Last week, thousands across the nation celebrated 4/20, a beloved, though legally unrecognized, holiday on April 20. The holiday is a day for celebrating cannabis, which began with an afternoon rendezvous at a humble California high school and has now spread across the nation as a day of relaxation, enjoyment and typically no shortage of snacking.
Festivities were particularly joyful in New Orleans throughout the week. Though no formal events for the holiday were thrown, with the presence of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and many a Tulane student facing a stressful finals season, there was definitely a bit of smoke in the air.
Louisiana has been gradually moving towards decriminalization and enhanced access to cannabis for years, formally legalizing it for medical use in 1978 but only truly enacting a medical program in 2015. Since then, more exceptions have been made under the law, new dispensaries have popped up and the process of meeting with a doctor and getting a recommendation is relatively speedy.
However, the current legal framework still presents many practical challenges to citizens using the program. The main barrier is cost. Patients with the chronic conditions that medical marijuana would assist with frequently struggle with poverty, and with an ounce hovering at around $300 to $500, they are frequently priced out of receiving relief.
The consensus is overwhelming now, as it has been for years: The people of Louisiana want marijuana legalized, regulated and taxed.
That last part is one of the main practical benefits of legalization. Green tends to generate green. Missouri, the closest state to Louisiana with recreational cannabis access, generated $87 million from taxes on the product in 2025. As the state budget shrinks year after year, a cannabis tax injection could alleviate some immediate budgetary pressures.
Furthermore, recreational legalization would have an additional economic benefit by marking Louisiana as the only state in the Deep South with cannabis fully legalized. All of our neighbors either have strict medical programs or maintain total bans.
The booming success of the Mardi Gras Amtrak line, smashing original rider projections by over 30,000, demonstrates that the Gulf Coast remains one of the hottest tourist destinations in the nation. Access to affordable cannabis in one of the greatest entertainment cities on Earth would only stimulate tourism more.
Cannabis tourism has already been shown to have a positive economic impact in states like Washington and Colorado, with hotel revenues rising over 25% in the latter following its successful implementation of recreational cannabis, and the overall cannabis tourism industry is valued in the tens of billions of dollars. Louisiana has a unique opportunity to seize the profits of this industry.
It’s not hard to imagine the throngs of tourists from Mississippi, Texas and Florida who could regularly fill Bourbon Street with a doobie in one hand, a Hurricane in the other, watching some live jazz music and happily pouring money into our state coffers.
Admittedly, these potential profits from pothead pilgrims are largely hypothetical, though their presence in plenty of other states provides potent reasoning for full legalization.
However, the existing medical system must be reformed to meet the needs of the people. The highly restrictive regulations limit in-state cannabis growing to just a few approved partners, partners who, purely coincidentally, of course, have deep ties to long-standing wealthy business titans.
These business interests are muzzling the economic prosperity of Louisiana so that they may drip-feed themselves by exploiting the vulnerability of patients with chronic conditions.
Our state GOP continues to doggedly defend our uniquely terrible and exploitative program, with AG Liz Murrill citing nonspecific public health concerns.
I would advise Murrill to actually sit down with the patients of this state, the men and women who wake up in excruciating pain every day, who rarely have moments of peace from debilitating PTSD or any number of other conditions which cause immense, daily suffering, and understand the pain of having to choose between relief or rent.
The public opinion is clear. The prospects of prosperity are visible. Either Louisiana must fully legalize, regulate and tax cannabis or be left behind as the green wave passes by our shores.
Gordon Crawford is a 20-year-old political science major from Gonzales, La.
