Only about a third of Americans think marijuana is dangerous, and less than half still believe the “gateway theory” that using cannabis makes people significantly more likely to try more dangerous drugs, according to a new poll.

The survey, released by Rasmussen Reports on Tuesday, asked U.S. adults how dangerous they think cannabis is.

Just over one out of three indicated they think marijuana is either somewhat (24 percent) or very dangerous (13 percent).

In contrast, a majority of respondents said cannabis is either not dangerous at all (27 percent) or not very dangerous (28 percent).

When asked how likely they believe it is that “marijuana use leads to the use of more dangerous drugs,” just 18 percent said it is very likely and 27 percent believe it is somewhat likely. Nineteen percent said it is not at all likely and 27 percent think it is not very likely, while 9 percent said they aren’t sure.

When broken down by party, Republicans are more likely to believe that marijuana is either somewhat or very dangerous (50 percent) than Democrats are (33 percent).

GOP voters are also more likely to buy the gateway theory about marijuana being very or somewhat likely to be true (60 percent) than Democrats are (42 percent).

The poll involved interviews with 1,234 American adults between September 8-10 and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.

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The results comport with other recent surveys showing that American attitudes and behaviors around cannabis are shifting.

A Gallup poll released last month, for example, found that a record-high number of U.S. adults now smoke marijuana, while cigarette smoking is at an all-time low.

Similarly, an analysis of federal National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) data published last year showed that more Americans now use marijuana than smoke cigarettes amid shifting perceptions of harm of the two substances.

A study released last month found that people who consume cannabis-infused THC beverages end up drinking less alcohol.

Last year, a separate Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans remain in favor of legalizing marijuana but that support saw a slight dip from 2024—a trend that’s been “driven by Republicans” who are turning against the reform.

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“2028 sounds far away. But artwork gets locked with the printer weeks or months before the run. Then the boxes sit in a warehouse until they are used.”

By Adrian A. Holguin, CannaShark Consulting

Last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed AB 2249, a bill that puts a much clearer line around what cannabis packaging, labels and ads can look like. The short version: no child-oriented dragons, unicorns or wizards; nobody who looks under 21; no imagery of candy, cereal, sweets or desserts primarily marketed to children; no child-style bubble or balloon lettering; and no packaging that mimics a noncannabis product marketed to kids.

The new definition takes effect on January 1, 2028.

Most of the coverage stopped there, and I get it. “Rules take effect in sixteen months” doesn’t make anyone spill their coffee. But operators tend to call me after a rule costs more than they expected, so here’s why 2028 is not the date that matters.

First, the basics.

California has banned cannabis packaging that is “attractive to children” since legal sales began, and cartoons on labels are already prohibited. The problem was that the line remained subjective and was applied inconsistently. A 2025 state audit found that Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) rules were not specific enough and that reasonable reviewers sometimes reached different conclusions about similar packaging.

AB 2249 draws a clearer line. It defines “attractive to children” as designed or likely to appeal to anyone under 21, then identifies cartoons; depictions of people under 21; celebrities, influencers, characters and mascots primarily associated with contemporary children’s media or products; fantasy characters such as unicorns, wizards and dragons; imagery of candy, cereal, sweets and desserts primarily marketed to children; child-oriented bubble or balloon lettering; and packaging that mimics a noncannabis product marketed to children.

Cartoon or overly stylized fruit on an edible or vape label is out. A realistic depiction of fruit that accurately reflects an ingredient or production region is allowed.

The bill also authorizes DCC to adopt additional rules for design elements or product characteristics that pose a heightened risk to children, and it requires the department to develop self-assessment resources.

DCC launched its AI-based Cannabis Product Image Analyzer in June. Use it as a screening tool, not a safe harbor: an automated result is advisory, not a final DCC determination.

AB 2249 sets no deadline for additional rulemaking or for the required resources, so operators are still designing against a target that could move.

Now here’s the part that got underplayed.

Packaging isn’t bought like office supplies. Many brands buy it in runs representing six months to a year of inventory because that is how they protect unit economics. Artwork gets locked with the printer weeks or months before the run. Then the boxes sit in a warehouse until they are used.

So play it forward. A brand placing a normal-sized packaging order in early 2027 may be buying stock it expects to use well into 2028. AB 2249 contains no express sell-through safe harbor for old packaging.

Unless DCC issues contrary guidance, the prudent plan is to assume that product offered for sale on January 1, 2028 must comply with the new definition. That may put the artwork deadline in late 2026. In other words, somebody has to decide now whether the mascot stays.

The California Cannabis Industry Association opposed the bill on cost, and that concern is real. A redesign can mean compliance review, new plates, minimum order quantities, retailer notifications and eventually paying someone to destroy old packaging. But the final Senate vote was 38-0, and the Assembly concurred 69-1.

The cost is now a scheduling problem, and scheduling problems are only cheap if you start early.

Handled on the front end, this is a calendar and a manageable cost. Handled on the back end, it becomes destroyed inventory, retailer disruption, potential enforcement and a bill with more zeros. The difference is almost never information. Operators knew the rule was coming. The problem is that “2028” sounds far away.

If you hold a California license, this quarter looks like this: pull every SKU and flag anything with a character, creature, candy cue, child-oriented lettering or stylized fruit. If you have to argue about whether the gummy bear is a cartoon, it probably is.

Get your printer’s real lead times in writing and work backward from January 1, 2028. Start the redesign conservatively, have the final art reviewed, and run it through DCC’s tool as a screen before the plates are cut. Then size your last old-look order to sell through before 2028.

Nobody should build a compliance plan around the hope that the state will be generous with a pallet of dragon gummies.

The state gave you sixteen months. Your printer gave you about six. Plan around the printer.

Adrian A. Holguin, J.D., M.B.A., is founder and president of CannaShark Consulting. He advises cannabis operators and businesses in other highly regulated industries on licensing, compliance, finance and operations, and also serves as an expert witness.

Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.

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There’s no meaningful evidence that imposing higher taxes on marijuana would steer people away from using it—contrary to a claim recently made by the The New York Times editorial board—according to a new scientific analysis of cannabis consumption and tax data.

In fact, raising the cost of cannabis sold at state-licensed retailers could lead people to return to the illicit market to obtain cheaper (and untested) marijuana that carries its own public health and safety risks.

The new report, authored by Ohio State University (OSU) Moritz College of Law researchers Dexter Ridgway and Jana Hrdinová, drew on nationally representative survey data from federal sources and marijuana tax rates in states that have enacted legalization to test the idea that putting a higher premium on cannabis for adults could positively influence consumer behavior and deter heavy marijuana use.

In its editorial, the board emphasized that while the federal government imposes taxes on alcohol and tobacco sales, it doesn’t do the same for marijuana—which is no surprise given that the plant remains federally illegal, as do the state-licensed shops that sell it. The board said “increases in tobacco taxes have been a major reason that its use has declined during the 21st century, with profound health benefits.”

“The first step in a strategy to reduce marijuana abuse should be a federal tax on pot. States should also raise taxes on pot; today, state taxes can be as low as a few additional cents on a joint,” the editorial argued. “Taxes should be high enough to deter excessive use, on the scale of dollars per joint, not cents.”

The idea that high marijuana taxes are causally associated with lower usage rates isn’t exactly settled science, the OSU report said, as states with varying tax rates for cannabis have seen disparate trends in consumer behavior.

“More generally, at a time when the legal cannabis marketplace is a patchwork of ever-changing state laws and industries, the overall relationship between tax rates and marijuana use rates (and especially heavy use rates) is quite unclear,” the researchers wrote.

They pointed out, for example, that marijuana is taxed at the highest rate in Washington State (43.5 percent), and the state has the sixth highest usage rate (22 percent) in the dataset. By contrast, New Jersey has the lowest tax rate (6.6 percent) and reports the lowest usage rate (14.4 percent), ranking in the bottom half nationally.

“These patterns do not imply that taxes have no effect on consumption, but they do suggest that assuming marijuana users will respond to taxation like tobacco users is overly simplistic,” the report says.

Via OSU.

Ultimately, the OSU report—which assessed 2023-2024 survey data from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)—concluded that “there is no apparent correlation between marijuana tax rate and marijuana usage rate.”

“Merely looking at tax rates and usage rates ignores the myriad of other factors that can influence the rate of use, such as the maturity of the legal market, the ease of access to product affected by number of dispensaries per population, the price of the product in a given state (since marijuana cannot be traded across state lines, the way states regulate the number of licensed growers significantly affects availability/price of product) and many other factors,” the researchers said.

“The New York Times editorial soundly stressed the importance, from a public health perspective, of limiting excessive or high potency marijuana use. Additional data is needed to assess the role of tax increases to deter the riskiest marijuana uses and users, and policy progress here will likely require a broader regulatory approach, besides taxation. These 2023 data suggest no simple inverse relationship between state tax rates and marijuana use, and effective policy must account for market structure, product availability and the wide availability of illicit product.”

Via OSU.

To be sure, where the editorial board, advocates and researchers seem to align is in their shared position that the federal government’s decades-long prohibitionist policies and the resulting lack of robust regulations is a problem. States have been passively permitted to participate in the cannabis experiment without federal safeguards in place or guidance on policy issues such as cannabis tax rates or potency limits for marijuana products, for example.

The marijuana tax policy discussion has continued to play out in states and cities across the U.S. where marijuana laws are being considered or tweaked. There might not be consensus around the appropriate tax rate for cannabis, but there’s a general understanding that governments must balance revenue interests with the need to make regulated cannabis products cost-competitive with the illicit market.

The Times editorial board further argued in its piece that an “advantage of taxes is that they fall much more on heavy users than casual smokers.”

“If a joint cost $10 instead of $5, it would mean a lot of extra money for someone now smoking multiple joints a day and may change that person’s behavior,” it said in the editorial, which has faced scrutiny from multiple skeptical sources. “It would not be a big burden for someone who smokes occasionally.”

But as the OSU analysis argues, there’s “reason to fear that significantly higher tax rates for marijuana products could shift use into unregulated and more dangerous illicit markets rather than to deter or reduce problematic cannabis use.”

At the federal level, marijuana may soon be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which wouldn’t federally legalize the plant but would free up certain research barriers and allow state-licensed cannabis businesses to take federal tax deductions they’ve been barred from under Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code 280E.

That latter effect is expected to give the cannabis sector an economic boost, but because marijuana products would remain illegal to sell under federal law, rescheduling alone wouldn’t necessarily create a clear pathway for a new federal tax as the Times editorial board is proposing.

Removing the 280E penalty could also potentially bring cannabis prices down if industry operators decide to pass any of their tax savings on to the consumer.

“The federal government needs to be part of these solutions. Leaving taxes and regulations to the states threatens to create a race to the bottom in which people can cross state lines to buy their pot,” the board said. “Congress can set a floor, as it has done, however inadequately, with alcohol and tobacco, and states can build on it as they choose.”

Various congressional bills to legalize cannabis have included federal tax provisions, with specific appropriations in mind for the revenue, but none of those have advanced in the current Congress.

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