Eleven people at cannabis companies, fifteen days, one Jeffries fund

Follow the Money · 2026

Eleven people at cannabis companies, fifteen days, one Jeffries fund

Between August 26 and September 9, 2026, eleven people whose filed employers are eleven different cannabis businesses gave $52,500 to a joint fund that pays House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries' campaign and his leadership PAC. Here is what the filings show, where the money went, and what they do not say.

By Jessica Mantonya · ~10-min read · November 9, 2026

In one line: eleven gifts, $52,500, fifteen days; $36,000 reached the campaign and $16,500 JEFF PAC.

On this page

What the filings show

The Jeffries Majority Fund is a joint fundraising committee: one committee that raises money for two others and then splits it. Its report for July through September 2026 (FEC file 2024843) lists eleven gifts from individuals whose filed employers are eleven different cannabis businesses. Each gift is that person's own money; a company may not give to a federal campaign committee.

The fifteen days, August 26 to September 9, 2026

Aug. 261 gift
271 gift
282 gifts
29none
30none
31none
Sept. 14 gifts
21 gift
31 gift
4none
5none
6none
7none
8none
91 gift

Each mark is one of the eleven gifts in the table below, on the date the fund's report gives for it. "None" means none of the eleven, not no gifts. The days say nothing about why; see "What the records do not show".

Date	Employer, as filed	Gift
Aug. 26	Jushi	$5,000
Aug. 27	Standard Wellness	$5,000
Aug. 28	Buckeye Relief	$3,500
Aug. 28	Verano	$8,500
Sept. 1	Holistic Solutions LLC	$1,000
Sept. 1	Nabis	$4,000
Sept. 1	SunMed Growers	$5,000
Sept. 1	Trulieve	$5,000
Sept. 2	C3 Industries Inc.	$3,500
Sept. 3	Green Thumb Industries	$8,500
Sept. 9	AWH (Ascend Wellness Holdings)	$3,500

Gifts from individuals, listed by filed employer. Each bar is one gift against the largest of the eleven, $8,500. Source: Jeffries Majority Fund, October Quarterly 2026, FEC file 2024843. Donors not named.

Each business was identified as a cannabis business from a record: its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, its lobbying registration, a state cannabis licence, or its own description of itself. One person gave at each.

Among the gifts on this report whose employers we could identify, none from a cannabis business appears before August 26. The eleven make up $52,500 of the $329,775 in itemized gifts from individuals that the fund reported for the quarter. Two more gifts in the same days list employers the records leave unsettled, so they are not counted here.

The eleven gifts against the quarter's itemized gifts from individuals

$52,500 the eleven gifts$329,775 the whole bar: all itemized gifts from individuals, July through September

Both figures are from the same report, FEC file 2024843. The bar is a share of one quarter's itemized individual gifts to one fund, nothing more.

All eleven arrived through ActBlue, the online payment service most Democratic committees use. That is not unusual: 72 of the 76 itemized gifts from individuals on this report came the same way.

Where the money went

The fund has two participants: Jeffries for Congress, his campaign, and Jobs, Education, & Families First, his leadership PAC, known as JEFF PAC. On September 29, 2026 the fund reported transferring $217,300 to the campaign and $129,800 to JEFF PAC.

How a joint fund works

The gift goes toJeffries Majority Fundthe joint fund, FEC file 2024843

From the eleven, up to $3,500 each toJeffries for Congresshis campaign, FEC file 2027075

From the eleven, the rest toJEFF PAChis leadership PAC, FEC file 2033513

Both committees list their share of each donor's gift on their own reports (Jeffries for Congress, FEC file 2027075; JEFF PAC, FEC file 2033513). Every one of the eleven gifts matches to the cent:

To the campaignTo JEFF PACMost one person may give the campaign for one election, $3,500

Employer, as filed	Gift	To the campaign	To JEFF PAC
Jushi	$5,000	$3,500	$1,500
Standard Wellness	$5,000	$3,500	$1,500
Buckeye Relief	$3,500	$3,500	$0
Verano	$8,500	$3,500	$5,000
Holistic Solutions LLC	$1,000	$1,000	$0
Nabis	$4,000	$3,500	$500
SunMed Growers	$5,000	$3,500	$1,500
Trulieve	$5,000	$3,500	$1,500
C3 Industries Inc.	$3,500	$3,500	$0
Green Thumb Industries	$8,500	$3,500	$5,000
AWH (Ascend Wellness Holdings)	$3,500	$3,500	$0

Gifts from individuals, listed by filed employer. Each bar is one gift against the largest, $8,500; the dark part went to the campaign and the light part to JEFF PAC. Source: Jeffries for Congress, FEC file 2027075; JEFF PAC, FEC file 2033513.

The campaign received $36,000 of it: up to $3,500 from each gift, which is the most one person may give a federal candidate for one election in 2025 and 2026. JEFF PAC received the remaining $16,500.

Why our candidate card does not list these gifts

Jeffries' card in Who ran in 2026 counts gifts made straight to the campaign. These reached the campaign another way: as a single transfer from the joint fund, which the campaign reports as one line with each donor's share listed underneath. The card and this story count different doors into the same campaign.

The cardCounts gifts made straight to the campaign.
These giftsReached the campaign as a single transfer from the joint fund.
The filingThe campaign reports it as one line, with each donor's share listed underneath.

The rest of the money, by industry

This audit sorted every itemized dollar by the industry of whoever gave it, not only the industries Drug Policy Watch usually tracks: 85 filed reports from nine active committees, 541 giving committees and the 543 largest employer names, with smaller employers sorted by a fixed rule or shown as unclassified. Each committee is shown on its own, because the same dollar can pass through more than one of them. The largest lines:

Jeffries for Congress: among gifts from other committees, trade associations gave $944,000, labor unions $283,000, banks $177,500, insurers $159,000 and hospitals and health plans $141,000.
The Jeffries Victory Fund, his largest joint fund: people working in securities and investment firms gave $3,674,284, media $753,500, law firms $645,600 and technology companies $562,300. Of its itemized gifts from individuals, $1,771,759, or 12.4 percent, came from people whose filed employers could not be sorted, and is shown as unclassified.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer's leadership PAC, IMPACT: almost all of its money comes from other committees. Trade associations gave $358,950, labor unions $161,000, hospitals and health plans $85,000, defense companies $74,500 and drug, biotech and medical device companies $64,500, including the PACs of Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Genentech, Novo Nordisk, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis. Altria's PAC gave IMPACT $10,000. Schumer is not on the ballot until 2028.

The audit file also records one gift from a person whose filed employer describes itself as a maker of hemp-derived THC drinks: $5,000 to the Jeffries Victory Fund on June 7, 2026 (FEC file 1993701). It falls outside the fifteen days and went to a different fund.

Each committee's bars are scaled to that committee's own largest line, so bars in one box cannot be compared with bars in another, and nothing here is added across committees. For the industries Drug Policy Watch tracks, see Follow the Money: Who Is Spending on the 2026 Elections, and How It Moves, and the pages for cannabis and Altria on our map.

Four industries, committee by committee

These figures come from the same 85 reports. Each committee is shown on its own and nothing is added across committees. Gifts from a company's political action committee are listed under the company's name. The law bars a company from giving to a candidate from its own treasury; its PAC gives from voluntary contributions it may ask for only from the company's executives, managers and shareholders and their families, and from other employees twice a year, while the company may pay the PAC's running costs (52 U.S.C. 30118; 11 CFR Part 114). Gifts from individuals are listed only as a group, and only where at least three people gave, so no one person can be picked out.

Technology and AI

Jeffries for Congress: 20 technology company PACs gave $99,000, among them Cisco $15,000, Dell $10,000, Microsoft $10,000 and Samsung $7,500. Fourteen people who work in technology gave $26,057.
JEFF PAC: four PACs gave $22,500: Google $10,000, Dell $5,000, Microsoft $5,000 and Leidos $2,500.
The Jeffries Victory Fund: five people who work at technology companies gave $562,300.
Friends of Schumer: four PACs gave $13,500: Meta $5,000, Anthropic $3,500, Samsung $2,500 and Parsons $2,500.
IMPACT: seven PACs gave $43,000, led by Cisco $10,000 and Microsoft $7,500.

One software company's PAC whose industry is unsettled (technology in this audit, cannabis on our candidate card) is left out of these technology figures.

AI: three of these givers describe artificial intelligence as a principal business in their own securities filings. Microsoft calls itself "a technology company committed to making digital technology and artificial intelligence ("AI") available broadly"; its PAC gave Jeffries for Congress $10,000, IMPACT $7,500 and JEFF PAC $5,000. Alphabet, Google's parent, calls itself "an AI-first company"; Google's PAC gave JEFF PAC $10,000, IMPACT $5,000 and Jeffries for Congress $2,500. Anthropic calls itself "first and foremost a research lab" whose mission is "the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI"; its PAC gave Friends of Schumer $3,500. Several others, among them Cisco, Dell, Meta, Oracle and Intel, mention AI prominently but describe another main business, so we describe them as technology companies, not AI companies.

Drug, biotech and medical device companies

IMPACT: ten PACs gave $64,500: Abbott, Eli Lilly, Genentech and Pfizer $10,000 each; Cencora, Merck and Novo Nordisk $5,000 each; Johnson & Johnson $4,500; Cardinal Health and Novartis $2,500 each.
Friends of Schumer: three PACs gave $13,500: Cencora $5,000, Eli Lilly $5,000 and Baxter $3,500.
Jeffries for Congress: four PACs gave $25,000: GRAIL $10,000, Cardinal Health $7,500, Zoetis $5,000 and AbbVie $2,500.
The Jeffries Battleground Protection Fund: the PAC of Direct Supply, a medical equipment distributor, gave $35,000.

Insurance

Jeffries for Congress: 30 insurance industry PACs gave $159,000. The largest, $10,000 each, were Marsh & McLennan, New York Life, Northwestern Mutual, TIAA, Unum and Zurich.
JEFF PAC: four PACs gave $35,000: Aflac, MetLife and New York Life $10,000 each, and USAA $5,000.
IMPACT: four PACs gave $25,000: MassMutual $10,000, and Aflac, MetLife and New York Life $5,000 each.
Friends of Schumer: USAA $5,000 and Aflac $2,500.
The Jeffries Victory Fund: four people who work in insurance gave $37,692.

Health insurers are counted with health care, not here. Their PACs (Humana, UnitedHealth, Cigna, Elevance, Centene, Molina, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and others) gave Jeffries for Congress $86,000, JEFF PAC $52,500, IMPACT $55,000 and Friends of Schumer $15,000.

Defense and aerospace

Jeffries for Congress: 16 defense and aerospace company PACs gave $117,000. BAE Systems, Boeing, General Dynamics, GE Aerospace, Honeywell, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and RTX (Raytheon) each gave $10,000.
JEFF PAC: eight PACs gave $70,000, including Boeing, General Dynamics, Honeywell, L3Harris, Northrop Grumman and RTX at $10,000 each.
IMPACT: ten PACs gave $74,500, including Boeing, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman and RTX at $10,000 each.
Friends of Schumer: RTX $3,000, Boeing $2,500 and Saab $2,000.
The Jeffries Majority Fund: TransDigm $5,000 and Torch Technologies $2,000.

Five people who work in defense and aerospace gave Jeffries for Congress $4,958.50.

Gifts passed through AIPAC's PAC

The PAC of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (FEC committee C00797670) appears on these reports in two ways.

As a giver: IMPACT, Schumer's leadership PAC, reported a $5,000 gift from it dated September 16, 2025 (FEC file 1940412). AIPAC's PAC's own reports show no matching payment.
As a conduit: contributions reported in individuals' names, which AIPAC's PAC forwarded as a conduit; FEC rules count each as the individual's contribution (11 CFR 110.6). The Jeffries Victory Fund received $250,000 this way on February 27, 2025 (FEC file 2026398): $242,500 reported in the names of 19 individuals and $7,500 from one committee. Jeffries for Congress received $28,250 in 15 gifts reported in the names of 12 individuals between June 25, 2025 and June 28, 2026; $6,650 of one gift, dated July 30, 2025, was refunded the next day.

AIPAC's PAC is one of several organizations these committees name as a conduit. Counted the same way, from the same reports:

Conduits named on these committees' reports, by committee, then conduit name
Committee	Conduit	Gifts	Amount
Battleground Fund	ActBlue	21	$1,550,800
Battleground Fund	J Street PAC	5	$64,500
Jeffries for Congress	ActBlue	110,812	$4,148,382.45
Jeffries for Congress	AIPAC PAC	15	$28,250
Jeffries for Congress	J Street PAC	15	$11,650
Jeffries for Congress	Mortgage Bankers Association PAC	18	$41,045
Jeffries Victory Fund	ActBlue	371	$4,822,800
Jeffries Victory Fund	AIPAC PAC	20	$250,000

Rows with fewer than three individual givers are left out. United Democracy Project (C00799031), a super PAC, filed no outside spending naming Jeffries or Schumer in filings received through October 29, 2026.

What we looked for and did not find

Schumer and the cannabis gifts: no committee of Schumer's reported an itemized gift from anyone at the eleven cannabis businesses, or from anyone whose filed employer contains the words cannabis, marijuana, dispensary or hemp, from January 2025 through its latest report.
Elon Musk's companies: no itemized gift to any of these committees came from a person who listed Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, X, Neuralink or The Boring Company as employer, and SpaceX's PAC gave none.
America PAC, a super PAC whose own reports show Elon Musk giving it $177.7 million directly, plus $38.3 million in in-kind contributions the PAC attributes to him, of $216.0 million it raised from January 2025 through October 14, 2026, filed 1,477 lines of outside spending in the 2026 election cycle, in filings received through October 29, 2026, naming 85 candidates. None named Jeffries or Schumer.
United Democracy Project: none naming either, in the same filings.

His record on the bills we track

As Jeffries' card prints it: on the 251 federal bills Drug Policy Watch tracks, 1 sponsorship and 33 recorded House votes. The sponsorship is as an original cosponsor, on April 17, 2025, of H.R. 2935, the Preparing Regulators Effectively for a Post-prohibition Adult-use Regulated Environment Act of 2025 (the PREPARE Act).

His card in Who ran in 2026 lists the sponsorship and four of the 33 votes, each linked to its House roll call.

What the records do not show

Why eleven people at cannabis businesses gave in the same fifteen days. A fundraising event, a single invitation, or coincidence would each fit the filings; no record we have says which. Nothing here says the gifts were given in exchange for anything, and nothing traces them past the two committees that received them: once money reaches a committee it is pooled with everything else, and no filing can say what a particular dollar later paid for.

Donors whose gifts to a committee total $200 or less, over the period the law sets for that committee, need not be itemized, so they may not be seen. A gift from someone who works at or owns a company is that person's own money, not the company's.

How we did this

We read the reports the committees filed, not a summary of them: 85 reports from nine committees, from January 2025 through September 30, 2026 for the quarterly filers and October 14 for the rest, totaled to the cent and checked against the FEC's own totals for every committee. Each giver's industry comes from a record wherever one exists: a committee's FEC registration, a company's SEC filings, a lobbying registration, a state licence or a tax filing. Where only the filed name and occupation were available, the assignment is marked low confidence in the audit file. Individual donors are not named. The full method, the tables and every correction are in the audit file. Disclosure: Drug Policy Watch uses Claude, an AI tool made by Anthropic, in its research, including this audit. Anthropic's PAC appears above under the same rules as every other giver.

Check it yourself

Every gift and transfer above sits in a filed report you can open. Each file number is printed where its figures appear, and each committee's page on fec.gov lists its reports by number. Our 2026 candidate money map shows, for the candidates for U.S. Senate and House on the official 2026 lists, the money from the industries we track, with the same rules: no donor names, no side.

Open Jeffries' card on the map How to be heard Find your officials

About the author. Jessica Mantonya is the founder of Drug Policy Watch and Hold in Common, an independent, non-captured tracker of cannabis, hemp, and psychedelic policy across the federal government and all fifty states. A longtime patient-access advocate, she follows the money and the paperwork to show how the plant is being fenced off, and how to keep it in the commons.

Sources

The FEC file numbers cited here were confirmed in the FEC's filing index on November 8, 2026 as original, unamended reports.

Jeffries Majority Fund (C00834549), October Quarterly 2026, FEC file 2024843
Jeffries for Congress (C00503052), October Quarterly 2026, FEC file 2027075
JEFF PAC (C00617803), October Monthly 2026, FEC file 2033513
Jeffries Victory Fund (C00768200), July Quarterly 2026, FEC file 1993701
IMPACT (C00348607), 2025 to 2026 reports
Contribution limits for 2025 to 2026 federal elections, FEC
Holistic Solutions LLC: New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission, licensed retailers list
Record: Drug Policy Watch candidate card for Hakeem S. Jeffries (Who ran in 2026); H.R. 2935, 119th Congress