The State of Marijuana Legalization in the U.S.

Ohio, Minnesota and Delaware were the latest U.S. states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023. While Ohio voters approved a ballot measure in November, state legislatures got the job done in the other two states earlier in the year. In March of 2026, the Ohio legislature added new limits to legal marijuana use in the state, for example outlawing THC drinks, penalizing transporting marijuana in a car outside the trunk and banning consuming edibles in public.

Previous voter-approved legalizations had taken place in Maryland and Missouri in the 2022 elections. As part of the same election, recreational weed measures failed in Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota. As part of the 2024 election, Nebraskans voted to introduce medical marijuana laws that had previously passed the state legislature. In 2025, Texas expanded its medical marijuana laws significantly and is now being counted as a medical marijuana state for the purpose of this chart.

As of now, this means that recreational marijuana is legal in 24 states and the District of Columbia. There are currently 40 states that have medical marijuana laws, including all that allow recreational use. Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories also allow medical marijuana.

During 2021 and 2022, state legislatures in New York, Virginia, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Connecticut passed bills to legalize marijuana. These recent developments have brought recreational cannabis to more East Coast states after the American West had long been the hotbed of legalization efforts. Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize the drug in 2012.