Maryland Just Drew a New Line on Veterinary Cannabis

April 24, 2026

In a new development, Maryland has protected veterinarians from professional discipline solely for discussing or recommending cannabis or cannabidiol products for animals. House Bill 452 and Senate Bill 54, signed on April 14, 2026 as Chapters 47 and 48, bar the State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners from suspending or revoking a license, reprimanding or censuring a veterinarian, or placing the licensee on probation solely because the veterinarian discussed or recommended cannabis or a cannabidiol-containing product for an animal’s potential therapeutic effect or health-supplementation purposes. The law takes effect October 1, 2026.¹ ² ³ This is not full veterinary cannabis legalization. It is a speech-and-professional-judgment protection statute. That distinction matters.  

Why it matters: Maryland’s old legal environment was restrictive enough that veterinarians had real reason to stay quiet. In 2019, the Maryland State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners issued a statement saying that, at that time, all cannabidiol products except Epidiolex were Schedule I controlled substances in Maryland, that the FDA had not approved any CBD products for use in animals, and that veterinarians should exercise “great caution” if clients initiated these discussions.⁴ In plain English, Maryland had created the kind of regime that predictably pushes owners toward internet folklore, retail marketing, and dosing guesswork rather than informed veterinary advice. HB 452/SB 54 is an attempt to break that silence without pretending the science is more settled than it is.  

That is also why the new law is narrower—and smarter—than it may first appear. It does not authorize veterinarians to prescribe FDA-unapproved cannabis drugs for animals. It does not create a new veterinary cannabis dispensing channel. It does not declare pet cannabis products safe, standardized, or clinically validated. It simply says the Board cannot punish a veterinarian solely for having the discussion or making the recommendation.⁵ That is a modest but important reform, because the first prerequisite to rational care is the ability to speak candidly inside a veterinarian-client-patient relationship.  

And candor is badly needed, because the federal side remains underdeveloped. The FDA still has no approved cannabis-derived products for use in animals, has continued warning companies marketing unapproved CBD animal products, and in 2025 the Center for Veterinary Medicine formally solicited public comments on the use of cannabis-derived products in veterinary medicine.⁶ ⁷ ⁸ That combination tells the real story: the market moved first, pet owners followed, veterinarians were left in a gray zone, and regulators are still catching up. Maryland’s bill does not solve that federal regulatory gap. It acknowledges it.  

The science, meanwhile, is neither nonexistent nor conclusive. The American Veterinary Medical Association’s 2025 cannabis report and related AVMA materials make clear that evidence is emerging but remains limited, with especially strong interest in pain, mobility, seizure disorders, anxiety, and palliative settings.⁹ ¹⁰ Some canine studies have reported signals of benefit, particularly in osteoarthritis and mobility-related pain, including early pharmacokinetic and clinical work from Cornell and later placebo-controlled trials published in Frontiers.¹¹ ¹² ¹³ ¹⁴ But the evidence base is still fragmented: products vary, formulations vary, endpoints vary, and long-term dosing, safety, labeling accuracy, and drug-interaction issues remain incompletely resolved. That is precisely why a veterinarian should be allowed to discuss the subject instead of being forced into silence while owners experiment on their own.  

Maryland’s move also fits a broader national pattern. Other jurisdictions have already begun carving out room for veterinary cannabis discussions, most notably California through board guidance and related statutory changes.¹⁵ ¹⁶ The direction of travel is obvious: states are slowly recognizing that whatever one thinks of cannabis policy in the abstract, veterinarians should not be disciplined merely for giving evidence-aware advice about substances pet owners are already using. Maryland did not go as far as a full clinical authorization model. But it did reject the worst version of the status quo: a regime in which everyone knows the products exist, everyone knows owners are using them, and the one licensed professional in the room is pressured not to speak.  

The strongest argument for Maryland’s law is not that cannabis for animals has been fully proven. It has not. The strongest argument is that professional silence is the wrong regulatory answer to scientific uncertainty. When the evidence is mixed, the market is noisy, and owners are already making decisions, the law should favor informed discussion over coerced ignorance. Maryland’s new statute does exactly that. It does not settle the veterinary cannabis debate. It does something more basic and more defensible: it lets veterinarians participate in it.  

Footnotes

¹ H.B. 452, 2026 Reg. Sess. (Md. 2026) (enacted as ch. 47), prohibiting discipline by the State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners solely because a veterinarian discusses or recommends cannabis or cannabidiol products for animals.

² S.B. 54, 2026 Reg. Sess. (Md. 2026) (enacted as ch. 48), cross-filed companion measure.

³ Md. Gen. Assemb., Bills to be Signed by the Governor on April 14, 2026, at 16 (listing H.B. 452, ch. 47, and S.B. 54, ch. 48, both effective Oct. 1, 2026).

⁴ Md. State Bd. of Veterinary Med. Exam’rs, Statement from the State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners: CBD Oil and Maryland Veterinarians (Mar. 1, 2019).

⁵ See H.B. 452, 2026 Reg. Sess. (Md. 2026); S.B. 54, 2026 Reg. Sess. (Md. 2026).

⁶ U.S. Food & Drug Admin., FDA Solicits Public Comments on Use of Cannabis-Derived Products in Veterinary Medicine (Jan. 15, 2025).

⁷ U.S. Food & Drug Admin., FDA Warns Four Companies for Illegally Selling CBD Products Intended for Use in Food-Producing Animals (May 26, 2022).

⁸ U.S. Food & Drug Admin., Warning Letter to Bailey’s Wellness, LLC d/b/a Bailey’s CBD (Apr. 29, 2025); U.S. Food & Drug Admin., Warning Letter to House of Alchemy LLC d/b/a CBD Dog Health & Hamet & Love LLC d/b/a MycoDog (Apr. 29, 2025).

⁹ Am. Veterinary Med. Ass’n, Cannabis in Veterinary Medicine (2025).

¹⁰ Am. Veterinary Med. Ass’n, Cannabis Use and Pets.

¹¹ Lisa J. Gamble et al., Pharmacokinetics, Safety, and Clinical Efficacy of Cannabidiol Treatment in Osteoarthritic Dogs, 6 Frontiers in Veterinary Science 165 (2018).

¹² B. Talsma et al., Evaluation of the Effect of Cannabidiol Administration with and Without Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs in Dogs with Mobility Disorders, 11 Frontiers in Veterinary Science (2024).

¹³ N.M. Griebeler et al., Cannabis-Based Extract for Managing Pain in Dogs with Osteoarthritis: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial, 16 Frontiers in Pharmacology (2025).

¹⁴ Y. Shilo-Benjamini et al., Efficacy, Pharmacokinetics and Safety of Liposomal Cannabidiol in Dogs with Osteoarthritis, 12 Frontiers in Veterinary Science (2025).

¹⁵ Cal. Veterinary Med. Bd., Guidelines for Veterinarian Discussion and Recommendation of Cannabis Within the Veterinarian-Client-Patient Relationship (rev. Apr. 19, 2023).

¹⁶ See Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 4883; see also An Update on the Legal Considerations of the Use of Cannabis in Veterinary Medicine, Today’s Veterinary Practice (2024).