Is weed legal in Louisiana?

Recreational status

Recreational cannabis is not legal in Louisiana. (La. R.S. 40:966 Penalty for distribution or possession with intent to distribute narcotic drugs listed in Schedule I; possession of marijuana, synthetic cannabinoids, and heroin)

R.S. 40:966(C)(2) sets the penalty where the Schedule I substance possessed 'is marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol, or chemical derivatives thereof.' Subsection F exempts only a patient, caregiver, domiciliary parent, or visiting qualifying patient acting within the state-sponsored medical marijuana program under R.S. 40:1046 -- there is no adult-use exception.

Age alone protects nobody in Louisiana. An adult who wants lawful cannabis here has one route to it, and it starts in a clinician's office rather than at a store counter.

Medical status

A full medical cannabis program runs in Louisiana, serving patients the program registers. (La. R.S. 40:1046 Recommendation and sale of marijuana for therapeutic use; production facility licensing; regulations and permitting by the Louisiana Department of Health)

The 'debilitating medical condition' an authorized clinician may treat under R.S. 40:1046(A)(2)(a) spans over twenty categories -- cancer, glaucoma, several neurodegenerative diseases, HIV/AIDS, cachexia, seizure disorders, epilepsy, spasticity, intractable pain, Crohn's disease, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, post-traumatic stress disorder, specified autism spectrum conditions, traumatic brain injury, and a clinician's-discretion catch-all -- and raw or crude marijuana is an authorized form with no THC-percentage cap, so this is recorded as comprehensive rather than low-thc-only.

Your way in runs through a clinician the state authorizes, and from there to a retailer the Louisiana Department of Health permits. The list above is long, and it is still the clinician who decides whether you belong on it.

Hemp-derived products

Louisiana permits the sale of hemp-derived products and limits which ones. (La. R.S. 3:1482 Consumable hemp products; prohibitions)

R.S. 3:1482(B) bars any consumable hemp product for inhalation, any floral hemp material for retail use, alcoholic beverages containing a consumable hemp product, and any product not approved by the Louisiana Department of Health; (A)(3) bars sale at a retail location also authorized to sell gasoline or motor fuel. A retailer must verify a purchaser's age with photo identification and keep products inaccessible to the public without an employee's assistance.

A shop selling these products is not a dispensary, and nothing on its shelves belongs to the medical program. Approval here attaches to the product itself, so something sold openly in another state may never have been submitted for it.

Home cultivation

Louisiana allows nobody to grow cannabis at home. (La. R.S. 40:1046 Recommendation and sale of marijuana for therapeutic use; production facility licensing; regulations and permitting by the Louisiana Department of Health)

A recommendation does not come with permission to grow. Louisiana keeps production inside the facilities it licenses, so a plant on a patient's windowsill is the same offense as a plant on anyone else's.

Possession and purchase limits

The possession limit, as Louisiana states it: No lawful amount is set outside the medical program. Possession of any amount of marijuana remains unlawful. (La. R.S. 40:966 Penalty for distribution or possession with intent to distribute narcotic drugs listed in Schedule I; possession of marijuana, synthetic cannabinoids, and heroin)

R.S. 40:966(C)(2)(a) fines an offender found with fourteen grams or less of marijuana not more than one hundred dollars, enforced by summons rather than custodial arrest -- a reduced penalty, not a lawful quantity. Possessing more than fourteen grams, or a repeat conviction, carries escalating fines and jail time under the same Paragraph.

On buying, Louisiana states: No more than two and one-half ounces (seventy-one grams) of raw or crude marijuana every fourteen days, per individual patient, from a permitted retailer. (La. R.S. 40:1046 Recommendation and sale of marijuana for therapeutic use; production facility licensing; regulations and permitting by the Louisiana Department of Health)

R.S. 40:1046(A)(5)(b) additionally bars a retailer from selling raw or crude marijuana to a person under twenty-one without a clinician's recommendation specifically for that form.

The buying figure is an allowance attached to you rather than to a store, so a second permitted retailer does not hand you another two weeks' worth. It counts raw or crude marijuana, one authorized form among several, so the shape of your recommendation decides how much of that allowance you can use.

Minimum age

There is no recreational channel in Louisiana, so no recreational age applies. (La. R.S. 40:966 Penalty for distribution or possession with intent to distribute narcotic drugs listed in Schedule I; possession of marijuana, synthetic cannabinoids, and heroin)

Null because Louisiana has no adult-use channel; R.S. 40:966(F) exempts only participants in the state-sponsored medical marijuana program.

Louisiana sets no minimum age for a patient. (La. R.S. 40:1046 Recommendation and sale of marijuana for therapeutic use; production facility licensing; regulations and permitting by the Louisiana Department of Health)

La. R.S. 40:1046 numbers no general threshold for a patient. Its two ages govern other things: a clinician must consult before recommending for a patient under eighteen, and no one may sell raw or crude marijuana to a person under twenty-one, which is a restriction on one product form rather than on holding a recommendation.

Silence in the statute is not permission. Louisiana leaves a patient's own age to the clinician who recommends, and nobody buys from a permitted retailer without a recommendation behind them, whatever their age.

Where you can buy

You can buy lawfully from a licensed medical dispensary, a licensed delivery service and a retailer of hemp-derived or CBD products. (La. R.S. 40:1046 Recommendation and sale of marijuana for therapeutic use; production facility licensing; regulations and permitting by the Louisiana Department of Health)

R.S. 40:1046(G)(7) requires that 'Each marijuana retail permit holder shall offer delivery to patients in each zip code within its region at least once per month,' recorded as licensed-delivery alongside the retailer's dispensary sales. R.S. 40:1046.1 extends purchase at a marijuana retail permit holder to a visiting qualifying patient from another jurisdiction. Consumable hemp products are a separate retail channel under R.S. 3:1482, restricted to buyers 21 and older through a permitted retailer; there is no adult-use marijuana dispensary channel.

Only a retailer holding a state marijuana permit can fill a recommendation. The hemp retailer on that list sells a different category under different rules, so a shop being open to you at 21 tells you nothing about the medical program.

The Louisiana store list names every licensed location this site holds a record for.

Federal law applies here too, and it is not the same. Read what federal law says about weed.