riley Kirk, PhD and Codi Peterson, PharmD

One pattern that stood out clearly in our survey was how frequently people with CHS were using cannabis. Nearly all participants, 96.5%, said they used cannabis at least daily, and about 45% said they used it six or more times per day around the time their symptoms developed.

In other words, the typical person in the study was not an occasional user. They were using cannabis many times throughout the day. That does not mean everyone who uses cannabis daily will develop CHS. Most cannabis users never experience the condition. But the data suggests that heavy and frequent use may increase the risk for some.

How People With CHS Are Really Using Cannabis

The survey also looked at how people were consuming cannabis. Smoking flower was the most common method. Using vape cartridges was the second most common, and many respondents reported doing both.

When we looked only at people who reported using one method, an interesting pattern appeared. People who only smoked cannabis often reported many years of use before CHS symptoms began. People who only used vape cartridges often reported a much shorter timeline. Some said symptoms started after only one or two years of use.

Researchers do not yet know exactly why this pattern appears. One possibility is that modern vape products can deliver very concentrated doses of THC quickly and easily while also concentrating other components of the product. More research will be needed to understand that difference, but the pattern stood out clearly in our data.

Could Contamination Be the Cause?

Some people have suggested that CHS might be caused by pesticides or contaminated cannabis. While we still do not know the full story of CHS, our survey data did not support that idea as the main explanation. Participants reported getting cannabis from many different sources. Some bought from licensed dispensaries, while others used unlicensed markets or homegrown cannabis, and symptoms looked similar across all groups.

Where the cannabis came from did not appear to change how CHS developed in this survey. That finding adds to growing evidence that CHS is more likely linked to heavy exposure to THC over time than to any one market source. It is certainly possible for people to get sick from contaminated cannabis, which remains a real issue in both regulated and unregulated markets. But we also know from patients’ experiences that multiple people can use the same brand, strain, formulation or dispensary, and one might develop CHS while the others do not.

Sex Differences

We also found differences between men and women. Women reported more symptoms overall and were more likely to experience longer vomiting episodes than men, episodes that can last several days or even longer than a week.

Some women reported that symptoms became worse during their menstrual cycle, though not everyone noticed that effect. Researchers still do not know why these differences exist. Hormones may play a role, but again, more research is needed, and we hope these results can help inspire future studies.

What Should the Average Cannabis Consumer Know?

For most cannabis users, the takeaway is simple: CHS appears to be linked to heavy and frequent cannabis use over long periods of time. There is also some research suggesting genetics may play a key role in who develops it, which may help explain why some long-term, high-dose consumers are affected while others are not.

But for people who use cannabis many times a day for years, it may be helpful to know the early warning signs: recurring morning nausea, stomach pain that does not seem to have another cause, unusual ongoing abdominal symptoms and cycles of vomiting that improve only when cannabis use stops. Recognizing those patterns earlier may help people avoid repeated emergency visits and months of uncertainty.

Cannabis Science Is Growing Up

For a long time, cannabis research was limited by prohibition. Scientists struggled to study the plant and its compounds in meaningful ways. Now that cannabis laws are changing, the science is finally starting to catch up. That means studying the benefits of cannabis. It also means studying rare side effects like CHS.

Being honest about both sides does not weaken the cannabis movement. If anything, it strengthens it, because real science builds trust. The cannabis community deserves the same level of research and understanding that exists for any other medicine. The more we learn about cannabis, the better people can use it safely and responsibly, and that is a win for everyone.

Being honest about both sides does not weaken the cannabis movement. If anything, it strengthens it, because real science builds trust.

Riley Kirk, PhD and Codi Peterson, PharmD

Our team took on this research project because we care deeply about the cannabis community and the plant, and we wanted to start getting to the bottom of what may be causing CHS, or at the very least reduce the amount of time and trial and error that patients experience when they go to the ER with it. Although CHS can be a touchy subject, we feel it is important for this information and data to come from patients, advocates and medical professionals within the industry rather than from outside the space, where the narrative can be taken out of context and weaponized.

You can read the full paper, “Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome: A Survey-Based Approach to Understanding Symptoms and Cannabis Use Patterns”, here.

This article is based on peer-reviewed research published by the authors. It does not constitute medical advice. If you are experiencing symptoms consistent with CHS, consult a healthcare provider.

<p>The post Why Some Heavy Cannabis Users Can’t Stop Throwing Up, According to New Research first appeared on High Times.</p>

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New Jersey is getting its first-ever Cannabis Cup. One night, one city, one stage. May 1 at Steel Pier in Atlantic City.

The High Times Cannabis Cup Awards Presented by Honey Grove lands in New Jersey for the first time, turning Atlantic City’s Steel Pier into a one-night celebration of the state’s best cannabis, biggest artists and most dedicated community of judges in the country.

This is not a trade show. It is a full-scale entertainment experience: live music, performances, games, rides and an awards show that puts New Jersey’s cannabis community front and center. Doors open at 6 PM. The night runs until 11.

The lineup

Smoke DZA hosts the evening. Beanie Sigel and KUR take the stage. DJ Caesar serves as MC. Live bands on the bill include Crickets & Cicadas, Reality Check Experiment, Cannabis Cup Band and Haizi Haze.

Special guest: Josh Kesselman, Founder of RAW.

“This event brings together the community to celebrate the best products in New Jersey in a way that reflects the culture and energy behind Cannabis Cup.”

Kyle Rosner, Director of Partnerships, High Times

The competition

The awards mark the culmination of a statewide competition featuring more than 50 licensed New Jersey cannabis brands competing across 13 categories, including flower, concentrates, vape pens and edibles.

Still time to judge

Judging remains open through April 24. Judge Kits are available for purchase at Honey Grove, Honey Stash and participating retailers statewide. Anyone 21+ can participate. Find locations via the map at cannabiscup.com.

Over 2,500 judges across New Jersey have been evaluating products. Judging closes April 24. Judge Kits available now.

Get tickets

Tickets are available now at https://tickets.cannabiscup.com/nj-cannabis-cup-2026. This is a 21+ private event. Valid ID required at entry.

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The European country of Georgia has a distinct landscape. The Svaneti province is evidence of this; its mountain peaks are always snow-capped, and its valleys so remote that for seven months each year, the region is completely snowbound. This is where the Svan people built defensive towers back in the 9th century that are now recognized and protected by UNESCO, this is where they preserved their pagan-inflected animist traditions and polyphonic folk music, and cultivated a relationship with cannabis so complete and integrated into every aspect of their daily life, that when Soviet authorities eliminated the crop, what they had really done was dismantle an entire culture.

Local people still say that somewhere in the highest settlements of the Caucasus, the ancient Svans make a fragrant, weed-filled version of khachapuri, Georgia’s beloved cheese bread. Some dismiss it as folklore, others logically speculate that the tradition died during Soviet narcotics crackdowns.

The truth is more complicated, and more tragic, than any of these theories suggest.

While dispensaries across America debate terpene profiles and Amsterdam’s coffee shops cater to tourists, few in the West know that one of the most sophisticated cannabis food cultures existed for thousands of years in the Caucasus Mountains. The Svans lived with it, cooked with it, celebrated with it, mourned with it, and integrated it deeply into their cuisine in ways that make modern edibles look like amateur hour.

An Ancient Intoxication

A 35-year-old man from the Jushi community has just died. His people drape 13 cannabis plants across his body—neck to waist—some over three feet tall. They lay him on a wooden cot, tuck a reed pillow under his head, then lower him into the ground.

This is a 2,500-year-old funeral in the Turpan Basin, in what’s now Xinjiang, China. This exceptionally well-preserved tomb, discovered in 2016, shows one of the oldest known examples of ritualized cannabis use. And it helps explain the Svans’ relationship with the plant: for thousands of years, across multiple cultures, cannabis wasn’t just medicine or rope or food. It was how communities honored their dead.

People have been spinning hemp fiber for 10,000 years, but here’s what matters: hemp and cannabis are technically the same plant, yet they’re as different as wolves and chihuahuas. The weed that makes rope won’t make you stoned, and vice versa.

Scientists finally proved what historians suspected all along—there are two distinct genetic groups. Southern Asia grew the psychoactive stuff. Meanwhile, everyone in temperate Europe and Asia was growing hemp that couldn’t get you high even if you smoked a whole field of it. Which explains why all those European farmers weren’t using it recreationally: they literally had the wrong plant.

The Medieval Cannabis Kitchen

Cannabis seeds were everywhere in the ancient world. Russians mixed them into peas. Poles made Christmas soup with them. Chinese cooks threw them into dishes as casually as we use sesame seeds today. The seeds had a sharp, nutty flavor, and their oil was loaded with nutrients. They wouldn’t get you stoned—barely any THC in them—but they tasted good, and people used them constantly.

The first printed cookbook in history proves it. Bartolomeo Platina’s De Honesta Voluptate from 1465 includes a recipe that basically says: crush hemp seeds with almonds and breadcrumbs, add broth, throw in sugar and spices, finish with saffron and rose water. Done. Medieval cooks treated cannabis seeds the way we treat pine nuts.

Meanwhile, the Scythians were doing something completely different with the plant. These nomadic steppe people used cannabis at funerals. Herodotus watched it happen in 440 B.C. and wrote it down: mourners crawled into sealed tents, threw cannabis seeds on hot stones, and sat in the smoke. When they finally emerged, they were “howling aloud,” completely transported. This wasn’t cooking. This was ritual.

Georgia sat right in the middle of all this. Trade routes crisscrossed the region—north to south, east to west—and cannabis had been growing there for at least 2,700 years. Most of it was the mild stuff, the kind you’d cook with. But some groups almost certainly had access to the stronger varieties. And they knew the trick: heat cannabis in milk, butter, or oil to pull out the THC, then drink it.

The Svans had both pieces. The plant grew in their valleys. And their diet ran on dairy—milk, butter, cheese. Everything they needed was already there.

Every Part of the Plant

Thanks to Svaneti’s impenetrable geography, the Svans eluded invasions that ravaged the rest of Georgia. They remained all but closed off from the outside world for centuries. In this isolation, they developed a cannabis culture that used every single part of the plant.

Mevluti Charqseliani, a 55-year-old local historian and owner of Ushguli’s Ethnographic Museum, told Atlas Obscura that until Soviet inspectors arrived in the 1970s, every Svan household grew meter-high cannabis plants. People plied the stem fibers into cloth and rope. They pressed the seeds for oil using five-ton machines. And the buds, flowers, and leaves, plus ground-up seeds, found their way into the entire Svan culinary repertoire.

Knash, the gooey cheese bread, incorporated finely ground cannabis leaves into the dough.

Pkhali, the vegetable-walnut spreads that appear at every Georgian feast, included cannabis leaves blended with traditional ingredients: garlic, coriander, and whatever vegetables were in season.

Kubdari, the juicy spiced meat pies of Svaneti, featured cannabis seeds mixed into the filling alongside cumin and garlic. The seeds added texture and a nutty flavor that cut through the richness of the lamb or beef.

The Sacred Role: Cannabis and Death

Like the Scythians and the Jushi, the Svans associated cannabis intimately with death. When a Svan died, the community gathered for funeral banquets where knash, the cannabis cheese bread, was the most important dish.

These weren’t somber affairs in the Western sense. They were celebrations of life, loud and often joyous, where the dead were honored through abundance. The cannabis preparations served at funerals helped mourners process grief, facilitated the spiritual transition of the deceased, and strengthened community bonds through shared ritual.

The question of whether Svans used cannabis to get stoned like the Jushi, add flavor like the Russians, or commemorate sacred rites like the Scythians may have a nuanced answer: all three, depending on the preparation and occasion. The observation that people would heat cannabis in milk, butter, or oil to extract THC suggests the possibility existed. The Svans’ dairy-heavy diet and sophisticated culinary knowledge indicate they understood these techniques.

But for the Svans, cannabis wasn’t just food or medicine or intoxicant. It was used in a form or another from birth celebration to coming-of-age ceremonies to weddings to funerals. It was identity.

The Soviet Erasure

Then came the crackdown.

Soviet authorities began arriving in Svaneti in the 1930s during Stalin’s collectivization campaigns, but the full force of narcotics enforcement didn’t reach these remote valleys until the 1970s. When it did, Georgian police ripped up cannabis plants from every household. Fields were burned. Seeds were confiscated. Families who resisted faced fines or worse.

By the early 1990s, the last of the for-domestic-use cannabis plants were gone. Most Svan families had gotten wind of the crackdowns and corresponding penalties, viewing growing weed as too risky. Within a single generation, a crop that had grown in these mountains for millennia vanished.

But the Soviets didn’t just destroy plants; they attacked culture itself. Traditional feast days were banned. Pagan-inflected religious practices were suppressed. The Georgian language was marginalized in favor of Russian. The Svan language, spoken by even fewer people, faced even greater pressure.

The cannabis cuisine disappeared along with the plants. Recipes that had been passed down through centuries were lost. The specific cultivars the Svans had developed; gone. The ritual knowledge, the preparation techniques, the cultural context that made cannabis cooking meaningful; scattered and fragmentary.

The Memory Remains (Barely)

In Ushguli, memories persist—barely. Before the drug laws were strengthened, it was totally normal to grow meter-high cannabis plants in this part of Georgia, but things are not the same anymore. 

The waitress at a local tavern knows about it. The owner of a guest house knows about it. They all point toward Charqseliani, who knows the most. But even his knowledge is fragmentary and based on what was passed down to him from his parents and grandparents, not practices he participated in fully himself.

Young Svans today have no living memory of this tradition. They know cannabis as something forbidden that’s now legal, something associated with Western counterculture, not as an integral part of their own heritage. The recipes are mostly gone. The specific techniques for pressing five-ton machines worth of seed oil, lost. The ritual preparations for funeral feasts remembered only in outline.

Decriminalization Comes Too Late

In December 2017, after years of protests spearheaded by the liberal Girchi political party, Georgia decriminalized cannabis. Minor cannabis-related offenses that previously carried up to 14-year jail sentences would now be waived. The country’s Constitutional Court finalized the decision in 2018, making Georgia one of the few places in the former Soviet Union where you can legally consume marijuana.

The decision sparked international attention. Some proclaimed Georgia the potential “Amsterdam of the former Soviet Union.” Optimists suggested cannabis khachapuri might make its way from folklore to dinner fare once again.

But for Svaneti’s cannabis culture, decriminalization came nearly a century too late.

The current cannabis legalization debate in Svaneti is about far more than one’s right to smoke a joint; it’s about a community’s race to preserve a millennia-old tradition by recovering lost plant genetics, techniques, recipes, and cultural knowledge before the last people who remember them are gone.

And they’d need to do it fast, before Charqseliani and others like him, the last people who remember anything are gone.

What’s at Stake

Svaneti’s problems started long before cannabis disappeared. New roads brought tourists. Young people moved to cities. The Svan language started dying. Their ancient songs grew quiet. Cannabis was just another piece of a culture being swallowed by the modern world.

Here’s the bitter joke: all over the world, governments destroyed indigenous cannabis traditions. Rastafarians in Jamaica. Native Americans. The Svans. Then those same governments legalized weed and let corporations cash in. Western dispensaries now sell “exotic strains” and “ancient wisdom” while the actual ancient wisdom vanishes. Georgia’s 2017 decriminalization came nearly a century too late to save what the Svans had built over millennia.

The Mountains Remember

The ancient stone towers still watch over empty valleys. Soviet policy destroyed what seven months of annual snow couldn’t touch. But the knowledge isn’t completely dead. Charqseliani remembers his parents’ stories. A young woman remembers tasting cannabis khachapuri once as a child. Old-timers remember when meter-high marijuana plants were “totally normal.”

Think about what the Svans created. While most of Europe was still figuring out that hemp made good rope, the Svans were cooking with every part of the cannabis plant, pressing seeds with five-ton machines to make oil so valuable that ancient Greeks paid top dollar for it, and weaving the plant into every life ritual from birth to death. They built a cannabis gastronomy more sophisticated than anything in today’s dispensaries—complete cuisine, not just brownies. Each dish had its own purpose and preparation: knash cheese bread, pkhali vegetable spreads, kubdari meat pies, ritual oils.

Then it vanished almost overnight, leaving behind only fragments: a few memories, defensive towers, and mountains still snowbound seven months each year, remembering when every valley garden grew green with cannabis.

The cannabis legalization debate shouldn’t just be about personal freedom to smoke a joint. It must be about helping communities preserve millennia-old traditions before the last people who remember them die. The Svans are still here. Their towers still stand. Their endangered language is still spoken. Their fading music still echoes. But their cannabis cuisine; that sophisticated tradition of knash and pkhali and kubdari, of five-ton presses and Silk Road oils, of funeral feasts and generations of ritual knowledge, exists now mostly in fragmentary memories and stories about a fragrant, weed-filled cheese bread that may or may not still be made somewhere in the highest mountain settlements.

The quest for this ancient culture’s cannabis-filled cooking is ultimately a race against time; an attempt to preserve human heritage before globalization, prohibition, and time erase it completely.

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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A $10 million payment tied to a Florida Medicaid settlement moved through the Hope Florida Foundation, into two anti-drug nonprofits, and then into a political committee fighting marijuana legalization. Public filings also show a major funding surge at SAM Action during the same period. The full picture remains incomplete, but the overlap, timing, and money trail raise serious questions.

Two months before Florida voters decided the fate of marijuana legalization, $10 million tied to a Medicaid overbilling settlement quietly resurfaced in a campaign to keep cannabis illegal.

The money, drawn from a $67 million settlement with the state’s largest Medicaid contractor, moved through a charity founded by First Lady Casey DeSantis and then to two nonprofits with close ties to Governor Ron DeSantis’s political orbit. Within days, $8.5 million landed in political committees fighting Amendment 3, the marijuana legalization ballot measure, according to state campaign finance records and documents obtained by the Associated Press.

The amendment failed to reach the required 60% supermajority in November 2024, though 56% of Florida voters supported it.

56% voted yes, but it still failed.

One of those nonprofits, Save Our Society From Drugs, a little-known St. Petersburg organization with less than $50,000 in assets, received $5 million and transferred 95% of it to a political committee within days.

A nonprofit that reported just $43,125 in net assets in its last available tax filing before the grant received $5 million.

Recent reporting has exposed how the DeSantis administration steered millions tied to the settlement into the political fight over marijuana. But an examination of tax filings, corporate records and financial disclosures suggests the public record may tell a broader story about prohibition networks, financial overlap and unanswered questions around who funded the anti-legalization push during a critical election year.

What appears at first glance to be a Florida campaign finance scandal looks more complicated when placed next to national prohibition groups. Save Our Society From Drugs is closely affiliated with Smart Approaches to Marijuana, the nation’s leading anti-legalization lobbying organization, whose 501(c)(4) arm reported receiving $8.6 million in contributions in 2024, a 445% increase from the prior year, according to its Form 990 filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

SAM Action reported an $8.6 million funding surge in 2024.

The overlap raises questions that remain unanswered. But public records reviewed by High Times do not show that Save Our Society From Drugs transferred any portion of the Hope Florida grant directly to Smart Approaches to Marijuana or SAM Action, and this article does not assert that such a transfer occurred.

The Money Trail

The flow of funds is documented in state records, sworn testimony and investigative reporting tied to the Florida House inquiry.

On Sept. 27, 2024, Florida reached a $67 million settlement with Centene Corporation, the state’s largest Medicaid contractor, over allegations the company had overbilled the state. The settlement agreement directed $10 million of that total to the Hope Florida Foundation, a charitable organization founded by First Lady Casey DeSantis to support her signature welfare initiative.

Within weeks, Hope Florida Foundation made two $5 million grants, according to foundation chairman Joshua Hay’s testimony to state investigators. One went to Secure Florida’s Future, a nonprofit controlled by executives at the Florida Chamber of Commerce. The other went to Save Our Society From Drugs.

Both organizations then transferred a combined $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political action committee, state campaign finance records show. Keep Florida Clean was chaired by James Uthmeier, who at the time served as Governor Ron DeSantis’s chief of staff and is now Florida’s attorney general.

Text messages obtained by the Associated Press show that Uthmeier helped connect Amy Ronshausen, executive director of Save Our Society From Drugs, to the grant process. According to the AP timeline and the House inquiry, those contacts began before the foundation’s board had been formally notified that the $10 million was coming.

“Can you send me wire instructions?” Jeff Aaron, the foundation’s attorney, wrote to Ronshausen on Oct. 18, 2024, according to text messages shared with the AP.

On Oct. 22, 2024, Hope Florida Foundation wired $5 million to Save Our Society From Drugs, Hay told investigators. The next day, Save Our Society donated $1.6 million to Keep Florida Clean, followed by $3.15 million more in the following days, according to Florida Division of Elections records.

In total, Save Our Society transferred $4.75 million of the $5 million it received, 95% of the grant, to the political committee within days of receiving it.

Within days, 95% of the grant was transferred to a political committee.

Keep Florida Clean subsequently sent more than $10 million to the Republican Party of Florida and over $1 million to the Florida Freedom Fund, Governor DeSantis’s personal political committee, campaign finance records show.

The Leon County State Attorney opened a grand jury investigation in 2025. State Representative Alex Andrade, the Republican who led the Florida House investigation, has alleged that the transactions could amount to money laundering and wire fraud. No charges had been filed as of publication.

A National Network

Save Our Society From Drugs operates as the lobbying arm of the Drug Free America Foundation, a larger nonprofit organization founded in 1987 by Mel and Betty Sembler, according to the foundation’s corporate filing. Both organizations share the same address, 333 3rd Ave. N., Suite 200, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, and the same executive director, according to their respective websites, public profiles and tax filings.

That executive director, Amy Ronshausen, has longstanding ties to Smart Approaches to Marijuana. Ronshausen has appeared at SAM events and, in February 2025, spoke at SAM’s Good Drug Policy Summit in Washington alongside SAM president Kevin Sabet and members of Congress, according to SAM’s own materials.

Similarly, Sabet has been announced as the keynote speaker at the Drug Free America Foundation’s 2026 National Prevention Summit, according to the foundation’s website.

The overlap extends beyond speaking engagements. The National Drug-Free Workplace Alliance, described on its website as a division of Drug Free America Foundation, lists Smart Approaches to Marijuana among its partner organizations for substance abuse policy and prevention.

Save Our Society From Drugs also has a documented history of funding anti-marijuana campaigns. In 2016, the organization gave more than $1 million to fight legalization initiatives in multiple states, as it had done previously in Colorado.

The relationships described here show overlap in personnel, addresses, public events and advocacy networks, but do not by themselves establish coordination on any specific transaction unless otherwise documented.

Financial Discrepancies

The timing of Save Our Society’s $5 million grant coincides with an unusual pattern in the financial filings of Smart Approaches to Marijuana’s lobbying arm.

SAM Action, the organization’s 501(c)(4) entity, reported $8,601,743 in contributions for 2024, according to its Form 990 filed with the IRS. That represents a 445% increase from the $1,576,210 the organization reported receiving in 2023.

Meanwhile, SAM Inc., the related 501(c)(3) educational organization, experienced a sharp financial decline. Its 2024 Form 990 shows revenues fell 64% to $1.2 million, while expenses increased 59% to $2.26 million. The organization operated at a loss of more than $1 million and reported $656,395 in legal fees, nearly 30% of its total budget.

Despite the financial distress at SAM Inc., SAM Action reported holding $23.04 million in net assets, according to its 2024 Form 990.

Tax law protects the identities of donors to 501(c)(4) organizations like SAM Action. The donor information is contained in Schedule B of the organization’s Form 990, which is redacted from public view.

Save Our Society From Drugs’ 2023 Form 990, filed with the IRS in March 2024, shows the organization had just $43,125 in net assets and operated at a loss of $84,795. A subsequently filed 2024 Form 990 — covering the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, before the October grant — shows net assets had recovered to $96,091. Full filing history is available via ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.

The $5 million the organization received from Hope Florida in October 2024 represented more than 100 times its previous net assets. Of that amount, $4.75 million went to Keep Florida Clean. The disposition of the remaining $250,000 is not documented in currently available public records.

The Form 990 covering Save Our Society From Drugs’ fiscal year ending September 30, 2025 — which would include the October 22, 2024 Hope Florida wire transfer — is not publicly available yet.

The Scandal Unfolds

The controversy became public in early 2025, when the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reported on the diversion of Medicaid settlement funds.

The Florida House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, led by Representative Andrade, launched an investigation. In contentious hearings, state officials defended the transactions while Andrade accused them of misappropriating public funds.

“Instead of taking the settlement money that was paid by this large company and putting it back into the state coffers, they said, $10 million of what you owe us, just give it to the Hope Florida Foundation,” Andrade said in an April 10, 2025 podcast interview, as reported by multiple outlets.

The investigation ended abruptly in late April 2025 after key witnesses refused to cooperate and Hope Florida Foundation officials declined to appear at scheduled hearings.

The fallout was swift. James Holton, chairman of Save Our Society From Drugs’ board of directors, resigned on May 15, 2025, saying in his resignation letter that he had been unaware the organization accepted $5 million from Hope Florida Foundation or that it subsequently donated millions to a political committee, according to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald.

“I learned about the transactions in news reports,” Holton wrote, calling for “a thorough investigation and audits” of the organization.

Ronshausen was suspended from her position on April 22, 2025, according to a whistleblower complaint she filed with the board on May 7, 2025, as reported by Florida Politics. In the complaint, Ronshausen said her suspension was retaliation for questioning the board’s choice of legal counsel.

The suspension came six weeks after Ronshausen had been honored at the Governor’s Mansion as a “Florida Hero” for her “efforts to combat drug legalization” and her “key role in grassroots campaigns, including successfully defeating Florida’s proposed Amendment 3 in 2024,” according to the March 28, 2025 reception program obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

In a letter to House Speaker Daniel Perez, Ronshausen disputed Andrade’s characterization of events, saying she had been pressured to testify and that Andrade had misrepresented her statements. She specifically denied that Uthmeier had directed her on how to use the Hope Florida grant funds.

“At no time has James Uthmeier directed me or SOS on how to use funds received from an entirely appropriate grant from Hope Florida,” Ronshausen wrote, according to her April 25, 2025 letter published by Florida Politics.

Andrade told Florida Politics that Ronshausen’s claims were false. “Nothing she said in that letter happened,” he said.

Unanswered Questions

Several key questions remain unanswered.

Public records do not show whether Save Our Society From Drugs donated any portion of the $5 million Hope Florida grant to Smart Approaches to Marijuana or SAM Action. The Form 990 covering the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025 — which would detail how the organization handled the $5 million — is not publicly available yet.

The sources of SAM Action’s $8.6 million in 2024 contributions also remain unknown. Federal tax law shields the identities of donors to 501(c)(4) organizations, and SAM has consistently refused to voluntarily disclose this information.

Kevin Sabet, president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, has previously stated that the organization does not accept money from pharmaceutical companies, prison guard unions, or other industries with financial interests in prohibition.

“We get all of our money for these campaigns from individual donors, many people who lost family members to drug abuse, including from marijuana,” Sabet told Vice News in 2016.

But the organization has consistently refused to voluntarily disclose its donors, fighting state-level transparency requirements. In 2019, SAM opposed New York state laws requiring donor disclosure, according to public reporting and lobbying records.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana Action actively campaigned against Amendment 3 in Florida. In October 2024, the organization launched television advertisements featuring former U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy warning about marijuana lollipops and “stoned drivers.”

The exact amount SAM Action spent on the Florida campaign is not disclosed in available public records.

A Web of Connections

The financial ties between the various organizations involved in the Florida scandal extend across multiple states and involve figures with long histories in drug policy advocacy.

Late Mel Sembler, who co-founded Drug Free America Foundation with his wife Betty, donated $1 million to fight marijuana legalization in Florida in 2016.

Sembler, a former U.S. ambassador and major Republican fundraiser, also co-founded Straight Inc., a controversial “troubled teen” drug rehabilitation program that former participants have described as abusive.

Save Our Society From Drugs was founded by Betty Sembler in 1998 as the lobbying arm of Drug Free America Foundation, according to the foundation’s website and public records. The organization is registered as a 501(c)(4) in Florida and engages in lobbying activities, according to its own website.

The connection between Drug Free America Foundation and Smart Approaches to Marijuana runs through multiple organizational channels. The National Drug-Free Workplace Alliance, described on its website as “a division of Drug Free America Foundation,” lists Smart Approaches to Marijuana among its partner organizations. Both organizations also collaborate through the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, a national coalition prevention network that has provided funding to SAM in the past.

The Semblers also had connections to the Church of Scientology, which maintains its headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, less than 10 miles from the Drug Free America Foundation offices. Ronshausen was interviewed in 2016 by Freedom Magazine, a Church of Scientology publication, about her work opposing marijuana legalization.

These connections reflect decades of institutional overlap in drug war activism and prevention programming, though public records reviewed by High Times do not establish coordination on any specific marijuana ballot measure beyond the relationships and activities documented above.

What Happens Next

The grand jury investigation continues in Leon County, though Attorney General Uthmeier, who chaired Keep Florida Clean and has been identified in reporting and legislative inquiries as helping coordinate aspects of the transfers, now heads the office that would typically handle such matters.

State Representative Andrade has called for Uthmeier to recuse himself, but the attorney general has maintained that he had no involvement in the settlement negotiations or the Hope Florida Foundation grants.

The Florida Legislature defunded the Office of Hope Florida within the Florida Department of Education in June 2025, according to news reports, though the Hope Florida Foundation continues to operate as a private charity.

U.S. Representatives Kathy Castor and Darren Soto have requested a federal investigation by the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services into the “unlawful diversion of Medicaid funds in Florida,” according to a letter they sent in May 2025.

For marijuana reform advocates, the scandal has exposed what they describe as a well-funded network of prohibition organizations that operate largely out of public view.

The 2024 financial filings from Smart Approaches to Marijuana Action, showing an unprecedented surge in contributions during the same period that millions of dollars moved through Florida’s anti-marijuana network, raise obvious questions. They do not, on the public record alone, answer all of them.

What the Florida case exposes, at minimum, is how public money can move through private entities in ways that complicate accountability, blur political and charitable lines, and keep the true sources of influence out of public view.

Correction, April 11, 2026: This article originally stated that the 2024 Form 990 for Save Our Society From Drugs was not publicly available. That filing was available at the time of publication via ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, and covers the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024 — prior to the October 22, 2024 grant. The Form 990 that would document how the organization handled the $5 million is the filing covering the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, which remains unavailable. The article has been updated accordingly.

Editor’s note: This article is based on public records, campaign finance disclosures, IRS filings, corporate records and linked reporting. Where facts remain disputed or unproven, that is stated in the text.

This article is a reported analysis. The commentary, views or interpretations expressed do not imply that any uncharged conduct has been proven in court unless explicitly stated. Readers are encouraged to review the underlying materials and draw their own conclusions.

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As we all know, cannabis is a plant. But many cannabis products aren’t.

That might sound obvious, but if you walk into most dispensaries today, you might start to wonder if the industry remembers that.

Because the reality is that most cannabis consumers today are not actually getting products that resemble the whole plant. What they’re getting instead are products that look increasingly like the very thing many of us originally pushed back against: active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Distillates. Isolates. Reconstituted cannabinoids.

Yes, many of those compounds come from the plant originally. But they’re often stripped out, chemically manipulated, distilled, and rebuilt into something that resembles highly processed formulations more than it resembles the original plant.

This is exactly why the Clean Label Cannabis movement matters.

Clean label is a simple idea. If someone picks up a product, they should be able to read the label and immediately understand what they’re putting on or into their body. The ingredients should be recognizable. The processes should be transparent. And the plant itself should still be at the center of the medicine.

It sounds simple.

But somewhere along the way, the industry drifted away from that.

When Cannabis Was Part of a Bigger Movement

When I started advocating for cannabis back in the late ’90s, legalization was only part of the conversation.  Cannabis sat inside a much larger cultural movement. People were talking about sustainability. Cleaner food. Cleaner water. Cleaner air. There was a growing awareness that the systems around us, especially our food and healthcare systems, weren’t necessarily designed with our well-being in mind.

Cannabis represented something different.

It represented autonomy. Plant medicine. A reconnection to nature.

It also represented a pushback against the excesses of late-stage capitalism, where everything becomes industrialized, optimized for profit, and disconnected from the natural systems it came from.

Legalization was supposed to move us toward a greener, more conscious future.

And in many ways it did.

But in other ways, something strange happened once the industry went legal.

We Already Tried the “Isolate” Model

A lot of people today talk about cannabinoids like they’re brand-new discoveries.

They’re not.

Back in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, we already had pharmaceutical cannabinoid products like Marinol and Sativex. Those products delivered isolated cannabinoids like THC or CBD in controlled pharmaceutical doses.

So access to isolated cannabinoids has never really been the issue.

The issue was that they didn’t work nearly as well as the plant.

Many patients reported that based on their own use.

Even when people were simply smoking cannabis flower, many reported better relief than they got from isolated pharmaceutical cannabinoids. And as underground cannabis culture evolved, people began experimenting with oils, tinctures, and edibles. Those preparations were often described as more effective in real-world use.

Some patients with chronic conditions reported meaningful changes in their symptoms when using whole-plant formats.

Those experiences weren’t theoretical.

They were lived. 

So when legalization began spreading, and dispensaries started opening, many of us assumed the legal industry would build on those traditions.

Instead, the industry largely went in the opposite direction.

The Industry Chased Potency Instead of the Plant

Legalization brought investment. Investors brought scale. And scale brought industrial thinking.

Suddenly, cannabis companies started behaving a lot like pharmaceutical companies.

Rather than celebrating the complexity of the plant, the focus shifted toward isolating its most famous compounds. Distillate became king. Potency numbers became the marketing tool. And products were engineered for shelf life, scalability, and margins.

In many dispensaries today, the best-selling products are high-THC distillate cartridges and candy-like edibles that barely resemble cannabis at all.

Now, some of that mindset came from prohibition culture.

When cannabis was illegal, potency mattered because access was scarce. If you were risking jail time to buy something, you wanted the strongest version possible.

But legalization changed that. The real gift of legalization is abundance. Cannabis grows abundantly. We don’t need to squeeze every last molecule out of it. Instead, we should be asking a much simpler question: What is the most effective way to deliver relief using the plant?

The Testing Moment That Changed My Perspective

One experience really drove this home for me.

When I was running a compliant cannabis company in California, we had to follow extremely strict testing requirements. Cannabis products were tested for heavy metals, pesticides, residual solvents, and other contaminants in their final form.

At first, I thought the regulations were excessive. Why was cannabis being held to a higher standard than the food we buy in grocery stores?

But something surprising started happening.

The cannabis passed the tests.

The ingredients used to make edibles often didn’t.

The sugar. The chocolate. The flavorings. The additives used to make gummies and confections. Those ingredients frequently failed the same testing standards cannabis had to meet.

That moment opened my eyes because it revealed something most people don’t realize: our broader food supply chain is far dirtier than we think. Cannabis wasn’t the problem. Everything else was.

Cannabis May Be the Cleanest Product on the Shelf

The irony is that cannabis has been forced into extremely high testing standards because of stigma.

And that stigma accidentally created an opportunity. When cannabis is grown responsibly and processed simply, it may actually be one of the cleanest consumer products available today.

Think about that.

For decades, we were told cannabis was dangerous.

Meanwhile, many of the foods sitting on grocery store shelves face far less rigorous testing than cannabis products. That contradiction shouldn’t be ignored. In fact, it should be celebrated.

Cannabis now has the chance to lead a much bigger conversation about clean products.

The Medicine Is Already on the Plant

Another thing people forget is that cannabis doesn’t actually require aggressive chemical processing to access its medicine. The cannabinoids, terpenes, and other beneficial compounds live in the trichomes, the resin glands that sit on the outside of the plant.

The medicine is literally on the surface. You don’t need harsh chemicals to reach it.

Mechanical processes like dry sift or ice water extraction can separate those trichomes naturally. Lipid infusions such as soaking cannabis in coconut oil, can capture those compounds beautifully.

In other words, the plant already gives us everything we need. We’re also beginning to understand better why the plant works so well.

Cannabis contains hundreds of compounds that interact with each other in complex ways. Cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, and other molecules appear to work together in synergy.

Researchers often call this the entourage effect.

We still don’t fully understand how all of those interactions work. But patients have been experiencing the benefits of whole-plant cannabis for generations. Sometimes nature is doing something more sophisticated than we fully understand. And that’s okay.

The Clean Label Cannabis Movement

This is where Clean Label Cannabis comes in.

Clean label means transparency. It means products made from recognizable ingredients using processes that respect the plant rather than obscure it.

It means mechanical separation instead of harsh chemical extraction whenever possible. It means simple infusions rather than ultra-processed formulations. And it means remembering that cannabis is first and foremost a plant medicine.

Clean label cannabis isn’t anti-science. It’s anti-obfuscation. Science should help us understand the plant better, not turn it into something unrecognizable.

Consumers Have the Real Power

At the end of the day, consumers shape the future of this industry. Every dollar spent sends a signal. If consumers reward companies making clean, whole-plant products, the market will follow. If we keep chasing the highest THC number on the shelf, that’s what companies will keep producing.

So the next time you pick up a cannabis product, take an extra minute.

• Read the label.
• Look at the ingredients.
• Ask how it was processed
• Ask whether the product honors the plant or simply extracts its most marketable molecule.

Those questions matter.

Returning to the Roots

The cannabis movement originally stood for something bigger than legalization. It stood for a healthier relationship with the natural world.

Cleaner food. Cleaner medicine. Cleaner systems.

Legalization opened the door. But the next chapter is up to us. Cannabis is a plant. And if we remember that, really remember it, this plant has the potential to lead a much bigger clean-label revolution.

All photos courtesy of 2H Media via Unsplash.

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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A long trail of corruption cases, oversight failures, and drug-war contradictions has left the DEA with a credibility problem, even as it continues to influence how cannabis is scheduled, researched, and regulated in the United States.

Four decades of corruption scandals and an expanding global mission raise a fundamental question: Is the DEA fighting drugs, or protecting an outdated model of drug enforcement?

The Drug Enforcement Administration wants the public to believe a simple story: heroic agents battling cartels, protecting American families from deadly substances, and making communities safer. It is a compelling narrative, one the agency has sold to Congress, the public, and presidents of both parties for more than half a century.

But if we look closely at the DEA’s actual record, a different picture emerges. One where some agents have laundered millions of dollars alongside the traffickers they were supposed to target. One where corruption investigations touching dozens of people resulted in just a single government conviction. One where overseas operations have repeatedly raised questions about mission creep and weak oversight. And one where, despite vast resources and decades of authority, the overdose crisis reached catastrophic levels and remains severe even as recent data shows some improvement.

Most troubling of all for cannabis readers, this same agency continues to exert decisive influence over marijuana policy in the United States, shaping how weed is scheduled, researched, and regulated. An institution whose credibility has been repeatedly damaged by corruption scandals and weak accountability still helps decide what Americans can legally consume, prescribe, or study.

An institution whose credibility has been repeatedly damaged by corruption scandals and weak accountability still helps decide what Americans can legally consume, prescribe, or study.

The Pattern That Won’t Go Away

Let’s start with what is documented, not what is merely suspected.

In 2021, former DEA special agent José Irizarry was sentenced to more than twelve years in federal prison for a sprawling corruption scheme. Operating primarily overseas, Irizarry admitted to laundering approximately $9 million through sham enforcement operations, using the money for luxury cars, a mansion in Cartagena, Tiffany jewelry, and what he described to the Associated Press as a decade of “luxury overseas travel, fine dining, top seats at sporting events and frat house-style debauchery.”

Irizarry’s operation, known as “Team America,” was not portrayed by him as a solo act. In interviews before entering prison, he told the AP that dozens of federal agents, prosecutors, informants, and cartel members were involved in or around the scheme, selecting cities for laundering operations “mostly for party purposes or to coincide with Real Madrid soccer or Rafael Nadal tennis matches.”

Here is what makes Irizarry’s case extraordinary: he talked. At length. To the FBI, to federal prosecutors, and to reporters. He provided names, dates, and details. Federal investigators reportedly questioned up to two dozen current and former DEA agents and prosecutors based on his disclosures.

And yet, despite this sprawling investigation, Irizarry remains the only government employee convicted in connection with the Team America scheme. Judge Charlene Honeywell, who sentenced him in Tampa, appeared to share the public’s confusion, pointing out that other agents, corrupted by what she called the “allure of easy money,” needed to be investigated, and adding that Irizarry was “the one who got caught, but it is apparent to this court that there are others.”

The Justice Department declined to comment. The DEA issued a statement calling Irizarry “a criminal who violated his oath.”

Then came the internal discipline that barely registered in the headlines: at least a dozen agents and officials were reportedly disciplined, forced into retirement, or pushed out. A St. Louis division chief allegedly used DEA funds to rent a New York apartment for a romantic partner. An Atlanta supervisor resigned after lying to FBI investigators. Special Agent Danielle Dreyer was fired in late 2022 for what internal records described as “outlandish behavior” at a DEA party in Cartagena involving drug use and sexual misconduct.

That Cartagena incident had wider ripples. Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Darden, who attended the gathering, later withdrew from consideration for a federal prosecutor nomination after scrutiny from the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General.

And Cartagena, it turns out, has its own history with the DEA.

Sex Parties and Impunity

In 2015, a Department of Justice Inspector General report revealed that DEA agents stationed in Colombia had participated in “sex parties” with sex workers hired by drug cartels, the very organizations they were supposed to be investigating. The parties took place over several years in government-leased quarters, with a host-country police officer helping arrange the events.

According to the IG report, agents’ laptops, BlackBerry devices, and other government equipment were present at these gatherings, creating what the report described as “potential security risks” and exposing agents to “extortion, blackmail, or coercion.”

The penalties were suspensions ranging from two to ten days.

The penalties were suspensions ranging from two to ten days.

Then-DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, who faced intense congressional questioning over the scandal, retired weeks later. Some agents received bonuses and awards despite being under investigation, a detail that emerged in a follow-up IG report that same year. Representative Jason Chaffetz called it “astounding that employees who should have been prosecuted, fired, or at a minimum, severely disciplined for their misconduct, were instead given undeserved promotions and bonuses.”

This scandal did not appear out of nowhere.

A Long Record of Misconduct

In the 1980s and 1990s, DEA agents in New York were convicted for stealing cash and drugs from evidence lockers and reselling seized narcotics. In California, federal prosecutors secured convictions against DEA-affiliated officers who protected traffickers in exchange for bribes.

The deeper problem is not that every allegation has been proved in court. It is that the agency’s history shows a recurring pattern of corruption, weak oversight, and institutional tolerance for misconduct that would destroy the credibility of most other regulators.

The Unwinnable War

What makes Irizarry’s confession particularly damaging is not just the corruption he described. It is his explanation for why it happened.

“You can’t win an unwinnable war. DEA knows this and the agents know this,” he told the Associated Press. “There’s so much dope leaving Colombia. And there’s so much money. We know we’re not making a difference.”

“You can’t win an unwinnable war. DEA knows this and the agents know this.”

“The drug war is a game,” he continued. “It was a very fun game that we were playing.”

“The drug war is a game.”

The numbers make his cynicism harder to dismiss. Recent CDC provisional data predicts 71,542 overdose deaths for the 12 months ending in October 2025, down 17.1% from the previous year. That decline matters. So does the fact that the country is still enduring an overdose toll that remains historically devastating, with synthetic opioids continuing to dominate the crisis.

Former federal prosecutor Bonnie Klapper, who worked on narcotics cases, told the Associated Press that oversight of DEA money laundering operations had been virtually nonexistent. “In the vast majority of these operations, nobody is watching,” she said. “In the Irizarry operation, nobody cared how much money they were laundering. Nobody cared that they weren’t making any cases. Nobody was minding the house. There were no controls.”

“Nobody was minding the house. There were no controls.”

Mission Creep Abroad

The DEA’s overseas operations have also raised repeated questions about mission creep, particularly in politically sensitive theaters like Venezuela, where financial stings, interdiction efforts, and broader geopolitical objectives can start to blur together. That does not mean every operation is illegitimate. It does mean the public has reason to ask where narcotics enforcement ends and foreign-policy maneuvering begins.

Cannabis in the Crosshairs

This brings us back to weed.

For more than fifty years, the DEA has classified cannabis alongside heroin as a Schedule I substance, meaning no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse under federal law. That classification now sits in obvious tension with reality. Forty states, three territories and the District of Columbia allow medical cannabis, while 24 states, two territories and D.C. allow adult-use.

In 2022, President Biden directed the Department of Health and Human Services and the DEA to review marijuana’s scheduling. HHS recommended moving cannabis to Schedule III, acknowledging it has “currently accepted medical use” and a lower abuse potential than Schedule I substances. The DEA proposed the change in May 2024, but the process became mired in procedural battles and remains unresolved.

In December 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general to expedite rescheduling, but the issue is not only whether rescheduling is eventually completed. It is also why an agency with the DEA’s record should have such a central role in shaping cannabis policy in the first place.

Consider what rescheduling doesn’t do: it doesn’t legalize weed for recreational or medical use. It doesn’t resolve conflicts between state and federal law. It doesn’t answer the deeper question of whether cannabis belongs in the Controlled Substances Act at all.

What it does do is remove Section 280E of the tax code, which currently prevents cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary expenses like rent and payroll. That change could dramatically improve the economics of legal operators. But the broader issue here is not just tax relief. It is legitimacy.

An agency with a long record of documented corruption cases, weak discipline, and repeated oversight failures still helps determine access to a plant that millions of Americans use legally under state law. It helps shape which researchers can study cannabis and under what conditions. It influences public messaging and policy framing. And it retains a gatekeeping role that makes less and less sense in a country where cannabis policy is increasingly being decided by voters, legislatures, doctors, and markets rather than narcotics agents.

The DEA’s own history shows what can happen when enforcement agencies operate in moral-panic mode with inadequate accountability: corruption spreads, civil liberties narrow, and public-health goals become harder, not easier, to achieve.

Institutional Inertia vs. Democratic Accountability

In response to the Irizarry scandal, the DOJ commissioned an “external review” of DEA foreign operations across 69 countries. Completed in March 2023 at a cost of $1.4 million, the report mentioned Irizarry once, in a single paragraph with a footnote acknowledging an ongoing grand jury investigation.

Bonnie Klapper called the review “underwhelming,” noting it failed to recommend structural changes that would prevent another Irizarry. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram pledged to implement all seventeen recommendations. Public evidence of major structural reform remains thin.

Senator Chuck Grassley publicly criticized DOJ and DEA leadership in April 2023 for stonewalling document requests related to overseas operations and corruption allegations. A House Judiciary Committee hearing in July 2023 nominally addressed DEA oversight but largely sidestepped the Team America scandal.

That is the recurring pattern: scandals emerge, officials express concern, internal reviews recommend modest reforms, and the agency continues operating with broad authority and preserved policy influence. There is no public proof of some grand unified cover-up. There is, however, a great deal of evidence of institutional inertia.

Continuing to let the DEA dominate cannabis policy makes about as much sense as letting the tobacco industry write smoking regulations.

The Path Forward

Cannabis regulation should be shaped by public-health experts, addiction specialists, economists, and democratic institutions, not primarily by an enforcement agency whose credibility has been repeatedly damaged by misconduct and weak oversight.

There are practical steps available. Transfer greater authority over cannabis scheduling and research to the FDA and HHS, agencies whose core mission is health rather than policing. Establish independent oversight of DEA foreign operations with real enforcement power, not just inspector general reports that fade from the headlines. Require the DEA to demonstrate measurable public-health outcomes, not just seizure totals and arrest statistics. And most importantly, start a serious national conversation about whether the drug-war framework itself has become part of the problem rather than the solution.

DEA defenders will say these are isolated incidents, that most agents are dedicated professionals, and that the agency still does critical work against dangerous trafficking networks. That may be partly true. But “isolated incidents” spanning four decades, multiple administrations, overseas operations, repeated corruption scandals, and minimal accountability constitute a pattern that deserves scrutiny.

When an institution charged with enforcing drug laws repeatedly proves unable or unwilling to police itself, it loses any convincing claim to moral authority over what substances Americans can use, research, or prescribe.

For additional context on the DEA’s role in the ongoing rescheduling process and what Schedule III classification would mean for cannabis businesses and research, visit the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at Moritz College of Law.

Editor’s note: This piece draws on public reporting, official records, and linked source material. Where allegations remain disputed or unadjudicated, that is stated in the text.

This article is an opinion piece from an external contributor. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of High Times. The article has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Photo: Staff Sgt. Karen Person, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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