Louisiana had the opportunity to test the waters of expanding cannabis access to those 21 and older, but the state’s Republican trifecta decided to add a felony penalty for certain cannabis activities instead.
Legislation that had aimed to create a three-year pilot program to allow adults 21 and older to purchase cannabis from 10 of the state’s existing medical cannabis dispensaries failed to advance in the House Committee on Health and Welfare and died under Louisiana’s May 29 crossover deadline. The Louisiana Legislature adjourned on June 1, with unpassed bills unable to carry over to 2027.
Rep. Candace Newell, D-New Orleans, introduced the bill, the “Adult-Use Cannabis Pilot Program Regulation and Enforcement Act,” in February in hopes of allowing the Pelican State to test the “practicality of a potential permanent program in a real-world environment to determine if it works as intended,” while also generating tax revenue through a 3.5% gross wholesale fee on cannabis produced by the state’s two medical manufacturers.
“We can have that additional revenue and continue to stand up and support the programs that we already have in place and not constantly putting the funding of those programs on the back of our taxpayers,” Newell told Louisiana First News at the time.
The legislation would have preserved Louisiana’s nearly 7-year-old medical cannabis program that includes more than 3% of the state’s population – roughly 150,000 qualified patients – while also providing the data and feedback to assess the effectiveness and unintended consequences of adult-use cannabis sales without committing to a permanent program.
Louisiana is one of 42 states with state-licensed medical cannabis programs, where businesses could benefit from President Donald Trump administration’s April 2026 order to immediately reclassify state-sanctioned medical cannabis to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act, allowing operators to deduct ordinary expenses from their federal taxes.
Twenty-four of those states have also enacted adult-use legalization laws, which could also fall under a Schedule III listing following the Drug Enforcement Administration’s administrative law judge hearing scheduled to run June 29 through July 15.
Rather than acting on legislation to expand access under this new federal posture, Louisiana’s GOP-controlled government took a less permissive approach in 2026.
Gov. Jeff Landry announced May 29 that he signed legislation sponsored by Rep. Gabe Firment, R-Pollock, that adds a new felony offense starting Aug. 1 for anyone who uses cannabis within 2,000 feet of schools or on a school bus, penalizing convicted individuals with up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
“Like most of you, I’m tired of going to our college and high school campuses and being inundated with the smell of marijuana,” Landry said. “And I’m tired of seeing drugs littering our high school and college campuses, hurting our students. These drugs take away from the family-friendly environments that our colleges are supposed to be, especially on game days. That’s why I am proud to have signed House Bill 568.”
The governor added that the legislation takes a “massive” step toward protecting Louisiana families and children on those campuses.
“This bill will bring strong penalties on those caught smoking and vaping marijuana or using any other illegal drugs while in a drug-free school zone,” he said.
According to a summary of the bill, sentences related to these activities will not be eligible for parole, probation or suspension.
This new approach takes a U-turn from Louisiana’s current cannabis laws, which treat the possession of 14 grams (roughly half an ounce) of cannabis as a misdemeanor penalty with no possibility of jail time and a maximum $100 fine. Former Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards signed legislation in 2021 to remove the state’s threat of jail time for low-level offenses.
With Landry signing the new penalties into law on May 29, cannabis reform advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) pointed to the racially discriminatory policies of prohibition.
“Laws like this have a well-documented history of being enforced unevenly – falling hardest on low-income communities and communities of color,” according to MPP.
In 2018, Black people were 3.4 times more likely than white people to be arrested for cannabis possession in Louisiana, despite similar usage rates, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
