Thousands of Americans will gather to celebrate April 20 – or “4/20” – the most important day of the year for cannabis enthusiasts.

But this year, a cloud of uncertainty will hang over these celebrations. After years of success, the movement to legalize recreational and medical cannabis has stalled.

It’s a moment unlike any that I have seen in the 12 years that I’ve been researching cannabis legalization as part of my broader interest in U.S. drug policy.

Not so long ago, the movement had so much momentum that nationwide cannabis legalization felt virtually inevitable. That momentum is now gone.

The strategy to legalize cannabis through ballot initiatives is no longer working. The coalition of supporters that made this strategy work has frayed, and new research is raising concerns about the health impact of regular cannabis use. All of this constitutes the most significant challenge to the movement since it went mainstream in the 21st century.

As a social movement, cannabis legalization has been extremely successful. Since 2012, 24 states and Washington have legalized recreational cannabis use. Forty-nine states and Washington have legalized medical cannabis use, though programs vary from state to state.

While cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, changes have happened there, too.

The 2018 Farm Bill, for instance, legalized hemp, a non-psychoactive derivative of the cannabis plant used to make textiles, rope and other consumer goods. While it wasn’t lawmakers’ intent, entrepreneurs figured out how to make products from hemp that contain enough of the chemical compound tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, to be psychoactive. This fueled growth of the hemp market, which in 2023 was valued at $1.63 billion.

Additionally, the Biden administration in 2024 began the process of rescheduling cannabis........

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