National Cannabis & Hemp Policy Insights - M4MM

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Eric Foster, and I serve as the National Policy Director for Cannabis and Hemp at Minorities for Medical Marijuana. Within our industry, we continue to encounter significant challenges. Unfortunately, the responses we have seen so far have not been effective, nor have they reflected the level of realism necessary to address the obstacles before us. Across the c...

Across the country, dual-market states are running the same experiment—and getting the same result: adult-use expands, and medical cannabis quietly declines. This is not because patients stopped needing medical cannabis. It’s because state policy frameworks often treat medical like a legacy program, while adult-use becomes the growth engine. The duplex problem: one foundation, two realities The si...

For years, our industries have treated ballot initiatives like the ultimate “save-all” strategy — the clean path around gridlocked legislatures, the public-facing win that makes policy durable. But here’s the reality: a ballot initiative is not a shield. It can be a tool. It can be a spark. It can be a breakthrough. But it is not a guaranteed defense against prohibition forces — especially in stat...

By Eric Foster Co-Founder, The Change Maker Initiative and The Future – Today & Tomorrow Super PAC Every session, someone in the cannabis or hemp industry gets excited—believing this will be the moment Texas finally turns a corner. But every time, like Charlie Brown charging toward Lucy’s football, we fall flat. This year, that football was Texas House Bill 46 and Senate Bill 3. Let me say it plai...