Cannabis political parties of the United States include the Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis Party, the Legal Marijuana Now Party, and the U.S. Marijuana Party. Also, both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party advocate for the legalization of marijuana.
Other cannabis political parties that were active in the past have included the Anti-prohibition Party, the Grassroots Party, the Marijuana Reform Party, and the Youth International Party. Marijuana political parties have flourished in U.S. states, including Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont.
Modern cannabis parties in the United States are typically single-issue political parties, with a broad range of histories dating back to the 1960s, across America.
Objectives and results In Minnesota, the cannabis party candidate for United States Senator received 190,000 votes in 2020, more votes than any other such third-party candidate in the nation, and more votes than the winner, Democratic Senator Tina Smith, led her Republican challenger.
2022 Minnesota State Auditor nominee Tim Davis, who was state Legal Marijuana Now! Party chair at the time, qualified for a $28,000 share of Minnesota's elections funding intended to help regular Minnesotans run for office by meeting a $6000 fundraising requirement before the summer deadline and publicly reporting his budget and expenditures. Davis used the state subsidy to print and distribute pro-cannabis party campaign fliers door to door, across Minnesota. Davis received 87,000 votes in the November race.
Minnesota state marijuana parties were credited with motivating the Democratic Party to prioritize cannabis legalization, in Minnesota, in 2023. Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now! Party chairperson Dennis Schuller, who was 2020 LMN Minnesota State Representative nominee, in 2023 told a reporter that ending federal prohibition laws against cannabis, overseeing implementation of Minnesota's regulated market and expungement of past criminal records, were goals that remain for Legal Marijuana Now Party, in Minnesota, planning their ongoing campaigns.
In 2022, the Legal Marijuana NOW Party nominee for Nebraska Attorney General received 30 percent of the vote. In 2025, Nebraska Legal Marijuana NOW surpassed 10,000 registered party voters, earning LMNP candidates ballot access in Nebraska indefinitely.
Criticisms In 1998, Richard Hirsh of the New York Green Party tried to challenge nominating petition signatures of Marijuana Reform Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Leighton and remove Leighton's name from the November ballot, claiming Marijuana Reform and Green parties both appeal to the same liberal voters, competing for statewide ballot access.
While Edward Forchion was campaigning for governor of New Jersey as a Legalize Marijuana Party nominee, in 2005, his home was vandalized by someone who spray-painted a 6-foot cross together with the words “Get Jesus.” Described as a hate crime by Burlington County police who investigated the incident, Forchion told a reporter he thought he had been targeted for his Rastafari religious beliefs, and not because he is African American. In 2021, Forchion petitioned to run independently for New Jersey Governor as a "#Homegrow 4All" candidate, but the state Democratic Party challenged some of his signatures, forcing Forchion to withdraw from the race.
In 2020 and 2022, Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party leaders warned that the cannabis party candidates could hurt Democratic Party nominees, but an analysis of votes cast in the 2020 elections found that the marijuana parties might have helped Democratic candidates in swing districts, by drawing at least as many or more votes from Republican-leaning voters, in 2020.
Early history in the United States (1960s–1980s)
Youth International Party
The Youth International Party was established in New York on New Year's Eve, 1967, by a group of writers and activists including Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, to advance the counterculture of the 1960s. The YIP flag is a five-pointed star superimposed with a cannabis leaf. Without formal membership or hierarchy, the Yippie movement spread across U.S. states, and into other nations.*PHOTO: Nobody For President, Curtis Spangler and Wavy Gravy, October 12, 1976 (photo credit: James Stark) HeadCount.org In 1976, yippies, known for their sense of humor, direct actions and satirical, elaborate pranks, ran Nobody for President with the slogan “Nobody's perfect!”Joseph Boskin, Rebellious Laughter: People's humor in America, page 98. Syracuse University Press, 1997. Yippies tailored colorful, theatrical acts exploiting mass media, which included political pie throwing carried out the first time in 1969, and notably the pie thrown in the face of a member of the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography by Yippie underground publisher Tom Forçade, in 1970.Jerry Rubin, Do It!, page 86. Simon and Schuster, 1970. Abbie Hoffman, Soon to be a Major Motion Picture, p. 86. Perigee Books, 1980.
The yippies’ direct actions took center stage during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. YIP planned a six-day Festival of Life – a celebration of the counterculture and a protest against the state of the nation. Yippies’ sensational statements before the convention were part of the theatrics, including a tongue-in-cheek threat to put LSD in Chicago's water supply.Norman Mailer, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, page 137. Signet Books : New American Library, 1968. YIP organizers hoped that well-known musicians participating in the 1968 Democratic National Convention protest activity would draw an enormous crowd from across the country, but the city of Chicago refused to issue any permits for the event and most musicians withdrew from the project. Of the headlining rock bands who had agreed to perform, only MC5 came to Chicago to play and their set was cut short by a clash that was called a police riot by the US National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, between the audience of a couple thousand and police. Phil Ochs and several other singer-songwriters also performed during the 1968 Yippie Festival of Life.
YIP organized marijuana “smoke-ins” across North America through the 1970s and into the 1980s. A yippie smoke-in held in Washington, D.C. on July 4, 1970, was attended by 25,000. A Youth International Party smoke-in in Vancouver on August 7, 1971, was attacked by police, resulting in the Battle of Maple Tree Square police riot.Odam, Jes, "Police charge yippie plot," Vancouver Sun, 1 October 1971 Annual July 4 Yippie smoke-ins held in Washington became a counterculture tradition by 1979 which continued to be held for decades, evolving into annual summer Million Marijuana Marches by 1999.Smoke and Jeers . Archived here . By Jennifer Gonnerman. May 4, 1999. Village Voice. YIP promoted the creation of alternative, counterculture institutions such as artist collectives, food co-ops, flea markets, free clinics, pirate radio, public-access television. Yippies worked together with other overlapping and intermingling counter-cultural groups that included Deadheads, the Rainbow Family, and White Panthers, believing cooperative alternative institutions could spread to dwarf and eventually replace capitalist economic systems.Rosie McGee, "Total Environmental Theatre" in Grateful Dead Family Album, pp. 38–40, Time-Warner Books 1990, ed. Jerilyn Lee Brandelius
Grassroots Party
The Grassroots Party, founded in Minnesota in 1986, often ran candidates for state and federal offices. The party was active in Iowa, Minnesota, and Vermont. Grassroots Party nominated candidates for every presidential election from 1988 to 2000.
Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes, was Grassroots Party presidential nominee in 1988, and 1992. GRP nominated businessman Dennis Peron, who in 1991 opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, America's first public cannabis shop, to run for president in 1996.
The Vermont Grassroots Party was established in 1994. Robert Melamede, a genetic researcher and microbiologist whose views promoting the curative properties of cannabis put him at odds with mainstream academia, was Grassroots nominee for U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative from Vermont, in 1994, 1996, and 1998. Three Vermont Grassroots candidates won five percent or more of the popular vote in the 1996 elections, qualifying the GRP for ballot access, in Vermont, until 2002.
Russell Bentley, a Grassroots nominee for US Senate in 1990 and U.S. Congress in 1992 and Minnesota Grassroots Party board member, was arrested on marijuana smuggling charges in 1996. Bentley was sentenced to five years in federal prison. In 2000, Minnesota GRP nominated Minneapolis playwright David Daniels as candidate for U.S. Senate. Daniels received 21,447 votes.
In 1996 the Minnesota Grassroots Party split, forming the Independent Grassroots for one election cycle. John Birrenbach was the Independent Grassroots U.S. presidential nominee and George McMahon was their vice-presidential nominee.
Post-1990 developments
Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis Party
The Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis Party was founded in Minnesota, in 2014. The group was established by Oliver Steinberg who together with others, Tim Davis, Derrick Grimmer, and Chris Wright, had previously founded the Grassroots Party of Minnesota, in 1986. Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis Party attained ballot qualified status in Minnesota when, in 2018, their Attorney General candidate, who dropped out of the race to support the Democratic candidate but whose name remained on ballots, received 5.7 percent of the vote.
In January 2023, Grassroots–Legalize Cannabis Party chairperson Oliver Steinberg told the Minnesota Senate Public Safety Committee that marijuana prohibition has not kept people from using the drug, but has “succeeded perhaps in terrorizing or intimidating citizens, in canceling civil liberties, blighting both urban and rural communities, all without eradicating the outlawed substance.” Steinberg, who was 2020 G—L C Party nominee for U.S. Senator, wrote in Star Tribune, “cannabis prohibition never was necessary; always was unjust and unjustifiable; and always lacked moral authority because it was actually designed to serve as a legal mechanism for racial repression.”
Legalize Marijuana Party
The New Jersey Legalize Marijuana Party was established in 1998 by Edward Forchion to protest cannabis prohibition. In Minnesota, the Legal Marijuana Now! Party was founded the same year. Forchion ran under the Legalize Marijuana banner for US Representative in 1998, Camden County Freeholder in 1999, New Jersey Governor in 2005, and United States Senator in 2006.
Legal Marijuana Now Party
In 1998, members of the Independent Grassroots Party formed the Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now political party. According to the Legal Marijuana Now Party of Minnesota, a person's right to sell the products of their garden is protected by the Minnesota Constitution.
In 2014, the Legal Marijuana Now candidate for Minnesota Attorney General got 57,604 votes, qualifying the party to be officially recognized and to receive public funding from the state. In 2018, the LMN Party nominee for State Auditor, got 133,913 votes, 5.28 percent, qualifying Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now Party to have ballot access without petitioning. In 2020, the Minnesota LMN candidate for U.S. Senator secured ballot access for the party until 2024 by receiving 190,154 votes, more than any other such third-party candidate in the nation.