For the Culture By The Culture
Congress buried a hemp ban inside a federal funding deal and triggered a crisis that threatens farmers, retailers, processors, and millions of consumers nationwide. A microscopic THC limit will erase products, crush rural economies, and push people back toward alcohol or the underground. The fight now moves to the Farm Bill, where pressure can force lawmakers to fix what they broke.
A Blacklight investigation into how celebrity cannabis branding has warped the meaning of icon and overshadowed the activists, caregivers, and families who carried the plant through criminalization. This feature exposes the cultural amnesia that elevates market-friendly faces while burying the movement’s real architects and the sacrifices that made modern legalization possible.
Congress just buried hemp inside the 2025 spending bill, redefining the crop to outlaw hemp-derived THC products that built a $28 billion market. Farmers, brands, and workers face erasure without a vote or debate. Pot Culture Magazine exposes how lawmakers quietly re-criminalized hemp and why voices from Cheech & Chong to NORML say this fight is far from over.
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 Despite legalization across most of America, the VA clings to outdated federal law, blocking its doctors from recommending or prescribing marijuana.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.
Each October, the same urban legend returns: strangers handing out weed candy. NORML and UVA Health say it’s pure fiction. No one’s giving away $60 gummies, but accidental ingestion is real, driven by bad packaging and lazy storage. The true Halloween threat isn’t monsters or dealers, it’s fear and ignorance disguised as public safety.
