Cannabis in Lafayette / West Lafayette

Last verified: April 2026

Lafayette / West Lafayette at a Glance

Local Enforcement Posture

Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington (R) has been in office since 2007 — one of Indiana’s longest-serving prosecutors. Harrington was the first Tippecanoe prosecutor appointed as a U.S. Special Assistant Attorney to a federal gang/drug task force, an unusual federal-state hybrid posting that signals close coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana.

The Tippecanoe County Drug Task Force is the operational anchor: it draws officers from Lafayette Police Department, West Lafayette Police Department, Tippecanoe County Sheriff, Indiana State Police, and Purdue University Police Department. The Purdue PD inclusion is significant — campus officers have full police authority on Purdue property, and a Purdue PD case can move into Tippecanoe state court or, where federal jurisdiction attaches, into federal court.

Possession of any amount of marijuana remains a Class B misdemeanor under IC 35-48-4-11, and Tippecanoe County typically files those charges. Mears-style non-prosecution does not apply here.

The Purdue Federal/Visa Layer

Purdue’s student body of roughly 50,000 includes one of the largest international student populations of any U.S. public university. International students — F-1 visa holders, J-1 exchange visitors, and dependents — face immigration consequences for cannabis arrests that operate independently of the Indiana criminal outcome:

• An F-1 visa can be terminated by the Designated School Official based on conduct violations even where there is no conviction.
• A criminal arrest can trigger removal proceedings under INA § 237(a)(2)(B)(i), which makes any controlled-substances conviction (other than a single 30-grams-or-less marijuana possession) a deportable offense, with case-by-case agency interpretation of the carve-out.
• Even a dismissed case typically must be disclosed on visa renewal applications and on future visa applications under DS-160.
• Conditional discharge under IC 35-48-4-12 may not protect against immigration consequences in the way it protects against an Indiana criminal conviction.

Purdue’s Office of International Students and Scholars and dedicated immigration counsel are the appropriate resources for students facing these issues. The risk calculus for a Purdue international student differs categorically from the risk calculus for a domestic Tippecanoe resident.

Lafayette/West Lafayette (Tippecanoe County, ~150,000 combined) under Prosecutor Pat Harrington (R), in office since 2007, runs a strong drug-task-force posture. Harrington was the first Tippecanoe prosecutor appointed as a U.S. Special Assistant Attorney to a federal gang/drug task force. The Tippecanoe County Drug Task Force draws from Lafayette PD, West Lafayette PD, Tippecanoe Sheriff, ISP, and Purdue PD.

Tippecanoe County Prosecutor's Office

The OISC Connection

Purdue is also home to the Office of Indiana State Chemist (OISC), the regulatory body that licenses Indiana hemp under IC 15-15-13 and SEA 52 (2018). OISC sits inside the Purdue University West Lafayette campus and oversees hemp seed certification, grower licensing, processor inspection, and pesticide and feed regulation. The administrative oddity — that the agency licensing Indiana’s hemp economy operates from a campus where Purdue PD is also part of the marijuana drug task force — captures the broader Indiana paradox of permissive hemp law alongside strict marijuana prohibition. See hemp & Delta-8 overview.

Major Employers & Drug Testing

Subaru of Indiana Automotive (SIA), located in Lafayette, is the dominant private employer in the metro at roughly 6,500-plus associates. SIA is non-union and operates a private drug-testing policy — pre-employment, post-accident, reasonable-suspicion, and random — with no collective-bargaining limits. A positive result from hemp-derived Delta-8 produces the same outcome as a positive result from marijuana use. Other major employers include Purdue University itself (faculty, staff, athletics — with NCAA testing for student-athletes), Caterpillar, and a range of healthcare and Tippecanoe-County government employers. See Indiana’s drug-testing economy.

Practical Tips for Lafayette / West Lafayette

• Tippecanoe County is a strong drug-prosecution jurisdiction. Mears-style non-prosecution does not apply.
• The Drug Task Force model means a single arrest can involve any of five agencies, with federal jurisdiction reachable through Harrington’s Special Assistant U.S. Attorney status.
• Purdue international students face federal/visa consequences for cannabis arrests that can be more severe than the underlying Indiana criminal exposure. Consult immigration counsel before any conditional-discharge plea.
• Subaru of Indiana Automotive treats Delta-8 use and marijuana use identically on a urine immunoassay.
• The closest legal recreational cannabis is Sunnyside Danville, IL at roughly 75 miles via I-74 — about 1 hour 20 minutes. The southbound return into Indiana is the legal-risk leg.

Indiana Resources