Article: A new class-action lawsuit alleges three of America’s largest marijuana companies know that science doesn’t support their health claims—but keep saying it does.
By Josh Code
Three of America’s largest cannabis companies were accused in a class-action lawsuit filed on Monday of systematically advertising their products as medicine capable of treating mental health, pain, and other disorders while knowing that the science didn’t support those claims and that their products could even worsen the conditions they claimed marijuana could treat.
Patrick Kenneally, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, said in an interview that the lawsuit’s aims are twofold: hold the cannabis industry accountable for “years of misrepresentation” of their products’ health benefits, and force them to “warn consumers about the well-known, obvious, and scientifically validated dangers of cannabis.”
The suit was filed in federal court in Illinois on behalf of consumers in 12 states. It could eventually include millions of plaintiffs. Between possible civil penalties, punitive damages, and even allegations that each company functions as an organized criminal enterprise, the stakes are enormous.
Some people familiar with the suit drew parallels between its allegations of industry-wide deception about a widely used drug and the legal playbook used against the tobacco industry nearly three decades ago.
“This has the potential to be like the Master Settlement was for Big Tobacco,” said Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy adviser and co-founder, president, and CEO of the advocacy group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). The $206 billion tobacco deal in 1998 was the largest civil settlement in American history, rewrote advertising laws, and led to a significant drop in tobacco use among Americans.
Monday’s lawsuit challenges one of the bedrock assertions of the marijuana legalization movement: Cannabis products are a medicine, not a drug. In an America increasingly distrustful of modern medicine, the suit threatens to upend the idea of marijuana use as an alternative wellness practice. For example, marketing the drug as an unconventional medicine to treat mental disorders was false and deceptive, the suit alleges, and in some cases made users’ mental-health issues worse.
In December, President Donald Trump signed an executive order telling his administration to reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, marking it as a drug with less potential for abuse and with a greater potential for medical application—a change the cannabis industry had sought for decades. That shift is now official: On April 23, the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration announced that they were immediately placing Food and Drug Administration-approved marijuana products and state-licensed medical marijuana in Schedule III.
But as polls show that legalizing marijuana enjoys broad bipartisan support among voters, recent research has cast doubt on some of the claims made by the industry. In March, a review published in The Lancet Psychiatry said it found no evidence that cannabis effectively treats anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. The review was based on 45 years of randomized controlled trials.
The lawsuit alleges that marijuana companies go beyond implied medical endorsement. In social media posts and marketing materials, according to the suit, the companies explicitly characterize marijuana as a medicine with full knowledge that the substance isn’t approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat any medical condition. The complaint cites company blog posts with titles like “Best Cannabis Strains for Anxiety & Stress.”
The suit also quotes Harvard Medical School professor Bertha Madras to show how today’s marketing of marijuana mirrors past marketing of opioids. In a 2024 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Madras said that with both opioids and marijuana, “the benefits have been exaggerated, the risks have been minimized, and skeptics in the scientific community have been ignored.”
The defendants in the suit filed Monday—Cresco Labs, Green Thumb Industries, and Verano Holdings—see things differently. In various statements, the companies have emphasized the benefits of cannabis for “wellness” and “well-being.”
Some of the statements have been more explicit. When President Trump signed the executive order loosening restrictions on marijuana, Cresco Labs CEO Charlie Bachtell praised the move and said it acknowledges “what millions of Americans already know: Cannabis is medicine and deserves responsible, common-sense regulation.”
The lawsuit challenges one of the bedrock assertions of the marijuana legalization movement: Cannabis products are a medicine, not a drug.
During Covid lockdowns in 2020, Bachtell advocated to keep Cresco’s dispensaries open on the grounds that they provided essential medical services. “Many of our dispensaries are classified in the same category as pharmacies that people depend on as trusted access points for prescription medicine and continuing to provide that access is a fundamental responsibility,” Bachtell said in a press release. The next day, Illinois governor JB Pritzker signed a stay-at-home order that classified “licensed medical and adult-use cannabis dispensaries” as “essential businesses” and allowed them to stay open.
Cresco Labs declined to comment for this story, while Green Thumb could not immediately be reached for comment about the suit.
“Verano operates in compliance with applicable state laws and regulations, including the detailed product labeling, testing, and warning requirements dictated by each state in which Verano is licensed,” a Verano spokesperson told The Free Press in an email on Tuesday. “We strongly disagree with the allegations and intend to defend the matter vigorously.”
To win, the plaintiffs will have to prove their allegations that the companies “knew that their cannabis products have not been approved as a treatment for a single medical disorder” by the FDA, sought to “mask the adverse effects of cannabis and maximize profits,” and “knew or should have known” that marijuana use is “indelibly linked to, causes, and exacerbates” a host of mental and health disorders.
Then there is the explosive allegation that selling a federally illegal drug while making false or misleading health claims constitutes racketeering under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal law created to target organized crime.
The firms representing plaintiffs in the cannabis suit include the Pawa Law Group, Weitz & Luxenberg and Simmons Hanly Conroy, the latter two of which were “intimately involved” with past opioid litigation, according to Kenneally, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney. “If this didn’t have legs, this would not be something that they would be pursuing,” he said.