Nebraska left off congressional medical cannabis protections prohibiting DOJ interference
Congress has regularly updated federal protections for state laws allowing medical cannabis. But the latest national update in January left Nebraska’s new laws off the list.
Congress has annually passed a provision preventing the U.S. Department of Justice and related agencies from using federal appropriations to interfere with state medical marijuana programs since 2014. Today, the list covers 47 states.
But despite Nebraskans approving two ballot measures to legalize and regulate the new medicine in 2024, national and state medical cannabis advocates say the Cornhusker State became the first not added in the dozen years since Congress first passed the provision as part of a spending bill.
The measure specifically prevents the Justice Department from using federal funds “to prevent any of them [states or territories] from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
Each state must be explicitly protected because of the country’s federalist system.
The only other two states without protections, Kansas and Idaho, lack state medical cannabis programs.
“The fact that we were not added to the rider to provide the same protections that every other state has on this, you really have to wonder ‘why’ and who is behind this,” said Crista Eggers, executive director of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, which led the 2024 ballot measures.
‘This wasn’t an oversight’
Since the 2024 election, the voter-created Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission has seen its rollout of the program sputter, partially due to a lack of funding. Three cultivators have been licensed, with a fourth expected in March. None has started growing as the commission pursues a seed-to-sale tracking system before planting can occur.
Commissioners have so far delayed considering other application types, such as product manufacturers or dispensaries.
Eggers and other state-level advocates have tried to work with the governor-appointed commission and state lawmakers on a path forward. Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers has pursued legal challenges and threatened state action against the commission and patients.
The Nebraska Supreme Court could issue a ruling on one such challenge at any time, and it has a second appeal pending, which argues Nebraska’s cannabis laws contradict federal law.
Similar lawsuits have been thrown out in other states, in some cases because of the DOJ prohibition. Hilgers opposed the lower court case brought by a former state lawmaker and longtime marijuana opponent, which a trial judge dismissed. Hilgers’ office felt his office should bring the case instead.
Hilgers and former two-term governor and current U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., also urged state legislators last year not to pass legislation. That included a bill sponsored by State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair, a fellow Republican, meant to create a clearer regulatory framework for the drug.
“This wasn’t an oversight in our eyes,” Eggers added Monday.
Ricketts, Bacon weigh in
In a Monday statement, Ricketts acknowledged he has “consistently expressed concern over the dangers of marijuana, especially for our youth.” He made national headlines in 2021 when he said, “If you legalize marijuana, you’re gonna kill your kids.”
“I respect the will of Nebraskans and the process of the ballot amendments,” Ricketts said. “If Nebraska’s laws are at odds with federal laws, a process will have to play out, and I will continue to express my concern for the risks of marijuana if it gets into the hands of kids.”
A spokesperson for Ricketts did not respond to a follow-up question about whether Ricketts had opposed adding Nebraska to the federal spending bill and its state-level protections.
U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said in a statement he had “not interfered, and this is the first I’ve heard of this particular issue.”
“Regardless, I am for states having the lead when it comes to cannabis policies and prefer the federal government stay away,” said Bacon, who decided not to seek reelection this year.
President Donald Trump called to reschedule marijuana to a lower classification of drug in December. Hilgers, Ricketts and U.S. Rep. Mike Flood opposed the president’s proposed change.
State-level ‘triage’ programs
Steph Sherer, who founded the national advocacy organization Americans for Safe Access in 2002, said the goal has never been state programs but, rather, national change.
“They’re literally triage to get patients off the battlefield of the war on drugs,” Steph said of state programs. “It’s just taken a lot longer than we thought to get to this next phase.”
Eggers said Nebraska being left out is “really the final straw” and that patients are left in a difficult, compromising position in which the risks are hard to tell and families are left scared.
In mid-June, advocates saw the Trump administration propose leaving the state-level protections out of the federal budget. Since 2014, the “Commerce, Justice, Science” (CJS) Amendment has served as a “ceasefire,” Sherer said.
‘Peace of mind’
Morgan Fox, political director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which was created in 1970 to represent the interests of cannabis consumers, said it was a “little strange” to see Nebraska omitted when states without “effective” medical cannabis programs have been on the list for years.
Fox said he hadn’t heard of a “concerted” effort to block Nebraska but could not recall any state being left off the list after passing a medical cannabis law.
“It’s incredibly disappointing, and I think it’s even more so when looked at in light of the antipathy towards the medical cannabis law passed by the voters from a lot of very powerful people in Nebraska politics,” Fox said.
He noted that federal law enforcement has continued a trend of not interfering with adult-use recreational marijuana programs either, but Fox said federal behavior can change at the “whim” of a federal prosecutor in a certain region or at the direction of top federal officials.
“Actually having those protections specific to the states spelled out in law … gives people peace of mind and gives them a legal basis upon which to challenge any sort of federal enforcement if those people are asserting that they are in compliance with state laws,” Fox said.
Nebraska delegation supported bill
Hansen, the state senator who tried to work with Eggers and others in 2025 to help the state Medical Cannabis Commission, ran into opposition from some lawmakers who wanted to give the commission time to work.
Ricketts and Hilgers, a former speaker of the Legislature, argued the legal field should be clearer before state lawmakers got involved.
Reached Monday, Hansen said Nebraska being left off the list of protections leads to risk and that singling out Nebraskans, while people in dozens of other states are protected, is “unfair.”
In mid-2025, Hansen penned an op-ed submitted tothe Washington, D.C.-based newspaper The Hill, seeking to bring attention to the spending bill. The Hill ended up not publishing the op-ed.
Sherer and other state-level advocates on Monday laid the blame for Nebraska’s omission at the feet of Nebraska’s congressional delegation, particularly Ricketts, a vocal opponent of any legal form of marijuana.
Nebraska’s U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer also sits on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee.
The provision is in the Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act. President Donald Trump signed it into law Jan. 23.
The spending bill passed the U.S. House 397-28 and U.S. Senate 82-15.
All five members of Nebraska’s federal delegation, all Republicans, voted for the spending bill. None offered an amendment to add Nebraska to the Section 531 list of protections, according to the congressional record.
The Nebraska Examiner reached out to spokespersons for each congressional member, including Ricketts and Bacon. Spokespersons for Fischer, Flood and U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith did not respond to separate requests Friday and Monday.
New candidate ‘pledge’
On Monday, Sherer’s organization also rolled out a new “pledge” for federal candidates. Two Nebraska candidates became the first to sign that commitment: State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha, a Democrat running in a crowded primary for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District currently represented by Bacon, and Dan Osborn, a registered nonpartisan who ran against Fischer in 2024 and is challenging Ricketts this November.
Both candidates joined Eggers and Sherer on Monday in criticizing Nebraska’s federal delegation.
The pledge calls for candidates to commit to cosponsor legislation for a national medical cannabis program that builds on existing state programs, use oversight powers to ensure support for patients and leverage their positions to encourage health care systems to integrate medical cannabis.
Part of the push, Sherer explained, is because 10 years ago, the delays in Nebraska and official pushback would have meant the “whole nation would be up in arms.” Instead, she said, the patchwork approach has left states with much smaller programs than Nebraska, such as Alabama or Georgia, being protected.
That leaves advocates feeling some battles are one “tiny” step forward and two steps back, she said.
Sherer said it’s hard to say what comes next, but she predicted a federal program that grants medical cannabis access nationally might come before Nebraska’s state-level changes are a reality.
Federal fiscal years end each Sept. 30, meaning another federal spending cycle.
“If you leave a patient in triage for too long, they’re going to get infected, just like if you have a ceasefire without a peace plan, there’s going to be war again,” Sherer told the Examiner.
“I can’t believe after 24 years we’re still in a state-by-state strategy,” she continued. “I can’t believe after 12 years we’re still passing a really clunky strategy.”
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