Written by Shaleen Title and Damian Fagon
Federal cannabis bills are not coming to save us. It’s October 2025, and the corporate-led strategy that has dominated the movement is dead. The same bills get introduced over and over, and like zombies, we deliver the same recycled responses, fight the same identical fights, and make no progress. We are no closer to federal legalization than we were five years ago. The attempted corporate takeover has clearly failed, and we’re still pretending that doing the exact same thing will yield a different result.
The cannabis policy movement needs a reboot. We are ready to pull the plug on this failed approach and start building the cannabis market we actually want instead, and we hope you will join us. It’s time for a complete overhaul, with a new strategy that puts local communities and fair markets at the center.
Wall Street Weed still frames this as a fairy tale in which they are the heroes, fighting valiantly for incremental wins while moral purists hold them back. But the truth is simpler: no one is holding them back. Despite all the money and lobbying, their strategy has failed.
The movement tried selling out to publicly traded cannabis companies – the most ambitious among us even selling out to Big Tobacco – and we remain stalled. Their lobbyists promised momentum and results but delivered nothing. None of their preferred bills passed, and none of their stated goals were met.
The good news is that we can change course by putting people over profits and building local power to bring real change. But first, we have to name the zombie ideas that keep staggering through every legislative session, devouring resources and delivering nothing.
First: “Federal legalization now; we’ll work out the details later.”
That argument made sense when we didn’t yet know what legalization looked like. But we do now. The details are the policy. Most people in the U.S. have access to dispensaries. They don’t particularly care about banking access and tax rates. Instead, we need to tell a clear story supporting a specific federal cannabis package with guardrails that protect all of us – consumers, workers, small businesses, and yes, communities harmed by prohibition.
Thanks to the selfless people who began this movement, the reform of federal cannabis laws remains a massively popular issue across the political spectrum. Our research shows that a majority of Americans believe legalization should benefit people who use marijuana as medicine, people who use marijuana for pleasure, people who have been harmed by past enforcement, workers, everyday people, locally owned businesses, and small businesses. A majority does not say the same for pharma, alcohol, tobacco, or large corporations. It’s time to start working toward that goal.
Second: “The market will figure it out”
This is not the 1980s. Relying on the so-called “free market” to equitably distribute value back to workers, small businesses, and consumers is a joke, and we all know it. Markets are intentionally constructed through policy and politics, not magic. Corporate free-for-alls don’t distribute wealth fairly; they concentrate it at the top. We can have markets that reward labor and local small businesses, but only if we build them intentionally.
That means structuring markets that separate growing, processing, and retail operations so no company can dominate every stage of the supply chain. It means explicitly limiting ownership concentration, protecting local programs that favor local businesses, and creating real protections for workers. We already have a blueprint from states that have created relatively fair and competitive cannabis markets, far more friendly to small businesses than comparable industries. These aren’t accidents – they’re the result of intentional policy design, and they can be replicated at the federal level.
Third: “Any marijuana bill is better than no marijuana bill”
No, it isn’t. Marijuana bills are not universally good. It will take an adjustment, but our movement has to understand and accept that some bills would have genuinely harmful consequences. In our view, a federal legalization bill that hands control of the market to giant conglomerates and continues criminalization in the American South is worse than the status quo. Passing the wrong bill could cement monopoly power for a generation.
And look, this would be a fair debate if corporate-backed bills were actually passing. But they’re not. So why are we tirelessly supporting their failed bills with our limited time, energy, and resources every session? Do you really think they’ll remember and reward us if they ever get their tax cut or buyout?
Let’s have some self-respect. Any bill without a plan to prevent monopolization should be a nonstarter. Let’s stop conflating justice with profits. Let’s stop pretending that incremental “progress” that only benefits large corporations is progress at all. Because states really are making some progress – they are clearing convictions, funding equity programs, and giving new entrepreneurs a shot. We need federal policy that protects and enhances these efforts, not erases them.
Looking Forward
For those of us who’ve been in this fight since before 2012, it’s time for clear-eyed assessment. We helped pass and implement one of the most significant policy changes in modern U.S. history, and that’s worth celebrating. But the playbook we built belonged to a different era, a time when wealth was less concentrated and corporate responsibility still meant something. Today’s inequality demands new tools. The old libertarian formula doesn’t just fail; it fuels the very harms we set out to repair.
The next phase belongs to a multicultural movement that understands post-legalization realities and sees how monopolies and regulatory capture threaten both justice and opportunity. Those of us who shaped the early reforms can still play a role as mentors helping this new generation take cannabis policy where it needs to go.
This new generation already has its north star: people first, profit last. As Kassandra Frederique of the Drug Policy Alliance reminds us, “The drug can’t have more rights than the people do.” That principle is not rhetorical; it’s the heart of this fight. If we are still obsessing over banking access and tax deductions while consumers are being criminalized again, we no longer have a movement. Brownie Mary and the AIDS activists who built this fight understood that cannabis was always about the health, safety and dignity of people.
And the people are still with us. Seventy percent of Americans support some form of legalization, but they are not asking for more corporate consolidation or Wall Street control. The cannabis industry doesn’t have to become yet another monopoly that drains more than it provides. But changing that outcome means replacing the old rules with new ones built around fairness, transparency, and justice.
The next era of cannabis reform will not be decided in Congress or corporate boardrooms. It will be built, once again, by people.
Shaleen Title and Damian Fagon are former cannabis regulators with Parabola Center for Law and Policy. Register for Parabola Center’s annual People Over Profits event in NYC this Saturday at parabolacenter.com/crashcourse.
This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.
