For many, the cannabis policy reform movement is rooted in the quest for personal liberty. Legalization isn’t just about getting high; it’s about being able to live your life the way you want to live it.
In too many places, however, the legalization of cannabis does not include the freedom to grow the plant. Instead, cannabis patients and consumers are forced to participate in an overregulated and overtaxed market that not everyone can afford.
The Freedom To Grow Depends on Where You Live
A total of 25 states with legal weed have also legalized home cultivation, either for medical cannabis patients or all adults aged 21 and older, according to information from cannabis reform advocacy group the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). But 15 states that have legalized pot (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and West Virginia) still forbid home cultivation. Most of these states have only legalized cannabis for medical use. Delaware and New Jersey, however, have legalized recreational use but don’t allow home cultivation.
Additionally, some states that have legalized home cannabis cultivation for some still deny many adults the right to grow. In Illinois and Washington, home cultivation has only been legalized for medical cannabis patients, while in Nevada, only those who live more than 25 miles from a licensed dispensary can grow their own weed.
The fact that so many states that have legalized marijuana still deny the people the right to grow plants at home raises a fundamental question. Is cannabis really legal if you can’t grow your own weed?
Cannabis Advocates Make the Case for Home Cultivation
Many people, myself included, believe home cultivation is an essential piece of cannabis legalization, and states that deny the right to grow have failed to adopt comprehensive reform. If people can still be put in jail or fined for growing a plant, there is still more work to do. And the advocates I reached out to agree.
Adam Smith, a longtime cannabis policy reform activist who was this month named executive director of MPP, says, “If you haven’t legalized home cultivation, you have not ended prohibition. You have simply created a corporate exemption.”
“If we’re talking about prohibition, the first question is, ‘Can I grow and use this plant?’ And if I am not free to grow and use this plant, then we are still in prohibition,” Smith tells me in a recent interview. “And we’re really not a free society if the government can tell you you can’t grow a plant.”
Smith notes that legalizing cannabis is especially important for medical cannabis patients who rely on a consistent supply of their medicine of choice. He adds that “banning home grow is particularly problematic in more rural states, many of which are medical-only, where both cost and distance can be prohibitive of legal access.”
Pioneering cannabis activist Steve DeAngelo also sees the right to grow cannabis as an essential facet of legalization. DeAngelo, an experienced home and commercial grower who was recently named global brand ambassador for Blimburn Seeds, says that legalizing home grow gives cannabis patients an element of control over their healthcare.
“One of the reasons that we work so hard to make cannabis legal is because there is a tremendous number of people in this country who are ill-served by the current healthcare system and have found that cannabis offers them a way out of dependency, surgeries, pharmaceuticals and other types of therapies that just don’t work, and that often have terrible side effects,” he says in a telephone interview.
DeAngelo notes that many cannabis patients are disabled and often no longer able to work. With the cost of living and healthcare costs rising all the time, “home growing offers an option, a viable option, for the parts of our community that most need cannabis and are least able to pay for it.”
Popular hash maker and consultant The Dank Duchess has more than two decades of experience as a cannabis cultivator. She also sees the freedom to grow the plant as an essential right.
“Making cannabis legal without allowing for home grow makes a mockery of personal freedoms,” Duchess writes in an email. “The restriction mandates the commercialization of cannabis and demands strict adherence to the hamster wheel of paying premium prices for that which can be created on one’s own.”
The Work Continues
With cannabis still illegal in 10 states (not to mention at the federal level) and home cultivation outlawed or restricted in many others, it’s clear that we as a cannabis community still have work to do. And it’s incumbent on those who are reaping the benefits of reform to lead the charge for further change.
Unfortunately, however, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, the ones making money off of legal weed are the staunchest opponents of letting people grow their own herb.
In 2018, the New York Medical Cannabis Industry Association sent then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo a 29-page memo outlining the group’s opposition to home cannabis cultivation. In the memo, which was obtained through a freedom of information request by Marijuana Moment, the trade group cited the potential for home cultivation to undermine the regulated market and pose a threat to public health as reasons to continue the prohibition on home growing. A month after receiving the memo, Cuomo proposed a legalization plan that banned personal cultivation.
Smith of MPP says that a cannabis company’s opposition to home cultivation should serve as a red flag to patients and consumers.
“I think we can separate out the folks in the industry, in particular, who actually care about people and consumers and patients and the plant, versus those who care only about their ROI, by looking at who supports people’s right to grow this plant and who doesn’t. And I think that people should take note of that,” says Smith.
“Because although this is now an industry, it is also a movement,” he continues. “People are still being arrested. People are still not allowed to grow a plant. And if you are benefiting from this industry in any way, or attempting to benefit in any way, and you’re fighting against the right of people to grow this plant on their own, then you are an enemy of the cause, essentially.”
This year, lawmakers in New Hampshire and Florida introduced legislation to legalize home cannabis cultivation in their states. Although neither effort succeeded this time around, the bills continued the conversation on an essential aspect of marijuana policy reform.
Of course, cannabis policy reform groups and the regulated industry can’t be expected to successfully legalize home cultivation in all states without help. It’s also up to the cannabis community at large to support efforts to effect change. Lawmakers generally look to their constituents for guidance on policy, so all cannabis consumers should make their thoughts on legalization, including home cultivation, known to their representatives.
Cannabis consumers can help advance the cause by patronizing brands that support comprehensive cannabis policy reform, including provisions that allow for home cultivation. Companies that oppose personal grows should be avoided.
Because, as Smith maintains, “there’s a special place in hell for those seeking to profit from the plant, while fighting against people’s right to grow it.”
Photo: Shutterstock
