Justice
How Cities Can Take a Stand on Cannabis
With a recent policy change from Jeff Sessions, localities may again be more vulnerable to federal crackdowns. But some of the pioneers of pot legalization have been through this before.
The state of marijuana’s legality in the U.S. is, to put it mildly, a hot mess. It’s a thick tangle of conflicting rules, with states, cities, and the federal government each creating and trying to carry out their own laws.
Some states have legalized marijuana explicitly for medical use, others for both medical and recreational purposes. Because so many jurisdictions can claim to have the ultimate say in the way pot is legislated in a given area, it can be difficult to understand where the lines around it are drawn.