Cannabis in Nebraska

Nebraska's medical cannabis law exists on paper but not yet at a counter. On November 5, 2024 voters approved Initiative 437, which lets qualified patients possess up to 5 ounces with a health care practitioner's written recommendation, with 71% of the vote, and Initiative 438, which created the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission to license businesses, with about 67%. Both took effect in December 2024 after a Lancaster County judge refused to block them.

Putting the laws into practice has been slow and contested. Emergency rules adopted in June 2025 restricted products to forms such as tablets, capsules, tinctures, topicals and patches, and excluded flower and anything smoked, vaped or eaten as an edible. Permanent regulations were approved by Attorney General Mike Hilgers on June 30, 2026 and by Governor Jim Pillen on July 1, 2026; reporting on the final text says the ban on smoking, vaping and edibles stayed in place. The commission licensed all four permitted cultivators between October 2025 and March 2026, but by September 2026 it had not licensed a single dispensary, and Nebraska outlets described legal purchases as months, possibly a year, away. Advocates also say physicians fear discipline if they recommend cannabis.

The courts have sided with voters so far. On September 4, 2026 the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled 7–0 that opponents had not shown enough invalid petition signatures to void either measure, and on September 11 it dismissed a separate federal-preemption case for lack of standing. Outside the patient protections, a first offense for an ounce or less is an infraction with a $300 fine; more than a pound is a felony.