For the Culture By The Culture
Cannabis prohibition in the United States no longer survives on raids and panic films. It survives through ballot thresholds, legislative rewrites, regulatory choke points, and lobbying disclosures. This documented audit follows the filings behind legalization war chests, opposition strategies, and the institutional structures that still shape cannabis policy even after voters move on.
Ohio voters approved adult use cannabis with 57 percent support in 2023. Two years later, lawmakers narrowed that framework through Senate Bill 56. A referendum campaign now seeks to overturn those revisions, requiring roughly 248,000 valid signatures statewide. This piece breaks down what changed, who changed it, and what voters are being asked to decide next.
THE CANNABIS LIE is a reporting series examining how cannabis policy turns shaky assumptions into hard penalties. In THE CANNABIS LIE: Vol. 2, The Fiction of Impairment, THC detection is often treated like proof of impairment, even though blood levels show a weak, inconsistent relationship to functional driving ability. This installment explains why per se THC limits and zero tolerance rules create false certainty, why urine metabolites only show prior exposure, and why real impairment should be demonstrated through behavior and context, not presumed from a lab result.
Nevada’s legal cannabis market runs in plain sight, yet unlicensed sales keep pace because the rules still leave openings. Price gaps, compliance costs, patchy access, and limited places to consume make the illicit channel feel easier for many buyers. This feature tracks what the numbers show, why raids only disrupt, and what actually shrinks underground sales.
Cannabis use rates are similar across races, but arrests are not. Black Americans are still arrested for marijuana possession at several times the rate of white Americans, even as legalization spreads. This investigation breaks down the data, the role of possession-only enforcement, and why legalization without repair keeps old lines firmly in place.
This new investigative series begins by confronting one of cannabis policy’s most durable myths. THC percentage became a convenient shortcut for harsher laws, even though higher potency has never equaled greater danger. Vol. 1 documents how numbers replaced evidence and how courts, media, and policy still punish people for a claim that cannot survive scrutiny.
