This CLE course will provide an overview of how cannabis, while much a part of colonial and U.S. history, has been prohibited for most any reason since the passage of the federal Controlled Substances Act in 1970, which made it a Schedule I drug declaring it had no medical use or validity, a high risk of abuse, and that the plant could only be researched in accordance with very strict guidelines. Yet, cannabis has flourished since 1996 with California’s passage of the nation’s first medical marijuana program and in 2013 when Colorado and then Washington legalized it for adult use purposes despite that federal prohibition. Recently, there has been much federal activity around the plant with President Trump’s Executive Order directing the Attorney General to move cannabis to Schedule III and with federal legislation passed as part of the Big Beautiful Bill Act significantly altering the definition and legality of hemp and its derivatives.