Only 3 U.S. States Have No Medical Marijuana

For all cannabis legalization’s progress, and all the enjoyment drug-policy reform and a growing CBD and cannabis market make, much of the United States remains outwardly hostile to cannabis — in some cases, outwardly so.

Against this backdrop, a few states stand out for soldiering on with the drug war.

In Mississippi, where CBD oil was legal even prior to the Farm Bill-sparked CBD trend, an Oregon guy was sentenced to 12 years in jail for easy ownership — a drastic punishment that was, in truth, a re-negotiated sentence that was indicated to be kind. And in Oklahoma, which might be the most cannabis entrepreneur-friendly state in the nation, a delivery of What Is The Best Way To Store Medicinal Marijuana / Medical Cannabis? was apparently hemp was seized by authorities, who as of earlier this month stayed hellbent on showing that what Mitch McConnell stated was a legal product is premises for imprisonment. With some significant exceptions, the whole American South has actually been a last bastion of cannabis prohibition and the drug war status quo.

But these are not the worst culprits. These are not quite as bad as Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota. In these 3 states, there is no medical cannabis access of any kind. Outliers, last redoubts of an unsuccessful concept, clinging desperately to a lost cause, these are the only 3 states in the Union with no cannabis reform laws on the books at all, according to NORML.

What «development» there is here borders on an ironic joke. About the very best there is to report from any of these legal cannabis-free zones is what the. Cannabis Policy Project called the «most restrictive and restricted of any state law that acknowledges some form of cannabis’s medical value.» A 2017 law that states South Dakota citizens can access CBD-only oil, but only if and when CBD products get official federal Food and Drug Administration approval, a process that is most likely to take years.

Fortunately is that all three states allow for citizen-driven ballot efforts. And activists in all 3 states are trying to put substantive medical cannabis procedures on the 2020 tally. But even if they succeed, access could be years away and, in the meantime, state residents must contend with a few of the country’s strictest belongings laws.

Idaho

Idaho remains in the West, where legal cannabis made its very first and most enduring stand. Idaho likewise abuts several legal states. Ad Idaho, persistent and obstinate, refuses to play the video game and, in reality, signs up with states like California and Colorado in freely flouting federal law, but in favor of making cannabis more illegal than even the Controlled Substances Act requires.

Simple possession of 3 ounces or less is a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine or a year in jail; more than 3 ounces is a felony. If you’re growing in the house, as you can do across the border in Washington, you’re playing with a felony charge punishable by as much as 15 years in prison, if authorities argue the cultivation is for sale.

Idaho is also where state authorities decided that the Farm Bill signed into law by Donald Trump last December doesn’t apply. Though federal law now says that cannabis sativa with 0.3 percent of less of THC is hemp and legal to possess, Idaho state law states THC of any quantity verboten therefore hemp deliveries here go through seizure, in open defiance of federal authorities who insist that hemp is OK.

After yet another session in the state Legislature ended without any reform, activists will try for the 2020 tally. If they can collect 55,000 signatures from signed up citizens by the end of April 2020, voters will have the chance to bring the state «up to speed with states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, and West Virginia,» as campaign representative Bill Esbensen recently told press reporters. That might not look like much of a criteria — West Virginia’s program is not yet operational and it took Arkansas, governed by a previous DEA chief, several years to get a voter-approved measure off the ground — however intentionally comparing Idaho to other conservative states who are far ahead is a smart relocation.

Of the 3 medical-less states, Nebraska might provide the best harbor, however prowling behind every minor crack in the prohibitionist facade is nuclear-level punishment.

The optimum charge for possessing small amounts of cannabis is $300, though sales of «any amount» can be punished with a mandatory minimum of one year in jail. Possessing cannabis concentrates — like a vape-oil cartridge — can land you in state prison for 5 years.

That’s all bad. An expense that would legislate medical cannabis stalled out in the state Legislature previously this year and throughout argument, a crowd of protesters assembled outside the state house to require that restriction be kept in place.

To comprehend why, maybe it’s valuable to peek into some Nebraskans’ mindsets. Lincoln resident Margaret Wall described herself to Omaha.com as a «pot refugee,» who specifically transferred to Nebraska because it was one of the Last Three states with no cannabis reform laws on the books — which opposing even a minimal medical-cannabis costs is required to keep the state from slipping towards legalization. Wall and all of her friends may need to duplicate the efficiency next year if advocates succeed in putting a procedure on the ballot.

This might be the last frontier for cannabis reform in America.

It wasn’t constantly in this manner: South Dakota really decriminalized cannabis in 1977, however experienced an extreme case of reformers’ remorse and «practically right away» repealed the law, as the Marijuana Policy Project notes. But in the years since, South Dakotans have actually consistently shown they’re not interested: medical-cannabis ballot efforts were voted down in 2006 and 2010 by progressively broad margins — the last effort lost by nearly two-to-one — and a proposed effort last year did not qualify.