The federal government is prosecuting marijuana cases at the lowest rate ever recorded. New data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission shows that federal marijuana trafficking prosecutions have not just declined, they have collapsed, a quiet but striking measure of how far the ground has shifted under cannabis.
The numbers
In fiscal year 2025, federal courts sentenced just 383 people for marijuana trafficking. That is down from 471 in 2024, 561 in 2023, 806 in 2022, and 995 in 2021, a 62 percent drop in four years, and roughly a 95 percent decline since 2012. Cannabis now accounts for only about 2 percent of all federal drug trafficking prosecutions.
Even the sentences are lighter. The average marijuana trafficking sentence last year was 44 months, the lowest of the seven drug categories the commission tracks, well below methamphetamine (105 months), fentanyl (81), crack cocaine (70), and powder cocaine (68).
What is driving it
The commission and outside analysts point to two forces: changing Department of Justice priorities and the steady spread of state legalization, which has pulled much of the cannabis trade into licensed, regulated markets and away from the federal crosshairs. As more states stand up legal systems, federal prosecutors have effectively stepped back.
Why it matters
The trend lands as the federal government weighs moving marijuana to Schedule III. Cannabis is still federally controlled, and nothing here changes the law. But the data tells a clear story: on the ground, the federal war on marijuana has been winding down for years, one declining case at a time. For adults 21 and over.