For all cannabis legalization's development, and all the excitement drug-policy reform and a flourishing CBD and cannabis market make, much of the United States remains outwardly hostile to cannabis - in some cases, outwardly so.


Against this background, a few states stick out for soldiering on with the drug war.


In Mississippi, where CBD oil was legal even prior to the Farm Bill-sparked CBD trend, an Oregon man was sentenced to 12 years in prison for basic ownership - a draconian penalty that was, in reality, a re-negotiated sentence that was meant to be kind. And in Oklahoma, which may be the most cannabis entrepreneur-friendly state in the nation, a delivery of what was apparently hemp was seized by authorities, who as of previously this month stayed hellbent on showing that what Mitch McConnell stated was a legal product is premises for jail time. With some noteworthy exceptions, the entire American South has been a last bastion of cannabis restriction and the drug war status quo.



But these are not the worst culprits. These are not quite as bad as Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota. In these three states, there is no medical cannabis access of any kind. Outliers, last redoubts of a failed concept, clinging frantically to a lost cause, these are the only 3 states in the Union without any cannabis reform laws on the books at all, according to NORML.



What "development" there is here borders on a paradoxical joke. About the very best there is to report from any of these legal cannabis-free zones is what the. Cannabis Docs of MD Policy Project called the "most restrictive and limited of any state law that acknowledges some kind of cannabis's medical worth." A 2017 law that says South Dakota locals can access CBD-only oil, but just if and when CBD products get official federal Food and Drug Administration approval, a procedure that is most likely to take years.



The bright side is that all three states enable citizen-driven tally efforts. And activists in all 3 states are attempting to put substantive medical cannabis measures on the 2020 tally. But even if they prosper, gain access to might be years away and, in the meantime, state homeowners should compete with a few of the country's strictest possession laws.


Idaho


Idaho is in the West, where legal cannabis made its first and most long lasting stand. Idaho also abuts a number of legal states. Ad Idaho, persistent and obstinate, declines to play the game and, in reality, signs up with states like California and Colorado in openly flouting federal law, however in favor of making cannabis more prohibited than even the Controlled Substances Act calls for.



Simple belongings of 3 ounces or less is a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine or a year in prison; more than 3 ounces is a felony. If you're growing in your home, as you can do throughout the border in Washington, you're having fun with a felony charge punishable by as much as 15 years in prison, if authorities argue the cultivation is for sale.



Idaho is also where state authorities decided that the Farm Bill signed into law by Donald Trump last December does not use. Though federal law now says that cannabis sativa with 0.3 percent of less of THC is hemp and legal to possess, Idaho state law declares THC of any quantity verboten and so hemp deliveries here are subject to seizure, in open defiance of federal authorities who insist that hemp is OK.



After yet another session in the state Legislature ended with no reform, activists will try for the 2020 tally. If they can gather 55,000 signatures from registered voters by the end of April 2020, citizens will have the possibility to bring the state "up to speed with states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, and West Virginia," as project representative Bill Esbensen just recently informed press reporters. That may not appear like much of a standard - West Virginia's program is not yet functional and it took Arkansas, governed by a previous DEA chief, several years to get a voter-approved procedure off the ground - however intentionally comparing Idaho to other conservative states who are far ahead is a sensible move.



Of the 3 medical-less states, Nebraska may use the best harbor, however prowling behind every slight fracture in the prohibitionist facade is nuclear-level penalty.



The maximum charge for having small amounts of cannabis is $300, though sales of "any amount" can be penalized with a necessary minimum of one year in jail. Possessing cannabis concentrates - like a vape-oil cartridge - can land you in state jail for 5 years.



That's all bad. A bill that would legalize medical cannabis stalled out in the state Legislature earlier this year and throughout debate, a crowd of protesters put together outside the state house to demand that restriction be kept in location.
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To comprehend why, possibly it's valuable to peek into some Nebraskans' mindsets. Lincoln resident Margaret Wall described herself to Omaha.com as a "pot refugee," who particularly relocated to Nebraska because it was among the Last Three states with no cannabis reform laws on the books - which opposing even a restricted medical-cannabis bill is necessary to keep the state from slipping towards legalization. Wall and all of her good friends may need to repeat the efficiency next year if advocates are successful in putting a procedure on the ballot.


This may be the final frontier for cannabis reform in America.


It wasn't constantly in this manner: South Dakota actually decriminalized cannabis in 1977, however experienced a severe case of reformers' regret and "almost immediately" rescinded the law, as the Marijuana Policy Project notes. But in the years considering that, South Dakotans have actually regularly shown they're not interested: medical-cannabis ballot initiatives were voted down in 2006 and 2010 by progressively broad margins - the last effort lost by nearly two-to-one - and a proposed initiative last year did not certify.