Law Enforcement

With cannabis now legal for adult use throughout New York, the NYPD told officers they can no longer arrest people for public cannabis consumption.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law a bill that requires parental notification by law enforcement whenever minors are caught illegally possessing cannabis.

John McLeod is the co-founder of Cloud Cannabis Co., a Michigan cannabis retailer with dispensaries in Ann Arbor, Muskegon, and Traverse City.

Washington state law enforcement agencies are releasing responses including guidance and pushback to the state’s Supreme Court ruling last week that effectively decriminalized all drug possession.

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal has instructed prosecutors to dismiss any pending cannabis-related charges that would no longer be illegal under the state’s new legalization law.

New Jersey police have issued over 6,000 arrests for simple cannabis possession since voters overwhelmingly approved legalization reforms last November.

Black people in Montana are 9.6 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than their white counterparts — it is the country’s biggest racial disparity for cannabis arrests. Colorado, at 1.5 times more likely, has the lowest racial disparity among cannabis arrests.

A man who filmed himself smoking a joint during the infamous US Capitol siege on January 6 has been arrested by the FBI.

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to end its use of private prisons.

New Zealand law enforcement officials have ended the country’s annual cannabis eradication operation, choosing instead to focus on combating “more harmful substances such as methamphetamine.”

Protestors in Pensacola, Florida rallied last weekend in support of the release of Nedal Abdel Mohammad, a local smoke shop owner who was arrested in 2019 after authorities mistook a legal CBD shipment for cannabis.

The DEA published a new rule on Thursday that will allow researchers to apply to cultivate cannabis for research purposes.

A former civilian employee for the U.S. Marine Corps was sentenced to four years and four months in prison in Japan after he was arrested last year for illegal cannabis sales.

A New York plant nursery is suing the Washington County Sheriff after deputies destroyed more than 250 of the group’s licensed hemp research plants.

Two police officers in South Dakota have filed a lawsuit claiming the state’s voter-approved cannabis legalization initiative violates the state constitution.

Police in Fort Worth, Texas have opted out of enforcing low-level cannabis possession laws due to the legal status of hemp, which is indistinguishable from cannabis without lab testing.

About 260,000 plants were destroyed and 30 tons of evidence confiscated last week during a police raid on a hemp farm accused of growing illicit cannabis on Navajo Nation land.

The FBI joined Navajo Nation Police and over a dozen other law enforcement agencies in a raid on the hemp operation owned by Dineh Benally. The raid is part of a unified investigation into reports of illegal cannabis cultivation, drug trafficking, and labor law violations.

Nevada regulators have extended the expiration dates for cannabis industry employment ID cards by 90 days as the state works through a backlog of applications.

Law enforcement confiscated over 15,000 cannabis plants last week around the San Francisco Bay Area, highlighting ongoing issues with California’s highly taxed cannabis marketplace.

The FBI last week raided the offices and homes of several California officials as part of an investigation into cannabis-related corruption.

A woman is suing a Tennessee State Highway Patrol officer after he charged her with drug-related felonies despite the substance in question being hemp, confirmed by hemp permits from the state Agriculture Department and six certificates of analysis by a private laboratory.

A coordinated law enforcement raid in Washington state last week brought down a large cannabis smuggling operation based out of 27 homes in Skyway, Renton, Kent, Maple Valley, SeaTac, and other Puget Sound communities.

The DEA is seeking a contractor capable of incinerating up to 8,000 pounds of cannabis and other federally prohibited substances per day.