These US states are most likely to legalize marijuana in 2025

Right now, the adult use of marijuana for fun is legal in 24 US states along with Washington DC, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands. And yet it's stupidly still a Federal crime. Marijuana Moment spoke with multiple legalization advocates to get a sense of where reform is most likely in 2025:


Pennsylvania and Hawaii are widely seen by proponents as the most promising states for adult-use cannabis legalization in the year ahead. As for medical marijuana legalization, Kansas and the Carolinas are key states to watch. Wisconsin, meanwhile, is expecting renewed efforts to legalize the substance for both medical and adult-use.

"We need to be looking at Pennsylvania. We need to be looking at Hawaii," said Morgan Fox, political director at the advocacy group NORML. "Those are at the top of my list. The one right after that is Wisconsin."

The effort in Kansas could also be "interesting," Fox added, calling it "a hard target for cannabis policy reform." The North Carolina and South Carolina, meanwhile, are "ripe for moving medical bills," he continued, "but there's still a tremendous amount of opposition."

A legalization effort is also on deck in New Hampshire this year, and advocates are pushing to add a legal and regulated sales component to an existing noncommercial legalization law in Virginia, though significant political obstacles exist in both states.

And yet at the federal level under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Marijuana still remains a Schedule I drug "having no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." Fortunately, that stupidity may finally end.

"If they do end up moving cannabis to Schedule III, then I think we're going to have a very, very different conversation," says Kevin Caldwell, Southeast legislative manager at the Marijuana Policy Project. "If rescheduling happens and if Donald Trump starts speaking about cannabis reform from the White House, I think it's going to be a very different conversation at the state level with conservatives."