State Information

To see the rules for your state or territory, you can either click it on the map above or find it in the list below. Because marijuana is still considered an illicit drug by the federal government, all medical marijuana programs must be created by state governments. The rules for these programs are unique to each state, and they regulate who is legally allowed to recommend cannabis, who is legally allowed to cultivate cannabis, what qualifying conditions patients must have to be eligible for the program, whether patients from out-of-state are allowed to participate in the program or to legally possess cannabis, and the amounts and forms of cannabis one can legally possess (some states, for example, only allow the sale of extracts or set limits on THC concentration). We have also provided links to each state’s medicinal program, provided one exists.

In additional to outlining the rules for each state's medical marijuana program, we have also provided an overview of the laws regulating possession and cultivation for recreational use, as well as the penalties for violating these laws. 

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Another important note is that we have chosen to use the word “marijuana” throughout this section. This may seem like a strange departure from the book, since “cannabis” is the preferred word to use when referring to the plant, but this was a deliberate choice based on two reasons. The first is that most states—with the exceptions of Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Utah, and West Virginia (as well as the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands)—have a medical “marijuana” (or “marihuana” in Michigan) program. Secondly, when discussing the penalties for possession or cultivation, we are referring to the possession or cultivation of “marijuana” as defined by the federal government—cannabis products that contain more than 0.3% THC.