Politics
Bill Advancing In Congress To Protect Kids Online Could Create Complications For Marijuana Businesses In Legal States
A congressional committee has advanced a bill aimed at protecting children online that could create complications for advertisers trying to promote legal marijuana and other regulated substances.
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) filed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) earlier this month, and the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade approved an amended version of the legislation on Thursday on a party-line vote of 13-10, with Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition.
Bipartisan senators introduced a version of the measure earlier this year, but it has not advanced in that chamber this Congress even though a prior iteration was passed by the body in 2024.
Under the new legislation, online platforms would be prohibited from facilitating the “advertising of narcotic drugs, cannabis products, tobacco products, gambling, or alcohol to an individual that the covered platform knows is a minor.”
The provision around drug use lists the “distribution, sale, or use of narcotic drugs, tobacco products, cannabis products, gambling, or alcohol” as risks that platforms would need to actively guard minors against.
One section that was in prior iterations of the bill that seems to have been omitted from this latest version had stipulated that video streaming platforms would be required “to employ measures that safeguard against serving advertising for narcotic drugs, cannabis products, tobacco products, gambling, or alcohol directly to the account or profile of an individual that the service knows is a minor.”
It’s unclear why that language was left out of the new measure.
Online platforms covered under the legislation under those that are publicly available for use, allow the creation of searchable usernames that can be followed, facilitate the “share and access to user-generated content,” is designed to promote engagement and uses user information to target advertising.
Bilirakis, who chairs the House panel that approved his amended legislation last week, said the bill “protects kids across America by mandating default safeguards and easy-to-use parental controls to empower families.”
“It is the foundation and the safety net, with concrete safeguards to keep kids and teens safe,” he said.
Few in the public policy space oppose the intent of the legislation, but some say its broad and potentially vague requirements could be difficult in practice.
Shoshana Weismann, a fellow at the free-market R Street Institute, told Marijuana Moment earlier this year when the Senate version was filed that the measure could ultimately block wide swaths of online advertising that are accessible by minors—even if the ads don’t target children, as the bill’s proponent’s suggest.
“The problem is that the knowledge standard here is so loose,” she said, pointing to the bill’s definition of knowledge by platforms that they’re serving content to underage users.
Another previous version of KOSA, introduced in the 118th Congress, won Senate approval last summer but did not pass out of the House.
After last year’s Senate passage of the measure, Jenna Leventoff, ACLU’s senior policy council and director of the civil right’s group’s national political advocacy division, said she was skeptical the legislation would pass constitutional muster.
A number of states have attempted to adopt bills similar to KOSA, Leventoff pointed out, and “in almost every case, a court has evaluated those laws and determined that they are likely to be unconstitutional.”
“It’s extremely likely that KOSA is unconstitutional,” she said at the time,” and it makes me wonder why Congress is trying to enact something that won’t hold up in a court of law.”
At the state level last year, Colorado’s Senate passed a bill similarly aimed at protecting minors from drug and other controversial content. But the proposal—which was later put on hold indefinitely by a House committee—drew fire from advocates such as Weismann at R Street Institute.
She and other critics pointed out at the time that the bill could ban content around over-the-counter cough syrup and even, potentially, the Colorado governor’s social media posts in favor of the state’s legal psychedelics industry.
Under existing regulations, states that have legalized have generally seen less cannabis consumption among young people compared to states where marijuana remains illegal, according to multiple studies.
For example, an analysis of government survey data published earlier this year by the advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) found that youth marijuana use declined in 19 out of 21 states that legalized adult-use marijuana—with teen cannabis consumption down an average of 35 percent in the first states to legalize a decade ago.
