South Carolina
South Carolina has enacted no medical, decriminalization, or adult-use cannabis law, leaving it among the fully prohibited states. Cannabis is a Schedule I controlled substance under S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-190, and the state operates no licensing, taxation, or regulatory framework for cannabis of any kind. The one cannabis-derived carve-out is Julian's Law, a 2014 statute permitting possession of CBD oil below 0.9 percent THC for severe epilepsy under physician supervision; it created no in-state cultivation, processing, or retail, so there is no legal supply. There is no legal possession allowance; any amount is a criminal offense. Penalties have not been materially increased or decreased in recent sessions, leaving the direction of the law unchanged; the last notable softening was the 2019 move of drug-paraphernalia possession to a civil penalty under 44-53-391. South Carolina has no citizen ballot-initiative mechanism, so any reform must pass the Legislature. A medical-only bill, the Compassionate Care Act, has passed the State Senate in prior sessions and repeatedly died in the House; its 2025-2026 version, S.53, was referred to the Senate Committee on Medical Affairs in January 2025, and the General Assembly recessed in May 2026 without a hearing on it. Cannabis arrests totaled 10,642 in calendar-year 2024. South Carolina's population reached 5,478,831 as of July 1, 2024.
Licensing & Market
South Carolina issues no cannabis licenses of any class and operates no cultivation, retail, manufacturing, or delivery program. There is no track-and-trace system, no application or license fees, no municipal opt-in framework, and no vertical-integration rule, because the state has no legal cannabis industry to regulate. Every market-access metric is null by structure rather than by a gap in reporting.
| Field | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cultivator licenses awarded | Not available in the public record | — |
| Cultivator licenses operational | Not available in the public record | — |
| Cultivator activation rate | Not available in the public record | — |
| Operating cultivators per million | Not available in the public record | — |
| Retail licenses awarded | Not available in the public record | — |
| Retail licenses operational | Not available in the public record | — |
| Retail activation rate | Not available in the public record | — |
| Dispensaries per 100k | Not available in the public record | — |
| Vertical integration | Not available in the public record | — |
| License caps exist | Not available in the public record | — |
| Licenses transferable | Not available in the public record | — |
| Residency required | Not available in the public record | — |
| Residency duration (months) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Municipalities allowing | Not available in the public record | — |
| Municipalities total | Not available in the public record | — |
| Municipal opt-in rate | Not available in the public record | — |
| Track-and-trace system | Not available in the public record | — |
| Cultivator application fee | Not available in the public record | — |
| Cultivator annual fee | Not available in the public record | — |
| Retail application fee | Not available in the public record | — |
| Retail annual fee | Not available in the public record | — |
Consumer Rules
South Carolina permits no legal cannabis use or possession. Home cultivation is a felony, prosecuted as manufacture of a Schedule I substance under S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370. There is no legal possession limit because no amount is lawful; the one-ounce figure in state law marks the line dividing misdemeanor from felony possession, not a permitted quantity. Cannabis delivery and consumption lounges do not exist as legal categories. No product forms are lawful for adult or medical use.
| Field | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Home grow allowed | No | [5] |
| Home grow plant limit | Not available in the public record | — |
| Possession limit (oz) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Delivery legal | No | [6] |
| Delivery operational | No | [7] |
| Consumption lounges legal | No | [8] |
| Consumption lounges count | Not available in the public record | — |
| Purchase limit, flower (oz) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Purchase limit, concentrate (g) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Purchase limit, edibles (mg) | Not available in the public record | — |
| All product forms legal | Not available in the public record | — |
| Restricted product forms | Not available in the public record | — |
Taxation
South Carolina levies no cannabis excise, sales, potency, or wholesale tax and collects no cannabis tax revenue. The state's general sales tax does not reach a market that does not legally exist. All fiscal metrics are null because there is no taxable legal market.
| Field | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Excise tax | Not available in the public record | — |
| Excise tax type | Not available in the public record | — |
| Sales tax | Not available in the public record | — |
| Wholesale tax | Not available in the public record | — |
| Potency tax exists | Not available in the public record | — |
| Potency tax, flower | Not available in the public record | — |
| Potency tax, concentrate | Not available in the public record | — |
| Potency tax, edibles | Not available in the public record | — |
| Local tax (max) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Local tax (typical) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Total effective rate | Not available in the public record | — |
| Medical tax exempt | Not available in the public record | — |
| Medical tax rate | Not available in the public record | — |
| Annual tax revenue | Not available in the public record | — |
| Tax revenue per capita | Not available in the public record | — |
| Tax changed since legalization | Not available in the public record | — |
| Tax direction | Not available in the public record | — |
Operator Data
South Carolina has no legal cannabis operators, sales, licenses, or published prices. No figures exist for market size, per-capita sales, wholesale or retail pricing, or license attrition, because there is no legal industry. Any cannabis commerce occurs in the unregulated market and is not captured in any public dataset.
| Field | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Wholesale flower ($/lb) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Wholesale flower period | Not available in the public record | — |
| Wholesale trend | Not available in the public record | — |
| Wholesale price compression | Not available in the public record | — |
| Retail flower ($/oz) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Operator margin | Not available in the public record | — |
| Total market sales | Not available in the public record | — |
| Adult-use sales | Not available in the public record | — |
| Per-capita sales | Not available in the public record | — |
| YoY sales growth | Not available in the public record | — |
| License attrition (count) | Not available in the public record | — |
| License attrition | Not available in the public record | — |
| Peak cultivation licenses | Not available in the public record | — |
| Current cultivation licenses | Not available in the public record | — |
Consumer Data
South Carolina has no legal cannabis market, so there is no per-capita legal sales figure, dispensary density, or published retail price trend. By definition, all cannabis consumed in the state moves through the unregulated market; no primary estimate of legal-market capture exists, because there is no legal market against which to measure it.
| Field | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Per-capita sales | Not available in the public record | — |
| Dispensaries per 100k | Not available in the public record | — |
| Legal market capture | Not available in the public record | — |
| Legal capture source | Not available in the public record | — |
| Retail price trend | Not available in the public record | — |
Equity Programs
South Carolina operates no social-equity program, no cannabis equity or reinvestment fund, and no cannabis-specific expungement or automatic record-clearing mechanism. Because the state has enacted no legalization statute, there is no licensing system in which equity provisions could exist and no triggering event for record relief. A general, petition-based expungement process exists under S.C. Code Ann. 17-22-910 et seq., but it is not cannabis-specific and is not automatic. These are settled negative answers rather than gaps in reporting.
| Field | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Equity program exists | No | [9] |
| Equity program type | Not available in the public record | — |
| Equity licenses awarded | Not available in the public record | — |
| Equity licenses operational | Not available in the public record | — |
| Equity activation rate | Not available in the public record | — |
| Equity fund exists | No | [10] |
| Equity fund size | Not available in the public record | — |
| Equity fund disbursed | Not available in the public record | — |
| Equity fund disbursement rate | Not available in the public record | — |
| Minority ownership | Not available in the public record | — |
| Women ownership | Not available in the public record | — |
| Community reinvestment | Not available in the public record | — |
| Expungement exists | No | [11] |
| Expungement automatic | Not available in the public record | — |
| Expungements processed | Not available in the public record | — |
| Income cap for equity | Not available in the public record | — |
Enforcement
South Carolina has no cannabis regulatory agency, regulatory budget, inspection regime, testing requirements, or licensee-enforcement program, because there are no licensees. Enforcement of cannabis law is ordinary criminal law enforcement carried out by police, prosecutors, and the courts, reflected in the arrest figures reported under criminalization rather than in regulatory metrics. The operational enforcement statistics a regulated state would publish are not available because no such regulator exists.
| Field | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Track-and-trace system | Not available in the public record | — |
| Inspections per year | Not available in the public record | — |
| Enforcement actions (licensees) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Unlicensed-market enforcement actions | Not available in the public record | — |
| Regulatory budget | Not available in the public record | — |
| Regulatory staff | Not available in the public record | — |
| Mandatory testing analytes | Not available in the public record | — |
| Testing cost per batch | Not available in the public record | — |
| Product recalls per year | Not available in the public record | — |
| Fine schedule (min) | Not available in the public record | — |
| Fine schedule (max) | Not available in the public record | — |
Penalties & Criminal Law
South Carolina prohibits cannabis in all forms and provides no legal possession allowance. Possession of one ounce or less is a misdemeanor, carrying up to 30 days in jail and a fine of $100 to $200 for a first offense, and up to one year and a fine up to $2,000 for subsequent offenses (S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(d)(4)). Possession of more than one ounce — about 28 grams — is treated as prima facie possession with intent to distribute and is a felony under 44-53-370(b)(2), punishable by up to five years and a fine up to $5,000 for a first offense. Cultivation and sale are both felonies under 44-53-370(b)(2), each carrying up to five years and a fine up to $5,000 for a first offense and rising to 5 to 20 years and a $20,000 fine for a third or subsequent offense; at higher volumes the trafficking statute, 44-53-370(e)(1), imposes mandatory minimum sentences keyed to plant count or weight, reaching a 25-year mandatory minimum at 100 or more plants or 100 or more pounds. South Carolina sets no per se THC blood limit for impaired driving, relying instead on an impairment standard under S.C. Code Ann. 56-5-2930. The state has no cannabis expungement or automatic record-clearing program. Penalties have not been materially increased or decreased in recent sessions, and South Carolina has never legalized cannabis, so there is no post-legalization penalty trajectory. Cannabis arrests totaled 10,642 in calendar-year 2024, composed of 9,638 possession arrests and 1,004 sales arrests, and have ranged between about 9,900 and 20,300 per year since calendar-year 2018, with the high in 2018 and the low in 2021. These counts derive from secondary compilations of FBI Uniform Crime Reporting and NIBRS data, which are incomplete and understate true totals. The most recent published racial-disparity estimate, drawn from 2018 federal data, found Black residents arrested for cannabis possession at 3.5 times the rate of white residents.
| Field | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Max penalty, unlicensed cultivation | Cultivation is prosecuted as 'manufacture' of marijuana under S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(a)/(b)(2): up to 5 years imprisonment and a fine up to $5,000 for a first offense (up to 10 years / $10,000 second offense; 5-20 years / $20,000 third and subsequent). At higher plant counts the marijuana trafficking statute, 44-53-370(e)(1), imposes mandatory minimums by plant count: 100-1,000 plants = 25-year mandatory minimum + $25,000; 1,000-10,000 plants = 25-year mandatory minimum + $50,000; more than 10,000 plants = 25-year mandatory minimum + $200,000. | [12] |
| Max penalty, unlicensed sale | Sale/distribution of marijuana under S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(b)(2) is a felony: up to 5 years / $5,000 (first), up to 10 years / $10,000 (second), 5-20 years / $20,000 (third+). Trafficking by weight under 44-53-370(e)(1) carries mandatory minimums: 10 lbs-100 lbs = 1-10 years mandatory + $10,000 (first); 100 lbs-2,000 lbs = 25-year mandatory minimum + $25,000; 2,000-10,000 lbs = 25-year mandatory minimum + $50,000; more than 10,000 lbs = 25-year mandatory minimum + $200,000. Distribution to a minor or within one-half mile of a school/park is a separate felony, up to 10 years / $10,000. | [13] |
| Felony threshold (grams) | 28 | [14] |
| Felony threshold type | possession | [15] |
| Penalty, possession over limit | South Carolina has no legal possession allowance; any possession of marijuana is criminal. Possession of one ounce (28 g) or less is a misdemeanor: first offense up to 30 days jail and a $100-$200 fine; subsequent offenses up to 1 year and up to a $2,000 fine (S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(d)(4)). Possession of MORE THAN one ounce is treated as prima facie possession with intent to distribute and is a felony under 44-53-370(b)(2): up to 5 years and a $5,000 fine for a first offense. | [16] |
| Penalty, public consumption | Not available in the public record | — |
| DUI per se limit (ng) | Not available in the public record | — |
| DUI zero tolerance | No | [17] |
| Penalties increased post-legalization | Not available in the public record | — |
| Penalty direction | unchanged | [18] |
| Penalty direction details | South Carolina has not legalized cannabis in any form, so there is no 'post-legalization' baseline. The state's criminal marijuana penalties under S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370 have not been materially increased or decreased in recent sessions; the one modernizing change was the 2019 reclassification of simple drug-paraphernalia possession to a civil penalty (max $500 fine, 44-53-391). The live policy story is legislative stalemate: Sen. Tom Davis's 'Compassionate Care Act' (medical only) has repeatedly passed the Senate in prior sessions but died in the House; the 2025-2026 version (S.53) remained in the Senate Committee on Medical Affairs and the General Assembly recessed in May 2026 without a hearing on it. | [19] |
| Post-legalization arrests (annual) | 10642 | [20] |
| Racial disparity ratio | 3.5 | [21] |
| Expungement exists | No | [11] |
| Expungement automatic | Not available in the public record | — |
Sources
- ↑ U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, South Carolina https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/SC
- ↑ USPS / U.S. Census Bureau standard two-letter abbreviation for South Carolina https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/ansi.html
- ↑ Dashboard compilation date 2026-06-07. Underlying vintages: Census Vintage 2024 population (July 1, 2024); FBI UCR/NIBRS marijuana arrests through CY2024 (via NORML); ACLU 'Tale of Two Countries' racial-disparity data (2018); S.C. Code current through the 2025-2026 session; Compassionate Care Act S.53 status as of the General Assembly's May 2026 recess.
- ↑ U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2024 Population Estimates — South Carolina resident population = 5,478,831 (July 1, 2024). Corroborated by the S.C. Department of Employment & Workforce, which reports the Census V2024 figure rounded to 5,479,000 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/SC
- ↑ No home cultivation allowance exists; growing marijuana is 'manufacture' of a Schedule I substance and a felony under S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(a)/(b)(2) https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c053.php
- ↑ No legal cannabis market exists; marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance (S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-190) and delivery/distribution is a felony (44-53-370(b)(2)). No licensed delivery framework exists https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c053.php
- ↑ No licensed cannabis delivery operates in South Carolina; cannabis is fully prohibited (S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-190; 44-53-370) https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c053.php
- ↑ No consumption-venue category exists; all marijuana possession and use is criminal under S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370 https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c053.php
- ↑ South Carolina operates no legal cannabis program and therefore no social-equity licensing program (cannabis is fully prohibited, S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-190) https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c053.php
- ↑ No cannabis equity or reinvestment fund exists; South Carolina collects no cannabis tax revenue (fully prohibited, S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-190) https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c053.php
- ↑ South Carolina has no marijuana-specific expungement or automatic record-clearing program; the state has no legalization statute that would trigger cannabis record relief. (General expungement under S.C. Code Ann. 17-22-910 et seq. is petition-based and not marijuana-specific.) https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c053.php
- ↑ [SECONDARY] NORML, 'South Carolina Laws & Penalties,' summarizing S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(b)(2) (manufacture: up to 5 yrs/$5,000 first; up to 10 yrs/$10,000 second; 5-20 yrs/$20,000 third+) and 44-53-370(e)(1) (trafficking by plant count: 100-1,000 plants = 25-yr mandatory min/$25,000; 1,000-10,000 = 25-yr min/$50,000; 10,000+ = 25-yr min/$200,000). Underlying primary: S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370 https://norml.org/laws/south-carolina-penalties-2/
- ↑ [SECONDARY] NORML, 'South Carolina Laws & Penalties,' summarizing S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(b)(2) (sale: up to 5 yrs/$5,000 first; 10 yrs/$10,000 second; 5-20 yrs/$20,000 third+) and 44-53-370(e)(1) (trafficking by weight: 10-100 lb = 1-10 yr mandatory/$10,000; 100-2,000 lb = 25-yr min/$25,000; 2,000-10,000 lb = 25-yr min/$50,000; 10,000+ lb = 25-yr min/$200,000; distribution to minor or near school/park = up to 10 yr/$10,000). Underlying primary: S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370 https://norml.org/laws/south-carolina-penalties-2/
- ↑ [SECONDARY] NORML, 'South Carolina Laws & Penalties' — possession of one ounce (28 g) or less is a misdemeanor; possession of MORE THAN one ounce is a felony (charged as possession with intent to distribute under the statutory prima-facie presumption). Threshold recorded as 28 g; possession above this amount is a felony. Underlying primary: S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(d)(4) & (b)(2) https://norml.org/laws/south-carolina-penalties-2/
- ↑ [SECONDARY] NORML, 'South Carolina Laws & Penalties' — the one-ounce threshold keys to possession (possession of more than one ounce is prima facie possession with intent to distribute). Underlying primary: S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(d)(4) & (b)(2) https://norml.org/laws/south-carolina-penalties-2/
- ↑ [SECONDARY] NORML, 'South Carolina Laws & Penalties' — possession of 1 oz or less: misdemeanor, up to 30 days + $100-$200 (first), up to 1 yr + $2,000 (subsequent); more than 1 oz: felony (presumed intent to distribute), up to 5 yrs + $5,000 (first). Underlying primary: S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370(d)(4) & (b)(2) https://norml.org/laws/south-carolina-penalties-2/
- ↑ S.C. Code Ann. 56-5-2930 establishes an impairment-based DUI standard ('materially and appreciably impaired'); South Carolina has NO numeric per se THC blood limit and no zero-tolerance provision for detectable THC https://law.justia.com/codes/south-carolina/title-56/chapter-5/section-56-5-2930/
- ↑ S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-370 marijuana penalties have not been materially increased or decreased in recent sessions; the principal modernizing change was the 2019 move of drug-paraphernalia possession to a civil penalty under 44-53-391. South Carolina has never legalized cannabis, so there is no post-legalization penalty trajectory https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c053.php
- ↑ [SECONDARY] Marijuana Policy Project, South Carolina state page, and S.C. Legislature Online bill record for S.53 (Compassionate Care Act, 2025-2026): prefiled 12/11/2024, referred to the Senate Committee on Medical Affairs 1/14/2025; the medical-only bill has passed the Senate in prior sessions but repeatedly died in the House, and the 2025-2026 General Assembly recessed in May 2026 without a hearing on S.53 https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess126_2025-2026/bills/53.htm
- ↑ [SECONDARY] NORML South Carolina marijuana arrests library — CY2024 total marijuana arrests = 10,642 (9,638 possession + 1,004 sales), compiled from FBI UCR/NIBRS data. (South Carolina has no legalization, so this is the current annual cannabis-arrest figure, not a post-legalization figure; NIBRS agency participation was incomplete, so this understates true arrests.) https://norml.org/marijuana/library/state-marijuana-arrests/south-carolina-marijuana-arrests/
- ↑ [SECONDARY] ACLU of South Carolina, 'New ACLU Report: Black People Almost 3.5 Times More Likely to Get Arrested for Marijuana in South Carolina' (reporting the ACLU 'Tale of Two Countries' 2020 study), using 2018 FBI/UCR data — statewide Black:white marijuana possession arrest ratio = 3.5 (up from 1.8 in 2001 and 2.8 in 2010); South Carolina had the nation's 2nd-highest marijuana possession arrest rate https://www.aclusc.org/press-releases/new-aclu-report-black-people-almost-35-times-more-likely-get-arrested-marijuana-south/