Over the last two decades, cannabis has been a major topic of discussion in legal reform in several countries, especially the U.S. It has many recreational terms that might be more familiar, like Marijuana, which is often interchangeable with cannabis due to many misconceptions. Cannabis refers to a family of plants, most of which “mainly contain cannabidiol(CBD), an active ingredient in FDA-approved epilepsy medication”( Adie Rae, 2022). The over the counter use is that “people tend to use CBD for things like anxiety, stress relief, or nerve pain” ( Adie Rae, 2022). The other types of cannabis plants the public is used to seeing scrutinized are “the plant that contains the chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), well known for its ability to make people feel high”(Adie Rae 2022). The most significant idea here is that people’s small concept of this controversial topic is viewed with the notion that cannabis is only a psychedelic hallucinogen that should not be allowed for recreational use. However, our reality is more complicated. While it appears as if these definitions would be in consideration of its legality for recreational use, it’s actually about the state’s own jurisdiction to qualify what is and what isn’t permitted based on the levels of THC cannabis can have. Finally, it should be understood that the multilayered discussion about cannabis’s legality is ever-changing and can be argued through the lenses of “all 50 states” (Disa, 2025) that have legalized it and those that haven’t.
Before the first major state even considered the introduction of legalization, Cannabis was heavily criminalized by the simple phrase “War on Drugs”. The first person to utter this phrase was Henry Anslinger, a “Well known figure for his racist beliefs that were documented in his speeches”(Adie Rae, 2022). Initially, this is where the misconception between Cannabis and Marijuana started. Referring to Cannabis as the “Mexican-Spanish world Marihuana makes it seem like a foreign threat, which was pushing the agenda to specifically target minority groups”(Adie, 2022). Later adopted by president Nixon and his administration for the same purpose. This was a direct contradiction to what “President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson commissioned reports that found that marijuana did not induce violence or lead to the use of other, more dangerous drugs”(Brittany Tackett, Jul 31, 2025). Their commission report is dated before the mountains of propaganda that flooded the 1970s to 2000s, and in changing perspectives on Cannabis, people were rightfully associating it with harder drugs like opioids and heroin, which are leagues away in terms of addiction. Drug arrests increased from 580,000 in 1980 to 1.7 million in 2003; in 1984, they represented 6.1% of all arrests, while in 2003 they were 12.3%(Crime in the United States, 2003, Washington, DC:FBI). The “War on Drugs” was not only successful in its efforts to criminalize minorities, but it also began another separate problem in overpopulation of jail. Years of incarceration compared to what we now consider a small offense. Building on this fundamental understanding, It’s necessary to examine the transition towards decriminalizing/legalizing cannabis.
Cannabis’s progressive approach set the stage for significant legislative changes, beginning with California’s pioneering defiance of Federal law against Marijuana. California set a precedent in 1996 with its “voter-approved medical marijuana law”, marking a turning point in cannabis policy (Proposition 215). Although it was state law as a medical resource, it opened the door for its significance in the medical field. A year after this state law passed, some physicians were able to prescribe Cannabis, said, “In California, I met scores of patients who credit marijuana with dimming their pain, quelling their nausea, firing their appetites, and quieting their seizures”(Michael Pollan, July 20, 1997). What’s worth emphasizing about this idea is how it connects to the legalization of medical Cannabis, making it a more valuable argument to addressing statewide. However, for some reason only a select few states provide this treatment. Each state’s jurisdiction for medical use of Cannabis is as follows: “38 states allow for the use of cannabis for medical purposes through comprehensive programs, 14 states have a comprehensive medical-only program. 9 states have medical programs that only allow for the use of CBD/low-THC products for qualifying medical condition(s) as defined by the state(CDC, 2024).” All these states have different stances on the matter, but what can be mentioned is that they’re ideas are too far apart to form a consensus about whether medical cannabis should be allowed statewide with roughly the same access to comprehensive programs. Still, there is “as of November 03, 2025, 2 states (ID, KS) do not have a legal cannabis program”(Disa, 2025). Some of these offensive states and the two that don’t have legal cannabis programs lack advocacy when addressing the issue. This is a large portion with legalization advocacy.
Now, to get the conversation that most people think of when legalizing Cannabis, recreational use. Recreational use has so much traction, but why is that? It can all be traced to our early media, hippies, and “denim-clay heavy metal kids”(Anthony Pappalardo, 2023). Marijuana usage was almost retro, and even though people still did it regularly, it wasn’t trendy, and wearing a “pot leaf” T-shirt was the easiest way to brand yourself a “stoner loser”(Anthony Pappalardo, 2023). That was until the pivot of the “West Coast gangster rap group adorned their debut LP with a skull adorned with a pot leaf and changed hip-hop” (Anthony Pappalardo, 2023). Since hip-hop was the most prominent genre during the mid-1980s to 2000s, an album that was not only good for its time caused a chain reaction of speaking freely about marijuana. One of the artist in the group, Sen Dog, even spoke in an interview saying, “We just wanted to make it cool again. After the War on Drugs that the Reagans had, when they classified marijuana as a Class One drug, it made it really uncool and made parents really concerned about smoking weed.” The artists alone had the power to generate a culture shift that helped to redefine the use of marijuana, moving it away from its negative stereotypes that the War on Drugs caused and into mainstream acceptance. From the beginning of the criminalization of marijuana, public opinion has shifted dramatically till the end. “In 1969, only 12% supported legalization, but by 2001, that number had risen to 34%, representing over 77 million adults. If these trends continued, supporters of legalization were projected to become the majority by around 2010” (“Legalization” October 25, 2025). While it doesn’t specifically indicate that hip-hop artists around this time doubled the public’s perception of legalization, it does reiterate the shift occurring. This change in perception played a role in fueling the momentum behind the movement to legalize recreational marijuana nationwide.
Sixteen years after the initial medical Cannabis state law was passed, Colorado made history by “legalizing cannabis for adults over age 21”(MPP. September 03, 2025). “A little over a year later, on January 1, 2014, retail stores opened their doors”(MPP, September 03, 2025). Cannabis is one of those drugs that is so easily accessible to people that it is a big task to get it off the streets. In this regard, why not just tax marijuana? Colorado, in campaigning for the vote for recreational use, used this as an opportunity to tax marijuana instead, because of the sheer amount of revenue that marijuana produces.
Colorado’s graph on marijuana tax revenue rose steadily after legalization and peaked in 2020-2021. The surge during those years with the COVID-19 pandemic, when heightened stress and anxiety led to many people to increase their cannabis use, or rather the taxation of medical marijuana as a source to combat COVID-19. All this extra tax revenue helps fund Colorado’s involvement in improving its areas.
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