For the Culture By The Culture
Reefer Report Card Vol. 29 tracks a week where cannabis demand held steady while governance cracked. Ballot initiatives threatened regulated markets, federal reform stalled behind messaging, and patients absorbed the fallout. Legal weed stayed popular. Oversight became optional. Another week where legalization survived but accountability did not.
A new medical cannabis dispensary on South Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans is labeled "controversial" in a corridor already saturated with alcohol and tobacco sales. This piece examines how zoning laws, stigma, and selective moral outrage continue to frame cannabis as a threat while more harmful substances remain normalized.
This week’s Reefer Report Card cuts through the hype around cannabis “rescheduling,” exposing how a label change left federal prohibition fully intact. Arrest authority, workplace punishment, and immigration penalties remain untouched. Headlines claimed progress. Reality delivered none. A week defined by performance over policy, and reform that never arrived.
Veterans are still denied access to the cannabis that could help them heal. Despite legalization across most of America, the VA clings to outdated federal law, blocking its doctors from recommending or prescribing marijuana. Lawmakers praise veterans in public while denying them the right to the medicine that works. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Across Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, quiet legalization is replacing old fear. Dispensaries open, hemp farms thrive, and police turn away from small possession. Lawmakers who once preached prohibition now profit from regulation. The Bible Belt’s cannabis rebellion is alive and growing, and the South is no longer waiting for Washington to catch up.
Idaho clings to prohibition while veterans beg for relief. Kind Idaho fights to decriminalize a plant that heals, while lawmaker Bruce Skaug pushes laws that jail the sick and silence voters. This is not policy, it is punishment. The question is simple: Does Idaho fear weed more than truth?
