Federal Youth Online Safety Bills Advance, Raising Compliance Challenges for Cannabis Advertising
核心洞察
The Senate Commerce Committee advanced the Kids Online Safety Act (搜索) (KOSA), which would prohibit online platforms from advertising cannabis and other regulated substances to known minors.
The House passed a companion measure, the KIDS Act, by a 267-117 bipartisan vote, with similar restrictions on cannabis advertising to underage users.
Critics, including ACLU (搜索)'s Jenna Leventoff and R Street Institute (搜索)'s Shoshana Weismann, warn the bills' vague "knowledge standard" may be unconstitutional and could inadvertently block lawful advertising.
Federal lawmakers are advancing bipartisan legislation aimed at shielding minors from online content related to drugs, including cannabis—moves that could significantly complicate digital advertising for state-legal marijuana businesses.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee advanced the Kids Online Safety Act (搜索) (KOSA), sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), in a voice vote on Wednesday. The bill, which has 76 cosponsors, would prohibit online platforms 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 House of Representatives passed its own companion measure, the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, by a 267-117 vote last month. Sponsored by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), the House bill contains similar restrictions on cannabis advertising directed at minors.
"Congress has spent years searching for how to best protect children and teens online, and today's overwhelming bipartisan vote indicates that we have found our solution," Guthrie said in a joint statement with Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ). "The KIDS Act creates strong protections with new rules for design features, default settings, and kids' privacy."
Scope of the Legislation
Under the Senate bill, covered platforms—defined as any "online platform, online video game, messaging application, or video streaming service that connects to the internet and that is used, or is reasonably likely to be used, by a minor"—would be required to "exercise reasonable care in the creation and implementation of any design feature to prevent and mitigate" the "distribution, sale, or use of narcotic drugs, tobacco products, cannabis products, gambling, or alcohol" to minors.
Video streaming services would specifically need 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."
The House version defines covered platforms as those that are publicly available, allow creation of searchable usernames, facilitate "sharing and access to user-generated content," are designed to promote engagement, and use user information to target advertising.
Constitutional and Practical Concerns
While few in the public policy arena oppose the overall intent of the legislation, critics have raised concerns about its breadth and enforceability.
Shoshana Weismann, a fellow at the free-market R Street Institute (搜索), warned that the measure could ultimately block wide swaths of online advertising accessible by minors—even if the ads do not target children. "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 are serving content to underage users.
Jenna Leventoff, ACLU (搜索)'s senior policy council and director of the civil rights group's national political advocacy division, expressed skepticism about the legislation's constitutionality after the Senate passed an earlier version of KOSA in 2024. She noted that multiple states have attempted similar bills, 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," Leventoff said, "and it makes me wonder why Congress is trying to enact something that won't hold up in a court of law."
Youth Cannabis Use Trends
The legislative push comes amid data suggesting youth marijuana use has remained stable even as more states have legalized adult-use cannabis. Federal officials discussing the latest Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey—supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and conducted by the University of Michigan—noted that youth marijuana use is stable amid the state legalization movement, and more students report that cannabis is harder to access and that they disapprove of occasional use.
Federal health data also indicated that while past-year marijuana use in the U.S. overall has climbed, the rise has been "driven by increases…among adults 26 years or older." Rates of both past-year use and cannabis use disorder "remained stable among adolescents and young adults between 2021 and 2024."
A report from the advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project (搜索) (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 earliest states to legalize. A separate federally funded study out of Canada found that youth marijuana use rates actually declined after the country legalized cannabis nationally.
Reform advocates argue that a regulatory framework requiring licensed retailers to check IDs and implement security mechanisms is more effective at preventing youth access than prohibition, where illicit suppliers face no such requirements.