WeedPress: The Paper Trail

About the Publisher

Jason Karimi, WeedPress Contributor
4–7 minutes
Jason Karimi, publisher of WeedPress, in a tinted motorcycle helmet

Jason Karimi

Jason Karimi publishes WeedPress: The Paper Trail. He lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and is a registered South Dakota medical cannabis patient.

WeedPress covers cannabis policy in South Dakota, with regional coverage of Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. Its focus is how drug policy gets made and whether it works. Marijuana is the test case: state medical cannabis laws treat it as medicine, while federal and state controlled-substances laws have long treated it as having no accepted medical use. That conflict raises recurring questions of constitutional and administrative law, and WeedPress follows them through statutes, rules, agency records and court files.

The WeedPress archive dates to January 2010 and contains more than 1,600 published posts, including years of Iowa coverage before the site’s current South Dakota focus.

Background and experience

Media and press

  • Karimi has appeared on KELOLAND News, in the Argus Leader, on Omaha television news, on We Are Iowa (Channel 5) and on Iowa Public Radio’s River to River with Ben Kieffer. (WeedPress transcript of the appearance)
  • His video was featured in HuffPost (2011).
  • He is credited in The Housing Bubble, an economics documentary seen in 70 countries and discussed on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Policy and legislation

  • Karimi has helped draft legislation. He wrote a summary of a Minnesota House bill directing the state to petition for a federal exemption for its medical cannabis program, as part of the ongoing discussion around it.

Campaigns and organizing

  • Regional recruiter for Young Americans for Liberty.
  • Managed a campaign for governor and moderated a Libertarian gubernatorial debate.
  • Worked for a U.S. Senate campaign.
  • Managed a state House campaign whose candidate won the seat.

Broadcasting

  • Co-hosted national radio shows on cannabis law on the Time 4 Hemp network.

Education

  • Studied paralegal for two years at Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC).

Beyond the newsroom

  • Karimi was listed among the top ten soccer referees in Iowa at the college and high school levels, based on coach and player feedback after games. He has refereed Des Moines Menace and Drake University men’s soccer matches, as well as Iowa State University men’s scrimmages.

Public record of Karimi’s advocacy

Karimi participates in some processes he covers, and WeedPress discloses that participation. The following recent examples are described in published WeedPress posts:

  • Petition to the South Dakota Department of Health (Feb. 23, 2026). Karimi filed a petition for declaratory ruling asking the department to explain how marijuana’s Schedule I listing fits the state’s scheduling criteria in light of the medical cannabis program. (post; follow-up, Aug. 31, 2026)
  • Rulemaking comments (September 2026). Karimi submitted written comments and a supplemental comment on the Department of Health’s medical cannabis rule package. The department’s hearing minutes list him as opposing two of the rules. (comments; supplemental comment; disclosure in rules coverage)
  • Open-records request (Oct. 19, 2026). Karimi asked the Legislative Research Council for five years of Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee communications with outside individuals and groups, including records on how outside speakers were selected. (post)
  • Legislative testimony. The current WeedPress About page lists testimony in South Dakota in 2026, Iowa in 2025, and Hawaii and Minnesota in 2021. He spoke at a February 2026 South Dakota legislative hearing on a proposal to repeal the state’s medical cannabis laws. (post)
  • Iowa. A 2020 WeedPress post says he was invited to give policy suggestions to the Des Moines City Council’s marijuana enforcement task force. (post) A 2021 WeedPress post says he described himself as co-founder and executive director of Iowa Patients for Medical Marijuana. (post) Karimi stepped down from Iowa Patients for Medical Marijuana in December 2025. He describes the departure as mission success: the group’s two stated goals were removing cannabis from Schedule I and getting a federal exemption for state medical cannabis programs, and in his view federal action has since met both. The federal record: on Dec. 18, 2025, a presidential executive order directed expedited rescheduling of marijuana. On April 23, 2026, the Justice Department ordered FDA-approved marijuana products and marijuana covered by a state medical marijuana license moved to Schedule III, effective April 28, 2026. Marijuana outside those categories remains in Schedule I. (Justice Department announcement; Federal Register)

Karimi is also a party to court cases that WeedPress covers. In State v. Karimi, a Thurston County, Nebraska, case, he is the defendant. In Mentele v. Karimi, No. 49TPO26-000343 (S.D. Cir. Ct., Minnehaha Cnty.), he is the respondent to a protection-order petition. In Karimi’s account, his oversight reporting on businesses that lobby for profit while claiming to represent patients is what brought him to court, and he successfully defended his right to criticize policymakers and influencers. The court denied the petition after a May 12, 2026 hearing. The petitioner has appealed to the South Dakota Supreme Court, and the appeal is pending. (hearing transcript; coverage) Articles about those cases, or about people involved in those disputes, carry a disclosure.

Why WeedPress exists

Cannabis policy is often debated through talking points, but the public record is in documents: bills, fiscal notes, administrative rules, agency letters, attorney general opinions, court orders and transcripts. WeedPress exists to put those documents in front of readers, explain what they say, and keep them in one searchable place, so patients, lawmakers, reporters, attorneys and regulators can check the record for themselves.

WeedPress does not accept advertising, consulting fees, sponsorships, affiliate revenue or paid advocacy.

Standards

  • Primary documents. Factual claims are tied to primary public records, and WeedPress links or uploads the underlying document when possible. The Records Library collects the documents cited in WeedPress articles.
  • Right of reply. Anyone named in a WeedPress article may send a response to weedpressnewstips@gmail.com.
  • Corrections. Errors are corrected in the article with a dated correction note, and changes are recorded in the Public Compliance Log.
  • Redactions. Before posting documents, WeedPress redacts personal identifiers of private individuals, such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and names of minors.
  • Disclosure. When the publisher is a participant in a matter as a commenter, petitioner, records requester or party to a case, the article says so.

The full Editorial Policy governs all content.

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Nothing published on WeedPress is legal advice.