The History of Cannabis in the US: Modern Legalization Era

This is part 4 of a 5 part series exploring the history of cannabis in the U.S.

The 21st century saw a seismic shift in the legal and social landscape regarding cannabis. During this time, the first states started repealing cannabis laws, leading to a tidal wave of change between the 1990s and the 2010s.

But the chapter is not yet over, and the fight for full cannabis legalization continues to this day. We’ll take a journey through the modern medical cannabis movement in the U.S.

The First Seeds of Change: Medical Marijuana

“I read a lot and I begin to see that there may be something with cannabis that would help people to relieve pain and suffering,” Louisiana state Senator Tony Guarisco revealed to Colorado Public Radio in a 2020 interview.¹

In 1978, Guarisco became the catalyst for a cannabis legalization movement that has spanned decades. Like many deeply rooted movements, he was inspired by a personal experience.

“A woman who had a young son – I think 12,14 years old – he had cancer, and he was taking chemotherapy,” he said. “She was desperate. She was giving marijuana to her son. And it was the only thing that would give him relief from the side effects. She said they were horrific, dry heaves, and always sick from the chemotherapy. But the marijuana worked.”

Spurred into action, Guarisco successfully sponsored a bill allowing doctors in Louisiana to prescribe cannabis for glaucoma and chemotherapy. Paralysis was added later on.

Even though Guarisco’s bill passed the state senate that same year and was signed into law by Democratic governor Edwin Edwards, there was an enormous setback: Louisiana’s Department of Health and Human Resources never followed through on its task of appointing members to a Marijuana Prescription Review Board or of setting up a system to obtain distribute the plant. This made it legal on paper only, and it would be decades before patients in the state saw relief from medical cannabis.²

“I thought they'd go right along and do what they needed to do,” Guarisco explained. “There was a board that was to be filled. It didn't get filled. So that's kind of – it just lay in fallow ground for a long time.”

Planting the Seeds of Change

Guarisco’s efforts to bring therapeutic cannabis to the people of his state were largely a one-man show with a little help from his political friends. Soon, however, science would help bridge the gap between cannabis legalization on paper and people being able to access its benefits in the real world.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a newly discovered system in the body began to shift perceptions about cannabis from a harmful substance to a potentially helpful medicinal therapy.^3,4

A team of scientists at St. Louis University Medical School was researching how the cannabis plant compound, called THC, works in the body. and found it activates a receptor called CB1. Researchers also discovered another receptor called CB2 and several naturally occurring, health-balancing signaling agents that act on CB1 and CB2.

Together these receptors and signaling agents were part of a system the researchers called the “endocannabinoid system” — named in honor of the cannabis plant they were studying when they first found it.

One of the scientists who worked on this endocannabinoid system research was Raphael Mechoulam, better known as the "father of cannabis research."⁵ Working closely with the US National Institutes of Health, he earned his nickname because his team had been the first to isolate the THC compound.⁶

“For many years, nearly 40-45 years, I was supported financially by the NIH,” Mechoulam said in Zach Klein’s documentary The Scientist.⁷ “They didn’t know anything about marijuana [in the 1960s].”

That began to change in 1967 when a man named Dr. Tod Mikuriya became director of the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health.⁸ He compiled research by Mechoulam and others into a historical bibliography of cannabis research entitled Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839–197.⁹

It was Mikuriya’s research that formed the backbone of the first US state law to legalize medical cannabis.

California Reverses Course

Back in sunny California, a local businessman named Dennis Peron was the face of the legalization movement. He had moved to the state in the ‘70s after serving in the Vietnam War. Settling in the San Francisco area, he was inspired to push for legalized medical cannabis because of the AIDS epidemic, which had taken the life of his partner and decimated the San Francisco community where he lived. It was here that he noticed how cannabis provided relief from HIV/AIDS symptoms such as nausea, pain, lack of appetite, and sleep issues.¹⁰

“I threw caution to the winds,” Peron told Cannabis Business Times about opening the Cannabis Buyers Club. “My lover of eight years just died. So many people suffering. Sometimes I thought, ‘Why me? Why do I have to live?’ But then I accepted that I was meant to live.”

Determined to help his community, in 1991 Peron helped pass San Francisco's Proposition P, a resolution calling on the state government to allow medical cannabis. The resolution passed with an overwhelming 79% in favor of the vote. Shortly after, Peron co-founded the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, the first-ever public cannabis dispensary in the US.

Determined to spread legalization beyond San Francisco’s borders, Peron sponsored the California Compassionate Use Act, better known as Proposition 215. The bill sought the legal use of medical cannabis throughout the Golden State. On November 5, 1996, history was made when the ballot initiative passed, making California the first state in the nation to legalize the use and sale of medical cannabis.¹¹

Fittingly, the first US state to ban cannabis eight decades before also became the first to legalize its medical use. And just like before, California’s reversal began a wave of new state legislations, this time in support of cannabis.

Legalization Begins to Bloom

On November 3, 1998, Washington became the second state in the nation to pass a medical cannabis law, with Oregon following a month later.¹² On March 4, 1999, Alaska made it a quartet. All four states had gone straight to the voters to approve legalization through ballot initiatives, and Maine joined the group the same year.¹³

Soon, a new shift in legalization began.

In the spring of 2000, Hawaii’s state legislature became the first legislative body in the nation to decriminalize the use, possession, and growth of medical cannabis for seriously ill patients, with a doctor’s approval. Governor Ben Cayetano signed the law on June 14th of that year.¹⁴

“We’re grateful that Hawaii’s elected officials care so much about seriously ill people,” Pamela Lichty, vice president of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, said in an ACLU press release about the ruling.

“In supporting the right of doctors to recommend marijuana for medical purposes, lawmakers in Hawaii have demonstrated that they care more about the truth than about anti-drug rhetoric,” she continued. “We hope that Congress and the Clinton Administration get the message.”

As it turned out, one of those two parties had actually been listening.

In a groundbreaking December 2000 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, President Clinton expressed his support for decriminalizing cannabis. He also took the conversation to a new level by putting the focus on treatment and support services, rather than imprisonment.^15,16

“I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be,” he said.

“We really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment,” he continued. “A lot of people are in prison because they have drug problems or alcohol problems and too many of them are getting out, particularly out of state systems, without treatment, without education skills, without serious efforts at job placement.”

Over the next decade, seven more states took that message to heart and legalized medical cannabis: Colorado and Nevada (2000); Montana (2004); Vermont (2004); Rhode Island (2006); New Mexico (2007); and Michigan (2008), the first state in the Midwest to do so.^17,18 In the 2010s, Arizona and New Jersey also joined the growing list of states that found enough evidence of the plant’s therapeutic benefits to legalize its medicinal use.¹⁹

The nation’s capital was actually among the first to legalize medical cannabis. In 1998, the District of Columbia passed the Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative by a margin of 69-31%. However, a federal amendment by Congressman Bill Barr prohibited the legislation from being funded until 2010, when the amendment was overturned. 

How did the general public feel about all of this? A 1999 Gallup poll found that a strong majority — 73% of Americans — supported using cannabis for limited medical purposes.²⁰

Despite the overwhelming support for the medical use of cannabis at the local and legislative levels, the nation’s judiciary system thought otherwise. In May 2001, the US Supreme Court unanimously struck down these laws at the federal level. Following that ruling, a 2005 Supreme Court case decided that patients smoking medical cannabis for pain could still be prosecuted at the federal level, even if they had a doctor's approval.²¹

However, government officials indicated that these decisions likely wouldn’t be enforced.

“From an enforcement standpoint, the federal government is not going to be crashing into people’s homes trying to determine what type of medicine they’re taking,” said former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) administrator Asa Hutchinson.

DEA spokesman Bill Grant also noted that, “We have never targeted the sick and dying, but rather criminals engaged in drug trafficking.”

Recreational Legalization

While state legislatures opened up to medical cannabis, another type of movement was taking shape in Colorado that would lead to another historic milestone. For this group, the aim was much more ambitious: full legalization of cannabis for recreational adult use.

In the early 2000s, local attorney Brian Vicente started Sensible Colorado, a regional cannabis reform movement. Around the same time, activist Mason Tvert founded Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), a nonprofit based in Denver. These grassroots organizations pushed for greater access to cannabis and legislation to regulate it like alcohol.²²

"There was robust and stern opposition from almost every level of government against legalizing cannabis [at that time]," Vicente recalled in an interview.²³ Despite the growing acceptance of medical cannabis, recreational use was a bridge too far for the state legislators at the time.

While Colorado officials pushed back against recreational legalization, a nationwide Gallup poll revealed that the general public’s perceptions on the issue had shifted drastically, from 12% in favor in 1969 to 50% in favor in 2011.²⁴

Vicente and Tvert used their organizations to further educate the general public about cannabis myths and misconceptions, and in 2012 that work paid off with the passage of Colorado’s Amendment 64. The ballot measure allowed adults aged 21 and older to buy, smoke, and possess limited amounts of recreational cannabis in the Centennial State.²⁵

“The win in Colorado really inspired a lot of discussion. It got a lot of elected leaders, both in the US and abroad, reexamining their cannabis policies,” Tvert explained.

Colorado wasn’t alone. On the same day, the state of Washington also passed a ballot measure called Initiative 502, making these two states the first in the nation to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. 

On the tenth anniversary of the historic milestones, the chair of Washington’s Liquor and Cannabis Board, David Postman, revealed how the state had to work with the federal government to ensure the smooth enactment of the bill.²⁶

“President Obama’s administration did not support legal cannabis in the states, and the states had to go to the Department of Justice…we came up with some agreements,” Postman said. “They put it in a memo that’s referred to as the Cole memo.”

Shortly after the twin wins in Colorado and Washington, Deputy US Attorney General James Cole issued a memorandum in 2013.²⁷ The memo ensured that cannabis wasn’t trafficked, distributed to minors, grown on public lands, used or possessed on federal lands, diverted to states where it wasn’t legal, or sold to fund violence or criminal enterprises in states that legalized recreational cannabis. In exchange, the Justice Department agreed not to block the operation of stores in the states where it became legal.²⁸

As both states and the federal government agreed to ease restrictions on recreational cannabis, public approval for its legalization jumped to 58% the year the Cole memo was issued. Among liberals, approval was even higher at 69%.²⁹

Sovereign Indigenous Tribes Step Forward

Colorado’s landmark legislation opened the way not just for states but for tribal lands as well. Within a short period, the federal government agreed to extend the Cole memo to include federally recognized Native American tribal reservations. 

In 2014, acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson released a new memo directing that each tribal cannabis legalization policy would be reviewed by the applicable district Attorney General for that tribe’s region.^30,31

However, the Trump administration revoked both the Cole and the Wilkinson memos in a 2018 directive issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.³² Advocates have since been calling on the Biden administration to reinstate these protections.³³

“If we had something like the Cole-Wilkinson memorandum reestablished, that’s all we would need,” executive director for the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel Tribal Cannabis Regulatory Agency, Sharon Osuna, told Politico. “We could breathe a little easier.”

Despite that setback, there has been progress. In 2020, the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota became the first indigenous tribe to legalize adult-use recreational cannabis in a state without a similar policy.³⁴

“We have a lot of different issues on the reservation — and through this new business venture, we’re creating hope,” Adonis Saltes, owner of the first recreational dispensary on the reservation, explained.³⁵

A ‘Growing’ Culture of Recreational Acceptance

Fifteen years after President Clinton hinted at cannabis decriminalization, President Obama also spoke in favor of it — but not for legalization.³⁶

“I think that we have to separate out legalization – there’s a lot of concern about drug abuse of any sort by our children and the general population – versus the heavy criminalization of non-violent drug offenses,” he said in early 2015.

As federal government officials like Obama were entertaining the idea of decriminalization, Americans were continuing their pro-legalization trend: The 2017 Gallup poll marked a record-high 64% of respondents in favor of legalized recreational cannabis for adults.³⁷

The next year saw another milestone on the recreational front: Vermont became the first state in the nation to legalize recreational cannabis through its state legislature (rather than by ballot measure) in 2018.³⁸

In fact, between 2013 and 2023, twenty states, as well as the District of Columbia, joined Washington, Colorado, and Vermont in legalizing adult use of cannabis. These are Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Virginia.³⁹

By the end of April 2023, 38 states, the District of Columbia, and three territories had passed laws and amendments to make the use of cannabis for medical purposes legal as well. And even some states that do not yet have a comprehensive medical cannabis program, like Texas and Tennessee, have a “low-THC/CBD program” that allows the use of certain products.⁴⁰

Some states along the way have even enacted emergency amendments, despite not yet being medically legal, to make sure those who needed medical cannabis could access it without legal repercussions. For example, the governor of Kentucky enacted an executive order at the end of 2022 that allowed individuals with certain medical conditions to purchase cannabis in other legal states.⁴¹ This move came just before KY passed a comprehensive medical cannabis law in March 2023.⁴² 

As the general population has shown greater acceptance of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes, long-awaited changes on a federal level have also been in the works. In August 2023, the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services asked the DEA to reschedule cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug. This new schedule, if enacted, would recognize that cannabis has a low to moderate risk for dependency. Schedule I drugs, on the other hand, are classified as having “no currently accepted medical use.”^43,44

If the DEA moves forward with the request, it would be the most significant federal cannabis legislation to date. What’s more, the re-scheduling of cannabis could create an entirely new landscape for the industry, one in which the FDA may be involved due to a greater demand for the agency’s oversight to ensure safe, quality cannabis products. To date, the FDA has mostly shied away from getting involved with state-legal products because of the discrepancies between state and federal laws.⁴⁵

The Fight Continues

Today, the next big hurdle for cannabis reform is legalization at the federal level. As more states open up to both medical and recreational use, there is a growing legal gap between the state and federal levels. Only time will tell when the nationwide laws will evolve to match the reality on the ground.

As for the man who started it all back in 1978, thankfully, he’s still around to see his efforts bear fruit. When Louisiana finally began dispensing medical cannabis in 2019, then 80-year-old Guarisco was the first in line for cannabis drops to treat his glaucoma-related eye inflammation.

“Over two generations waiting for today. I never thought at that time I would be a patient today,” Guarisco told the press. “I caught a lot of heat by being a politician that was 'giving drugs to the kids.’ It's great to go from pariah to respect."⁴⁶

Sources:

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[8] O’Hern, Megan and Rees, John. “Tod Mikuriya Papers Now Available for Research.” Circulating Now From the NLM Historical Collections, 22 May 2023, circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2020/02/25/tod-mikuriya-papers-now-available-for-research.

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[19] Washington DC Cannabis Information. “Washington DC Marijuana Laws 2023.” washingtondccannabis.org/laws. Accessed 25 September 2023.

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[23] Sullivan, Cole. “Colorado has Collected More Than $2.2 Billion in Marijuana Taxes Since Legalization.” 9 News, 6 November 2022, https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/colorado-news/colorado-marijuana-legalization-passed-10-years-ago/73-bca78e73-3f51-4fdb-807b-0baba4b6ca08.

[24] Newport, Frank. “Record-High 50% of Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana Use.” Gallup.com, 7 May 2021, news.gallup.com/poll/150149/record-high-americans-favor-legalizing-marijuana.aspx.

[25] Johnson, Sarah. “Colorado Gov Given Power to Expunge Marijuana Crimes, 8 Years After State Legalization.” BillTrack50.com, 26 June 2020, www.billtrack50.com/blog/in-the-news/colorado-gov-given-power-to-expunge-marijuana-crimes-8-years-after-state-legalization/.

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[27] Guidance Regarding Marijuana Policy. U.S. Department of Justice, 29 August 2013, https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/3052013829132756857467.pdf. Accessed 25 September 2023.

[28] Nelson, Steven. “DOJ: Marijuana Stores Can Open in Colorado and Washington.” US News & World Report, 29 Aug. 2013, http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2013/08/29/doj-marijuana-stores-can-open-in-colorado-and-washington.

[29] Swift, Art. “For First Time, Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana.” Gallup.com, 7 May 2021, news.gallup.com/poll/165539/first-time-americans-favor-legalizing-marijuana.aspx.

[30] Nelson, Steven. “Tribes Can Legalize Pot, Justice Department Decides.” US News & World Report, 11 Dec. 2014, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/12/11/tribes-can-legalize-pot-justice-department-decides.

[31] Policy Statement Regarding Marijuana Issues in Indian Country. U.S. Department of Justice, 28 October 2014, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/tribal/pages/attachments/2014/12/11/policystatementregardingmarijuanaissuesinindiancountry2.pdf. Accessed 25 September 2023.

[32] Marijuana Enforcement. U.S. Department of Justice, 4 January 2018, https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1022196/download. Accessed 25 September 2023.

[33] Fertig, Natalie. “Tribes Left Behind by America’s Marijuana Laws.” POLITICO, 5 Apr. 2022, www.politico.com/news/2022/04/05/tribes-marijuana-laws-00022899.

[34] Norml. “South Dakota: Oglala Sioux Enacts Ordinance Legalizing Marijuana Use on Tribal Lands - NORML.” NORML, 11 May 2021, norml.org/news/2020/10/29/south-dakota-oglala-sioux-enacts-ordinance-legalizing-marijuana-use-on-tribal-lands.

[35] Newton, Jacob. “Marijuana Brings Profit and Protection to Pine Ridge.” Keloland.com, 15 August 2022, https://www.keloland.com/keloland-com-original/marijuana-brings-profit-and-protection-to-pine-ridge/.

[36] Bradner, Eric. “Obama Backs Pot Decriminalization Efforts.” CNN, 27 Feb. 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/politics/obama-dc-pot/index.html.

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[38] Berke, Jeremy. “Recreational Marijuana Is Now Legal in Vermont.” Business Insider, 22 Jan. 2018, http://www.businessinsider.com/vermont-state-senate-passes-marijuana-legalization-bill-rebukes-sessions-2018-1.

[39] Avery, Dan. “Where Is Marijuana Legal? Cannabis Laws in Every State.” CNET, 31 May 2023, http://www.cnet.com/news/politics/marijuana-laws-by-state-where-is-weed-legal.

[40] National Conference of State Legislatures. “State Medical Cannabis Laws.” Www.ncsl.org, 12 Sept. 2022, www.ncsl.org/health/state-medical-cannabis-laws.

[41] Office. “Gov. Beshear to Allow Kentuckians with Severe Medical Conditions to Use Medical Cannabis for Treatment.” Kentucky.gov, 15 Nov. 2022, www.kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=GovernorBeshear&prId=1580.

[42] Staley, Crystal. “Gov. Beshear Signs Historic Legislation Legalizing Medical Cannabis.” Kentucky.gov, 31 Mar. 2023, www.kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=GovernorBeshear&prId=1728.

[43] Sykes, Stefan. “U.S. Health Officials Want to Loosen Marijuana Restrictions. Here’s What It Means.” CNBC, 31 Aug. 2023, http://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/31/hhs-wants-to-reclassify-marijuana-what-it-means.html.

[44] United States Drug Enforcement Administration. “Drug Scheduling.” DEA, www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling. Accessed 25 September 2023.

[45] Knotts, Lauren. “DEA Likely to Reschedule Marijuana Based on Congressional Report.” McGlinchey Stafford PLLC, 18 Sept. 2023, www.mcglinchey.com/insights/dea-likely-to-reschedule-marijuana-based-on-congressional-report/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2023.

[46] WWLT and The Associated Press. “Medical Marijuana Sold in Louisiana After Years in Legal Limbo.” WWLT, 6 Aug. 2019, https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/medical-marijuana-sold-in-louisiana-after-years-in-legal-limbo/289-e0debe38-e4a5-485c-b10c-3e9d053e9626.

The information in this article and any included images or charts are for educational purposes only. This information is neither a substitute for, nor does it replace, professional legal advice or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about laws, regulations, or your health, you should always consult with an attorney, physician or other licensed professional.