For the Culture By The Culture. ISSN: 3064-9331.
Cannabis legalization was sold as the end of the illicit market. Instead, stacked taxes, licensing limits, and local bans created price gaps that allowed underground sales to survive. From California’s cultivation tax to Illinois pricing and Michigan’s price compression, this installment of Cannabis Lie examines how policy design, not the plant, determines who wins and who stays in the shadows.
A McMaster led analysis of two Canadian mental health surveys is getting recycled as a weed panic story, even though the design can only show association. This piece breaks down what the data can actually support, what it cannot prove, and how headlines turn survey correlations into causal claims that fuel stigma, bad policy, and lazy coverage.
Louisiana HB 373 would create a tightly controlled adult-use cannabis pilot overseen by the Louisiana Department of Health. The bill limits participation to existing medical marijuana dispensaries, imposes permit renewal fees and a 3.5 percent wholesale assessment, and sunsets July 1, 2030, forcing lawmakers to decide whether to make legalization permanent.
