Medicinal cannabis law in the USA: history, movements, trends, and countertrends

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: In recent decades, the United States (USA), after banning the use, possession, and commerce of the CS plant for medicinal and social purposes for nearly a century, has embarked on law reform processes and movements at the state level to legalize the plant, forging regulated markets to support these changes. The present study’s objective was to describe the history of prohibition and eventual legalization, observing the social, political, and economic components that contributed to this paradigm shift. CONTENTS: Qualitative research, using observation, literature review, and analysis of practical experience in advocacy processes, law reform, and building regulated markets to replace prohibition. The historical, social, and economic processes that made up the end of the prohibition of CS and its later regulation as a substance for medicinal and social use were described. CONCLUSION: CS during the last century has been labeled as a drug with no medicinal potential for purely political and non-scientific reasons. A number of civil society movements in the US led to the legalization of CS due to its therapeutic properties. These movements have succeeded in redefining the plant as a medicine rather than a drug, while also taking into account the high social and economic costs of criminalizing it.