By Kevin Hardy, stateline.org
While each state surrounding Idaho legalized marijuana, the representative of the Bruce Skaug state began to consider as inevitable that the state of the precious stones would follow the plunge.
No more.
Skaug, a republican, supported two bills This legislative session targeting the consumption of marijuana: one to impose a compulsory minimum of $ 300 for possession and another which would carry the right of voters to legalize the pot in the ballot box.
He thinks that other states are starting to regret liberalizing the consumption of marijuana, due to potential health problems and dull income of marijuana sales.
“Looking around other states that legalized marijuana, it did not improve their states as a place to raise a family, do business,” he said. “It simply did not make the promises we heard years ago for these states.”
Idaho is not alone. After years of expanding legal access, legislators of several states this year have targeted marijuana in various ways.
To help fill budget gaps, officials from Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey have offered to increase marijuana taxes. Health problems have pushed legislators into states such as Colorado and Montana to try to cap the level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, in marijuana products sold to dispensaries. And some legislators have even tried to retreat the medical marijuana programs approved by voters.
“This year, in particular, we are playing much more than we have in defense than in the past,” said Morgan Fox, political director of the national organization of the reform of the reform of marijuana, or norml laws.
To a certain extent, he said, the pendulum on the liberalization of marijuana swings. But Fox said recent legislative efforts are not indicative of declining public support for legalization. He said prohibitionist politicians had been embarked on to act against the will of voters.
The Pew Research Center survey has found little change in legalization in recent years: 57% of American adults say that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational purposes.
Colorado and the state of Washington began to authorize recreational marijuana sales in 2014. Today, 24 states and the Columbia district authorize recreational sales, and 39 states and the district sanctioned medical marijuana.
“There has been this tire of inevitability for some time,” said Daniel Mallinson, an associate professor of public policy at Penn State Harrisburg who research on the legalization of marijuana.
Operational medical marijuana programs in most states, Mallinson said that there was pressure to extend recreational marijuana, in particular given the question of whether the federal government will act on the issue.
“Leisure is still in his take-off period,” he said.
But he recognized that new medical research had raised concerns among certain legislators. A study published in January revealed a link between the consumption of heavy marijuana and the memory function. Other studies have found a higher risk of heart attacks in people who consume cannabis.
Mallinson said that research on marijuana is “very young” because many institutions are wary of conducting clinical trials due to federal drugs. The federal government classifies marijuana as a drug from Annex I – the same classification as drugs such as heroin and ecstasy.
“There is a mixture of science and politics in this area,” he said. “… I could imagine seeing in these truly conservative states like Idaho, you know, this kind of counterpoup, like, we do not want at all here, so we will try to set up obstacles to consider it.”
A debate went to the ballot
In Idaho, Skaug said he had continued the new $ 300 of $ 300 for the possession of marijuana to bring more coherence to the way the state manages marijuana affairs.
While Idaho’s law previously grants fines of up to $ 1,000, he said that the judges had issued fines as low as $ 2.50.
“So it was not the right message. It’s not even worth writing the ticket,” he said. “It is therefore not that we will stop more people for possession of marijuana for crime, but there will be more quotes in the amount of $ 300.”
Skaug also supported a proposed constitutional amendment which would only give the legislature the power to legalize marijuana and other drugs. This question will go to voters next year.
Skaug said he was worried outside the groups that would influence a public vote to legalize marijuana by pouring millions into a voting initiative campaign. If the amendment he supports pass, that would not prohibit the pot – that would leave legalization to the legislators.
“If the evidence is coming back, marijuana or another drug is positive in the medical community and a good thing, then the legislative assembly can legalize this,” he said. “But we are going to leave it with the legislative assembly.”
The defenders tried without success to obtain enough signatures to ask a question of medical marijuana on the ballot of voting for more than a decade in Idaho, said the representative of the Democratic State Ilana Rubel. The chief of the House minority, Rubel, said that she had struck “a firm brick wall” in the legislation of medical marijuana in Boisse, where the legislators of the GOP told him in private that they do not want to look soft on the crime.
She considers that the amendment proposed as another example of the state house controlled by the GOP being disconnected from regular Idahoans. She said that the closed republican primaries of the State led to more conservative positions on the part of the legislators.
“I think this is one of those problems where there is just a huge gap between what the inhabitants of Idaho want and what they are going to get from their legislature,” she said.
A survey in 2022 commissioned by Idaho Statesman revealed that almost 70% of Idahoans supported the legalization of medical marijuana.
But even discussions on medical marijuana are closed in Idaho due to concerns about drug problems in liberal cities such as Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Rabel said.
“A very large number of red states have legalized medical marijuana, and they have not seen any of the horrible parades that were presented whenever we present this idea,” she said. “There are just a lot of hysteria and paranoia on where it will lead which is really not linked to reality.”
Targeting the power of marijuana, income
In several states, legislators have aimed to restrict the power of marijuana products.
The senator of the state of Montana, Greg Hetz, a republican, said that he did not want to end the sales of recreational marijuana, that the voters approved in 2020. But he said that today’s products were much stronger than people do it.
“People voted for Woodstock Weed, not that new Marijuana high THC,” he said.
A bill he sponsored this year would have prohibited sales of recreational marijuana products, including flowers and edible products, exceeding 15%levels. Montana currently authorizes up to 35% of THC in flower, without limit on other products.
This legislation stalled, but Hertz said that he was planning to present a similar measure at the next Montana legislative session in 2027.
A separate bill reducing the dosage of the state of THC for edible products has just adopted the legislature. The measure, which is now going to the Greg Grand Gianforte Governor, would change the individual dosage limit to edible products such as gammies from 10 milligrams to 5 milligrams.
Hertz said that the state rushed into its liberalization of marijuana without fully understanding the consequences.
He underlined the data from the State Health Department showing an increase in emergency visits linked to marijuana and dozens of cannabis poisoning cases in recent years – including 36 involving children of 10 years or less.
“We have probably opened the door of the barn too largely,” he said. “I’m just trying to slow down that.”
With numerous states faced with gaping budgetary holes this year, marijuana has proven a popular target of democrats and republicans who seek to increase income without increased taxes.
Maryland Wes Moore’s Democratic Governor in January proposed to pass the cannabis tax from 9% to 15% to help close the budget of $ 3 billion in the state. In March, legislators agreed with a budgetary framework which would increase the tax on state marijuana to 12%.
Ohio Republican Governor Mike Dewine has proposed to double marijuana taxes from 10% to 20% – a concept that has so far faced an opposition to the Legislative Assembly.
In Michigan, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer offered a new 32% wholesale tax on marijuana producers to help finance road improvements. This tax would be in addition to the excise tax of 10% on recreational marijuana and the 6% sales tax.
Whitmer said he would close an escape that exempted the wholesale tax marijuana industry, which is applied to cigarettes and other tobacco products. Michigan legislators, suddenly divided along the partisan lines, have until September 30 to approve a state budget.
The legislators of certain states have even targeted medical marijuana programs approved by voters this year.
In southern Dakota, a bill that failed on a committee would have emptied the medical marijuana program massively approved by voters in 2020.
In November, Nebraska voters largely supported voting measures to deploy a medical marijuana program – winning majority support in each of the 49 legislative districts of the State.
But the implementation of the regulatory program has proven controversial, the Nebraska reported. Legislators pursue legislation that would define medical conditions and forms of cannabis.
Defenders of medical marijuana claim that too strict rules hinders the program and would undermine the will of the voters. But some legislators emphasize the limits to avoid generalized access to marijuana.
“We make him legal for everything and anything, it is essentially recreational marijuana at that time,” said state senator Rick Holdcroft, a republican, the Nebraska to examine.
Stateline’s journalist, Kevin Hardy, can be reached in khardy@stateline.org.
© 2025 States Newsroom. Visit Stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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