by Josie Ensor, Chief US Reporter – The Times of London –\u00a0 May 09 2026 – The Sunday Times<\/p>\n
Corporations at the top of America\u2019s $30bn trade are accused of false advertising \u2014 it could become their Big Tobacco moment<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Heather Bacchus worried when her 15-year-old son started using marijuana. Randy Jr was a bright, precocious teenager doing well at his school in Minnesota, but like many children his age he experienced ADHD and anxiety.<\/p>\n He had turned to cannabis to quiet what Bacchus called his \u201coveractive brain\u201d. However, she noticed an almost immediate, worrying shift in his mood.<\/p>\n \u201cHe went from someone with all these goals, dreams and aspirations to suddenly withdrawing from sports and hiding in his room,\u201d Bacchus said, speaking from the family home.<\/p>\n Her husband, Randy Sr, said: \u201cAs responsible parents, we did the research. Everything we read or looked at online just said marijuana was not a big deal \u2014 it was benign, harmless.\u201d After Randy moved out and went to live by himself in Colorado, he started to have delusions, became paranoid and fell into a psychotic state.\u00a0Randy would end up taking his own life aged 21.<\/p>\n The Bacchuses believe their son\u2019s marijuana addiction played a role. \u201cHe was taking medical\u00a0marijuana\u00a0to relieve anxiety and depression, but in the end the same things that he thought it was helping him for were actually just being made worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week they welcomed a landmark class-action lawsuit filed on Monday against three of the biggest cannabis companies in America for advertising their products as medicine capable of treating pain and a broad array of mental health disorders despite allegedly knowing that the science did not support their claims.<\/p>\n The suit is the first of its kind and has been likened by advocates who campaign against the drug to the legal reckoning faced by the tobacco industry in the late 1990s, which found that US tobacco companies had been deceptive. It led to restrictions around billboard advertising and commercials specifically targeting young people, and triggered anti-smoking campaigns, which led to a dramatic drop in the rates of smoking in the years that followed.<\/p>\n \u201cI really think this could be a master settlement moment.\u201d Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy adviser and president of the advocacy group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, told The Sunday Times. The tobacco master settlement agreement was the largest civil litigation settlement in US history and resulted in major companies agreeing to pay states $206 billion to cover smoking-related health costs.<\/p>\n Facing possible civil penalties and punitive damages into the billions, the stakes are high for the cannabis industry. If the plaintiffs are successful, it could spark a wave of similar action \u2014 threatening to bankrupt its biggest players.<\/p>\n The legal cannabis industry has boomed in the past decade, when states began legalising its recreational use \u2014 allowing it to evolve from a taboo, illicit market into a regulated, multibillion-dollar economy. In the US, it is now a $30 billion business, while the UK market is currently valued at around \u00a3233 million, the largest in Europe after Germany.<\/p>\n Medicinal marijuana shops are popping up all over the 40 US states where it is legal. The smell of weed fills the air of the streets of densely packed New York, where recreational use of the substance was legalised in 2021.<\/p>\n Since then, air-quality complaints to the council over the city\u2019s unofficial scent have doubled. Even international tennis players visiting New York for last year\u2019s US Open have joked about it: Alexander Zverev called Court 17 of the Queens venue \u201cSnoop Dogg\u2019s living room\u201d, and Nick Kyrgios, an asthmatic, suggested it had affected his game.<\/p>\n In downtown Brooklyn, new dispensaries open every week. One named the Travel Agency aims at a high-income market, while another, Buzzy, appears from the outside little different to an ice cream store. They require customers to show a valid form of ID to prove they are over 21, however they are not asked for any doctor\u2019s note or card proving the medical need for marijuana.<\/p>\n Lawyers acting for 42 consumers allege in the suit, filed in Illinois, that Cresco Labs, Green Thumb Industries and Verano Holding Corp falsely and deceptively promote hundreds of their products as \u201cgreat for\u201d, \u201caiding\u201d, \u201ctreating\u201d and \u201calleviating\u201d pain, anxiety and insomnia, as well as a host of mental health disorders, including PTSD, schizophrenia and depression.<\/p>\n They claim the promotions and product descriptions provide no citation or basis for substantiating these claims, nor any explanation as to how the specific product being promoted uniquely or effectively treats medical disorders.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have been framing a dangerous drug as a wellness product,\u201d said Sabet, who suggested it has been considered \u201cuncool\u201d to criticise the recreational use of cannabis or question claims of its medicinal properties. \u201cOnly now I think we are starting to see some cracks in this decades-long idea that you can\u2019t question those claims,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Marijuana is used by some pregnant women for morning sickness, for example: however, a number of studies have warned it can affect foetal development, leading to behavioural problems among infants and toddlers later in life.<\/p>\n Patrick Kenneally, an attorney and former Illinois state prosecutor, said he decided to bring the case after seeing some of the effects cannabis was having on his constituents. \u201cI have met with countless families whose lives, health and cognition have been seriously impaired or destroyed by cannabis use,\u201d he said. Kenneally said he wanted companies to be required to warn customers about their products\u2019 dangers to mental and physical health.<\/p>\n Cannabis products are now sold in a much wider variety of forms, from premade spliffs to gummies and lollipops, which anti-drug advocates say is done deliberately to appeal to the lucrative younger market.<\/p>\n Some are marketed as sleep aids, others make claims they can heighten creativity and focus. The complaint cites company blog posts featuring titles such as \u201cBest Cannabis Strains for Anxiety & Stress\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cYoung people are seeing marijuana being sold in these kid-friendly products \u2014 the candies, the gummies, the elixirs \u2014 and they\u2019re thinking how could this be bad for you?\u201d Sabet said. \u201cIt\u2019s normalising it in ways that go beyond what tobacco did. The industry at one point claimed cigarettes were good for the throat, but they never claimed to actually treat and cure diseases like the marijuana industry does.\u201d<\/p>\n Edibles on sale today also have far greater concentrations of THC, the component of the plant that produces a high, than they did decades ago.<\/p>\n \u201cThe weed that was around when we were young is nowhere near the strength it is today,\u201d said Randy Bacchus Sr, who, alongside his wife, has become an advocate for youth mental health and substance use prevention in the wake of their son\u2019s death in 2021. \u201cI think it disrupted the chemical balance of his brain at a really crucial time in his development,\u201d he said of Randy Jr\u2019s near-daily use from the age of 15.<\/p>\n Recent data from the National Institutes of Health found that nearly a quarter of college students reported to have had marijuana in the past 30 days, and nearly one in 12 college students were daily or near-daily users. A national survey in the UK found similar rates.<\/p>\n About 53 per cent of people who say they use cannabis for health reasons say they do so to relieve pain.<\/p>\n However, medical societies such as the International Association for the Study of Pain, recommend against cannabis as a go-to treatment, because the data is limited and there is a risk of side-effects, including dizziness and nausea.<\/p>\n After pain, anxiety is the most common medicinal reason consumers cite for using cannabis. The American Psychiatric Association opposes the medical use of cannabis saying there is insufficient evidence and a strong association between cannabis use and psychiatric disorders, especially among adolescents and young adults, like Randy.<\/p>\n A study published last year by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy found that states legalising recreational marijuana experienced a 12 per cent increase in the number of people admitted to state mental health facilities.<\/p>\n Lynn Silver, a senior advisor at the Public Health Institute, said the lawsuits were especially significant because they were going after major cannabis corporations.<\/p>\n \u201cLike tobacco litigation before it, this legal strategy could help expose harmful industry practices, reveal internal corporate misconduct, and establish stronger accountability standards,\u201d said Silver, who is director of Getting It Right from the Start. \u201cBig Tobacco\u2019s decades of deception were ultimately challenged through litigation that helped uncover the truth. These lawsuits may prove to be an equally important public health inflection point.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesman for Verano said in a statement that the suit \u201cmirrors claims that have been rejected by courts in similar legal actions against multistate operators in the industry earlier this year\u201d.<\/p>\n Officials from Cresco and Green Thumb said they did not comment on ongoing litigation.<\/p>\n The lawsuit comes at a time when federal regulation on marijuana is loosening, not tightening, however. Cannabis products are currently not required to disclose possible risk, as the drug is not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).<\/p>\n Last month the Trump administration\u00a0relaxed federal controls on medical marijuana, moving the product from a class of highly addictive drugs, such as heroin, to a category of lower-risk medicines, like prescription Tylenol. It is a change the cannabis industry had sought for years and that Trump endorsed during his 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n It will give those companies tax breaks and help fund research required for marijuana to gain approval from the FDA, which would make it legal to prescribe at the federal level.<\/p>\n For the Bacchuses, that is an alarming prospect. \u201cIf they want to call it a medical aid, then they need to start really treating it as a prescription with regular check-ups with a doctor to make sure it is actually working,\u201d said Randy Sr. \u201cI just want to say to parents: research these products, don\u2019t just accept what the marketing tells you.\u201d<\/p>\n Heather Bacchus said: \u201cOur son was into working out, he was into his health, he wanted to be successful in life. I truly believe had he known the reality, how this would impact his brain, before he started using, then he\u2019d probably still be here with us today.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: www.drugwatch.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Josie Ensor, Chief US Reporter – The Times of London –\u00a0 May 09 2026 – The Sunday Times Corporations at the top of America\u2019s $30bn trade are accused of false advertising \u2014 it could become their Big Tobacco moment Heather Bacchus worried when her 15-year-old son started using marijuana. Randy Jr was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,142,60,139,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-latest-news","category-marijuana-and-medicine","category-strategy-and-policy","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20954,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20953\/revisions\/20954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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