Indiana Lawmakers Say Marijuana Legalization Won’t Happen This Year

*“It’s not going to happen this year. I wasn’t going to waste a bill slot
for a bill that I knew wasn’t going to move.”*

*By Tom Davies, Indiana Capital Chronicle*

Advocates for marijuana legalization in Indiana already know 2026 won’t be
the year they see it happen.

Despite President Donald Trump signing an executive order in December
for reclassifying marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, the
Republican-dominated state Legislature isn’t acting on any bills that would
allow medical or recreational use.

Instead, legislators are advancing proposals that would tighten state laws
on delta-8 products with THC—the active ingredient in marijuana—and crack
down on advertisements for marijuana dispensaries in neighboring states.

The stance has one marijuana legalization advocate arguing that Indiana
officials are “sticking their head in the sand.”
Trump stance hasn’t shifted Indiana status

Indiana is among only 10 states that don’t allow either medicinal and
recreational marijuana sales.

Legalization supporters made a prominent push going into the 2025
legislative session but were unable to persuade lawmakers to take any
action on the issue.

Trump’s executive order in December to shift cannabis from its current
Schedule I status, alongside drugs such as heroin and LSD, to the
less-regulated Schedule III level would seem to weaken a long-standing
argument from top state Republicans against legalization.

But that did not result in removing any Statehouse hurdles to marijuana
bills or a renewed visible campaign from advocates.

Joe Elsener, a former Marion County Republican chair and an organizer of
the lobbying group Safe and Regulated Indiana, said part of that was
strategic rather than trying to push major changes during the Legislature’s
two-month short session this year.

“I think President Trump’s announcement before the holidays is just another
big sign that the way people are thinking about this,” Elsener said. “Just
in general, the country is moving in a different direction.”

The expected federal change hasn’t altered the anti-legalization stance of
top Republican legislative leaders, who’ve long cited the Schedule I
classification and concerns about societal impacts in states that allow
marijuana sales.

Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray told reporters this past week that
Trump’s reclassification order was “to try to move that along.”

“It didn’t actually affect the change or make the change. We’re continuing
those conversations,” Bray said of possible legalization. “I don’t have
much new.”

That continued opposition led legalization advocate Heath VanNatter,
R-Kokomo, to decide against filing marijuana legislation this year since
House rules allowed him to submit only five bills for the short session.

“It’s not going to happen this year,” VanNatter told the Indiana Capital
Chronicle. “I wasn’t going to waste a bill slot for a bill that I knew
wasn’t going to move.”

VanNatter said he believed the federal reclassification could lead to
Indiana removing criminal penalties over marijuana possession even if
resistance remains to legalization.

“If that ends up going through, then it will certainly make it better,
easier for us to do it here,” he said.

Since a February 2023 hearing on a VanNatter-sponsored decriminalization
bill, no state legislative committees have taken up proposals pulling back
on Indiana’s marijuana laws.

House Courts and Criminal Code Committee Chair Rep. Wendy McNamara,
R-Evansville, didn’t take a vote on that 2023 bill and hasn’t considered
the issue since then.

“As long as it’s illegal on the federal level, there’s really no reason for
us to act on the state level,” McNamara said in an interview last week.
Advocates looking for Braun action

Some legalization supporters are still trying to encourage some steps,
looking to seize upon Gov. Mike Braun’s (R) statements that he’s willing to
consider allowing medical-use sales.

Jeff Staker, the leader of Hoosier Veterans for Medical Cannabis, met in
January with state Business Affairs Secretary Mike Speedy to encourage the
establishment of a state cannabis commission.

“If we can get that, I think we’ll have a groundwork for developing
policies on medical cannabis here in Indiana,” Staker said in an interview.

Staker, 60, is a former Marine Corps drill instructor and a retired Grissom
Air Reserve Base firefighter. He said he organized the cannabis group in
2016 after exploring medical options other than taking the painkiller
oxycontin for a back injury.

He said many military veterans want to have the legal option of using
marijuana to relieve injuries or the impact of post-traumatic stress
disorder, and expressed frustration with the lack of Statehouse action.

“They’re sticking their head in the sand, again,” he said. “But, obviously,
with Trump’s executive order for the rescheduling, the state’s going to
have to do something.”

Braun has not taken any such action and the governor’s office did not make
any administration officials available to the Capital Chronicle for an
interview about marijuana policy.

The federal reclassification would further isolate Indiana’s anti-marijuana
laws, especially with Illinois, Michigan and Ohio allowing sales to all
adults and Kentucky having a medical-use program, Staker said.

“There’s a lot of our state legislators that are very supportive of this,”
he said. “They’ve been waiting for the feds to do exactly what they did.
It’s just that the governor has to take a stronger approach.”
Legislators pushing tighter laws

The action during this year’s legislative session, however, has been for
clamping down on marijuana-related matters.

The Senate last week endorsed a ban on intoxicating and synthetic
hemp-derived products—echoing a recent federal law designed to close a
“loophole” that has allowed potent products with delta-8, THC and other
cannabinoids to proliferate.

Senate Bill 250 now moves on to the House for further action.

The bill sponsored by Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis would ban
THC-product sales along with banning sales or advertising within 1,000 feet
of schools or playgrounds.

Another provision would prevent state law from immediately reflecting
federal reclassification of marijuana, if that goes through.

“This bill simply says that we would not automatically follow what the
federal government does, that we would decide, 150 of us—that we would make
that decision, not the federal government for us,” Freeman said of Indiana
Senate and House members.

Yet another bill aims to remove billboards promoting marijuana shops that
line many roadways near Indiana’s borders.

Legislation advanced last year by Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling
Prairie, banned the advertising of illegal products, including billboards
and mailed fliers for Michigan marijuana dispensaries that he said were
inundating his northern Indiana district.

Pressel said some marijuana businesses took advantage of that law’s July 1,
2025, effective date to sign long-term contracts on billboards to avoid the
ban.

Language in House Bill 1200 that he’s sponsoring this year would force
removal of all such marijuana advertising by July 1, 2026. The House is
expected this week to advance the bill to the Senate for consideration.

Pressel said allowing marijuana advertising sends a mixed message to the
public.

“If you see the billboard out there and they’re advertising for marijuana,
they are under the impression that maybe the General Assembly passed this,
maybe it’s legal now, and it’s not,” Pressel said. “This is not a
conversation, again, about whether marijuana should be legal or not. This
is a conversation about, ‘Should we allow a company to advertise a criminal
activity in the state of Indiana?’”

*This story was first published by Indiana Capital Chronicle.*

*Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.*

The post Indiana Lawmakers Say Marijuana Legalization Won’t Happen This
Year Despite Trump’s Federal Rescheduling Move appeared first on Marijuana
Moment.