A new national report puts a hard number on what Kentuckians already know: we are still arresting people for a plant that 24 states have legalized — and we arrested 2,718 of them in 2025 alone.
The Marijuana Policy Project’s 2026 Cannabis Arrest Report, built on data from the FBI’s Crime Explorer, found that 2,176 of those 2,718 Kentucky arrests — 80% — were for possession. That’s about seven cannabis arrests every day, and about six of them were people accused of simply having it.
Add it up since Colorado and Washington first legalized in late 2012, and Kentucky authorities have made 67,663 cannabis arrests between 2013 and 2025. The report puts it this way: that’s approximately 1.5 arrests for every 100 people living in Kentucky.
Kentucky hasn’t even decriminalized
Kentucky is one of only 19 states that has not even decriminalized cannabis possession. Outside our medical cannabis program, possessing up to eight ounces is a misdemeanor carrying up to 45 days in jail, a fine of up to $250, or both.
Cultivation is where it gets heavier. A first offense for growing up to five plants — or selling less than eight ounces — is a misdemeanor with up to a year in jail. Grow more than five plants and it becomes a felony carrying up to five years.
And an arrest is never just an arrest. A record can shut the door on a job, housing, and professional licenses — long after any fine is paid.
The report shares a Kentucky example. Elizabeth and her husband were growing four plants for personal and medical use. Both were charged with cultivation and given fines and a conditional discharge. When Elizabeth later applied for a job, she was denied employment because of that cultivation charge on her record. That was over 20 years ago — and, in her words, it continues to make life more difficult.
Higher than every legal state
Here is the comparison that should end the argument in Frankfort: Kentucky’s cannabis arrest rate in 2025 was 59 arrests per 100,000 residents — higher than every single state that has legalized cannabis. The highest rate in a legal state, Illinois, was 54.16, and most legal states were far lower.
That’s because legalization works at the thing it promised to do. Across the 24 legalization states, cannabis arrests have fallen by an average of 85.53% since legalization — possession arrests down 84.61%, sales arrests down 80.39%. Those states made 219,456 fewer cannabis arrests in 2025 than they did in the year before they legalized.
Meanwhile, prohibition states like Kentucky made 186,581 cannabis arrests in 2025 — more than eight times the 22,357 made in legal states, even though prohibition states have a smaller combined population.
This new report also sits on top of Kentucky’s longer record. Separate research from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy found 303,264 Kentuckians were charged with cannabis offenses between July 2002 and June 2022 — a different source and a different period, measuring charges rather than arrests, but pointing in exactly the same direction. For twenty years, Kentucky has kept doing this. The new numbers show we still are.
Let Kentuckians vote
The Kentucky Cannabis Freedom Coalition is asking the General Assembly to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot and let voters decide: adults 21 and older could possess up to one ounce of cannabis and cultivate, harvest, and store up to five plants for personal use, free of criminal sanction, with the General Assembly able to regulate production, processing, and sale.
2,718 arrests in one year is a policy choice. Frankfort can choose differently — or it can let Kentuckians choose.
Sign the petition: change.org/LetKentuckyVote
Call your legislator: 1-800-372-7181 and tell them to put cannabis decriminalization on the Kentucky ballot.
Sources / reference
Marijuana Policy Project (Karen O’Keefe and Kevin Caldwell, authors; edited by Violet Cavendish), 2026 Cannabis Arrest Report, April 2026. Kentucky section, p. 23; state tables in Appendices B–E. Arrest data exported from the FBI’s Crime Explorer between March 15 and April 13, 2026. The FBI counts one arrest for each separate instance in which a person is arrested, cited, or summoned for an offense. MPP notes some agency data is partial, so totals likely underreport arrests. Full report: mpp.org
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, Sept. 18, 2023: 303,264 Kentuckians charged with cannabis offenses, July 2002–June 2022 (separate source, period, and measure — charges, not arrests).
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