The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that states that have legalized marijuana are providing cover for illicit cultivation operations by foreign cartels—while at the same time implicitly acknowledging that ongoing prohibition in other states creates opportunities for that cannabis to be sold on the illegal market.
The agency’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment that was released on Thursday includes a section on marijuana trafficking, claiming that cartels and other organized crime groups “operate under business registrations granted by state licensing authorities in jurisdictions where marijuana cultivation and sales are ‘legal’ at the state level.”
The report states that “without overt evidence, such as trafficking marijuana between states or money laundering or human trafficking,” it is difficult for police to identify or detect an illegal grow. “Asian [Transnational Criminal Organizations, or TSOs] Defy plant quantity restrictions, production quotas and non-licensed sale, and conceal behind the state-by-state variation in laws governing registration requirements, accountability practices, and plant counts.”
DEA suggested that cartels are leveraging state cannabis markets by transporting “large amounts of marijuana directly from ‘legal’ states to states that have not legalized recreational use and those where state-level recreational approval is sufficiently recent to not yet have an established, regulated cannabis industry.”
Underlying that analysis seems to be a perhaps inadvertent acknowledgment by DEA that cartels are profiting off ongoing prohibition outside of legal states—indicating that the main demand for illicit marijuana isn’t coming from within states that provide regulated access to consumers but instead those where cannabis remains criminalized.
This analysis reflects what many advocates have argued for years: that legalization will disrupt the illicit market.
DEA has used quotation marks to emphasize the position of the federal government that marijuana regulated by state governments is not legal. Yet, it is notable that a part of their analysis mentions states which haven’t “yet” established a legal market, as a nod that there continues to be public pressure to legitimize marijuana in new places.
According to the report, due to the high potency cannabis produced by Chinese traffickers, there has been an increase in demand in western Europe and the U.S. The report states that “Overseas shipment are commonly transported via commercial flight from the United States or Canada, and on container ships departing a U.S. Port.”
In a recent press release, Robert Murphy, the Acting Administrator of DEA, said that “DEA, our federal, State, and Local law enforcement partners, must continue to work together and adapt to combat global drug trafficking organisations at all levels.” By joining forces and reducing supply and demand we can eliminate the drug trafficking network and create a healthier and safer future for Americans.
Report mentions marijuana in two ways that seem contradictory: One, DEA says that cannabis is illegal in legal states, but on the flip side, they acknowledge that cannabis products are grown in other states, where it is still prohibited.
Terrance Cole, the President Donald Trump nominee to run DEA and who has recently refused to commit on rescheduling cannabis or say what he plans to do about federal enforcement of states which have legalized marijuana.
The nominee, in written answers to two Democratic Senators, as part of the confirmation process, largely avoided answering questions about marijuana policy, such as a proposal that had been initiated by the Biden Administration to shift cannabis from Schedule I into Schedule III.
Cole has previously voiced concerns about the dangers of marijuana and linked its use to higher suicide risk among youth.
While he gave noncommittal answers when asked about rescheduling in the written questions, Cole said during an in-person hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that examining the rescheduling proposal will be “one of my first priorities” if he’s confirmed for the role, saying it’s “time to move forward” on the stalled process—but again without clarifying what end result he would like to see.
Trump initially chose Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff Chad Chronister to lead DEA, but the prospective nominee—who strongly advocated for marijuana decriminalization—withdrew from consideration in January amid scrutiny from conservative lawmakers over the sheriff’s record on COVID-related public safety enforcement actions.
As far as the marijuana rescheduling process is concerned, DEA recently notified an agency judge that the proceedings are still on hold—with no future actions currently scheduled as the matter sits before the acting administrator, Derek Maltz, who has called cannabis a “gateway drug” and linked its use to psychosis.
Meanwhile, although shutting down licensed marijuana dispensaries doesn’t “rise to the top” of his priorities, an interim U.S. attorney who recently warned a Washington, D.C. cannabis shop about potential federal law violations says his “instinct is that it shouldn’t be in the community.” However, he has since dropped the idea for other reasons.
Separately, last month, an activist who received a pardon for a marijuana-related conviction during Trump’s first term paid a visit to the White House, discussing future clemency options with the recently appointed “pardon czar.”
A marijuana industry-backed political action committee (PAC) has also released a series of ads over recent weeks that have attacked Biden’s cannabis policy record as well as the nation of Canada, promoting sometimes misleading claims about the last administration while making the case that Trump can deliver on reform.
Its latest ad accused former President Joe Biden and his DEA of waging a “deep state war” against medical cannabis patients—but without mentioning that the former president himself initiated the rescheduling process that marijuana companies want to see completed under Trump.
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Mike Latimer is the photographer.