For the Culture By The Culture
This week’s Reefer Report Card tracks mounting pressure across the cannabis world as the federal hemp derived THC crackdown rattles a multibillion dollar market, New York’s enforcement chaos deepens, Germany’s legalization plan stalls, and global reform hits resistance. Veterans and patients remain stuck in outdated systems. A tense week for cannabis policy and international legalization.
The New York Post claims New York is facing a wave of cannabis poisoned teenagers, but the data says otherwise. Teen cannabis use is falling, most exposure calls involve toddlers, and the Post inflated and misrepresented key numbers to manufacture panic. This feature dismantles the fear narrative with verifiable facts, national trends, and hard receipts.
Michigan’s new 24 percent wholesale cannabis tax is being sold as a road repair plan but looks more like a cash grab. Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s law faces a constitutional challenge from the Michigan Cannabis Industry Association, while NORML’s Paul Armentano warns that greedy taxation drives consumers back underground and destroys legal markets that voters fought to build. The weed war is back this time in a budget.
ICE raids tore through California’s cannabis farms, leaving a trail of arrests, trauma, and one worker dead. With helicopters, tear gas, and rubber bullets, federal agents sent a chilling message to growers and immigrant laborers alike. This hard-edged feature unpacks the chaos, the hypocrisy, and the cost of cultivating legal weed in prohibition’s shadow.
What if you could light up during the movie? Thanks to new laws in New York and Massachusetts, cannabis-friendly cinemas are moving from stoner fantasy to cultural reality. This feature explores the legal shakeups, industry impact, and how theaters could become the next frontier in social cannabis consumption.
Another study, another misleading headline. The media is at it again, twisting nuanced cannabis research into fear-mongering clickbait. Here’s what The Independent got wrong—and why this keeps happening
