eResearch | In 1937, the U.S. Federal government first prohibited cannabis at the federal level when it enacted the Marihuana Tax Act, and in 1970, prohibited cannabis for any use including medical use through the Controlled Substances Act.
In 1996, California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis, and in 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize cannabis recreationally.
In 2014, the Rochrabacher-Farr amendment passed the U.S. House which stopped the Justice Department from interfering with states legalizing medical cannabis. This amendment sparked a quick trend in legalization of cannabis, in which by 2016, majority of the states in the U.S. had either legalized cannabis recreationally or medically.
Below is a timeline of all the regulatory milestones State governments have reached in legalizing medical and recreational cannabis.
| Phase 1: Medical Legalization | Phase 2: Recreational Legalization |
| 1996: CA becomes first state to legalize medical cannabis. 1998: AK, OR, and WA legalize medical cannabis. 1999: ME legalizes medical cannabis. 2000: HI, NV, and CO legalize medical cannabis. 2001: NV decriminalize cannabis. 2004: MT and VT legalize medical cannabis. 2006: RI legalizes medical cannabis. 2007: NM legalizes medical cannabis. 2008: MI legalizes medical cannabis. 2009: NJ legalizes medical cannabis. 2010: DE legalizes medical cannabis. 2011: CT decriminalizes cannabis. 2012: CT legalizes medical cannabis. 2012: RI decriminalizes cannabis. |
2012: CO and WA become first two states to legalize recreational cannabis. 2013: VT decriminalizes cannabis. 2013: NH legalizes medical cannabis. 2014: MD and MO decriminalize cannabis. 2014: MN and NY legalize medical cannabis. 2014: UT becomes first state to legalize low-THC medical cannabis. 2014: AK and OR legalize recreational cannabis. 2014: AL, KY, WI, MS, TN, IA, SC, FL, NC, and MO legalize low-THC medical cannabis. 2015: DE decriminalizes cannabis. 2015: LA legalizes medical cannabis. 2015: VA, GA, OK, TX, and, WY legalize low-THC medical cannabis. 2016: PA legalizes medical cannabis. 2016: OH legalizes medical cannabis. 2016: IL decriminalizes cannabis. 2016: CA, NV, and MA legalize recreational cannabis. 2017: WV legalizes medical cannabis. 2017: IN legalizes low-THC medical cannabis. 2017: NH decriminalizes cannabis. 2018: VT legalizes recreational cannabis. 2018: IN and KS legalizes CBD for any use. 2018: OK legalizes medical cannabis. 2018: MI legalizes recreational cannabis. 2018: MO and UT legalize medical cannabis. 2019: NM decriminalizes cannabis. 2019: ND decriminalizes cannabis. 2019: IL legalizes recreational cannabis. 2019: NY decriminalizes cannabis. 2019: HI decriminalizes cannabis. |
The U.S. Federal government realized that new federal legislation was needed since the number of states with cannabis regulations in the past 5 years has grown from 8 legalized states in 2000 to more than 75% of all states in 2019 with some sort of legalization or decriminalization.
In July 2019, cannabis legalization progressed as the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security discussed cannabis reform. Law makers are trying to decide whether to give states the power to enact their own cannabis laws, to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule 1 drug, or to federally legalize cannabis.
Even though the cannabis reform in July was a positive direction for the cannabis industry, it was within the Democrat-controlled House. The fight to legalize cannabis on a federal level will become tougher as it moves to the Republican-controlled Senate.
