Marijuana and Cannabis Legislation
Medical marijuana dispensaries in Michigan are reopening using a new model this month after being shut down since February thanks to a state Supreme Court ruling making patient-to-patient sales illegal.
A sample Michigan medical marijuana card.
Higher Expectations Medical Partnership in Battle Creek, Michigan says his shop now doesn't have any marijuana on site to sell anymore. Instead, HEMP acts as a clearinghouse for caregivers and patients - a relationship that is still allowed by state law.
Last week, defense attorneys weighed in on a damning March report aimed at the Colorado toxicology lab, which conducts blood tests for cases of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. 
Now several activists and attorneys have said that the release of the report was postponed until June for fear it would undermine the THC driving bill, which passed last month after two failed attempts. Now, NORML (which was in favor of THC driving limits just a few months ago) wants the state legislature to revisit the law. Denver Westword has the rest.
Oklahoma toughened their marijuana driving laws this week, creating a limit of zero THC in a driver's blood and setting it as a per se limit. That means that if you have any marijuana or marijuana metabolites in your system whatsoever, you're guilty of driving under the influence.
So, if it wasn't already on your list of life rules, you should add DO NOT DRIVE THROUGH OKLAHOMA on there. Sorry Oklahoman's but your state is about as far from being okay with marijuana as it gets.
Dennis Bohlke is determined to get a lot of autographs. The 59-year-old computer programmer is heading up the campaign for a bill that would legalize the possession, cultivation and sales of limited amounts of cannabis in a plan nearly identical to one passed in Colorado.
But all that can'' come without signatures. More than a quarter million of them.
Though the city of St. Louis officially adopted a marijuana reform law this month, one local police sergeant has not been able to publicly lobby for the cause.
Sgt. Gary Wiegert.
Sgt. Gary Wiegert supports policy changes just like the new city ordinance, which moves cops to treat minor offenses like low-level traffic tickets in an effort to save law enforcement resources. But, as we've covered here, he has been stuck in a legal fight with his bosses at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department for months after he alleged in a suit that SLMPD violated his free-speech rights by refusing to let him work on the side as a paid pot lobbyist. Riverfront Times has the local angle.
New Jersey voters are tired of locking people up over small amounts of small possession and use of small amounts of marijuana, according to a new poll by the Drug Policy Alliance.
Not that you need a poll to tell you that is the case.
After his federal industrial hemp bill failed to move forward late last week, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden wagged his finger in shame not at the closed-minded Senate that wouldn't work with Wyden, but at marijuana users. 
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon.
See, Wyden thinks that because marijuana users are prone to being pro-hemp that the two issues are seen as one in the same. And it's clearly the pot smoker's fault according to Wyden, not the ignorant elected officials.
A Louisiana bill to reduce crimes for repeat marijuana offenders and rid the state of abhorrent "three strikes" laws for possession of any amount failed to pass the state Senate yesterday.
TokeoftheTown.com
House Bill 103 had already cleared the state House late last month, but Senate members refused to call the bill up for a vote on three separate occasions.
Vermont joins 16 other states today that have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. 
TokeoftheTown.com
Gov. Peter Shumlin signed H.200 yesterday afternoon, making possession of up to an ounce of marijuana and five grams of hash a civil penalty on part with a traffic ticket for those 21 and up. The maximum fine would be set at $200 for a first offense, $300 for a second offense and $500 for third and subsequent offenses.
Despite the attempts of Colorado lawmakers to put marijuana-centered magazines behind the counter at booksellers and convenience stores like pornography, pot publications won't have to be hidden from view.
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers ruled that the provision of Colorado's new recreational marijuana laws regulating how marijuana magazines are sold is unconstitutional and said he won't go to court to defend it.
