Search Results: marijuana-legalization/ (27)

CannaKids founder Tracy Ryan with her daughter Sophie.

The issue often comes up

Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.

The REC initiatives in Massachusetts and three other states include measures that protect parents from losing custody of their children as a result of marijuana use. An Idaho mom has lost custody of her kids and is facing criminal charges after giving her child cannabis butter to relieve seizure-like symptoms.

Despite bipartisan support.

Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.

An amendment that would have allowed VA doctors to recommend MED in legal states passed both houses of Congress but was stripped from the legislation before it reached President Obama’s desk. Supporters of the bill are blaming Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk (R), who said “I don’t think we have too few high veterans out there” earlier this year.

 Use patterns are changing.
The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

A study found that daily marijuana use is growing rapidly, especially among users who are “poor and lack a high school diploma.” “What’s going on here is that over the last 20 years marijuana went from being used like alcohol to being used more like tobacco, in the sense of lots of people using it every day,” according to one of the researchers. (See the study here.)

The number of U.S. cannabis users is set to exceed tobacco users within a few years.

There wasn’t much talk of marijuana inside the arena at this year’s Democratic National Convention.

The industry was all over Philly.

The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

Marijuana wasn’t often mentioned in the Democratic National Convention’s official program.

Unofficially, it was the “star.” A trade association had a party. MPP had a fundraiser. Marchers carried a 51-foot joint.

At Marijuana.com, Tom Angell (@TomAngell) unearthed the Tim Kaine quote, “I actually kind of like this option of the states as labs and they can experiment [with legalizing]and we can see what happens.” NORML revised its rating on the vice presidential candidate from F to C. (Last week, I referred to MPP ratings for presidential candidates as NORML ratings. I regret the error.)

Marijuana Business Daily interviews former U.S. deputy attorney general James Cole, whose eight-point 2013 memo gave the industry confidence that it could grow without federal prosecution. “It wasn’t really intended to be a huge policy shift as much as reacting to the situation and trying to use some common sense,” he said.

California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) wants more lawmakers to support legalization.

Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank (D) said heroin and crystal meth should be legalized. “We should outlaw a drug if it is likely to make you mistreat others. People don’t hit other people in the head because they’re on heroin; they hit other people in the head because they need to get money to buy heroin.”

The New Yorker profiles Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate and a legalization supporter. He said he would not use cannabis as president.

Quartz introduces us to Tick Segerblom (D), a dogged cannabis supporter in the Nevada State Senate.

The U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeals Board said cannabis sellers can’t receive federal trademark protection.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) decriminalized possession, making the state the third largest after New York and California to do so.

About half of the 100 Oregon communities that don’t allow REC businesses will vote on whether to lift their bans in November.

Ohio legislators knew that the provision in the state’s MED law to guarantee 15% of business licenses might be unconstitutional but they kept it in to win votes, the AP reports.

Florida billionaire Carol Jenkins Barnett, a Publix supermarket heir, donated $800,000 to oppose the state’s MED initiative.

A Los Angeles county ballot initiative that proposed a pot tax to benefit the homeless has been shelved. Canna Law Blog dives into the business climate in L.A, one of the world’s largest cannabis markets.

The DEA compared home grows to “meth houses.”

Italian lawmakers are beginning to debate legalization. Opponents include Pope Francis. The Italian military grows MED for the country.

Voters will have a clear choice in November.

The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

The Democratic Party Platform states “We encourage the federal government to remove marijuana from its list as a Class 1 Federal Controlled Substance, providing a reasoned pathway for future legalization.” The Washington Post describes the language as a nod to Bernie Sanders.

For its platform, the Republican Party rejected language supporting MED. It was proposed by Dale Jackson, a GOP delegate from Georgia with an autistic son. Another delegate said mass-shooters are, “young boys from divorced families, and they’re all smoking pot.”

Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) opposed reducing marijuana penalties in 2013.

The Cannabist released its 2016 election guide.

The industry-loathed “ potency amendment” will not be on the Colorado ballot. Frank McNulty (R), a former speaker of the Colorado House and supporter of the measure said the industry paid signature gathering firms to not gather signatures. “Without [signature gathering companies]we didn’t have the ability to get it to the ballot,”McNulty said.

An industry spokesman denied the accusation andThe Denver Post editorial page finds it “dubious.” “ Big marijuana trashes democratic process,” the Colorado Springs Gazette editorializes.

Campaign filings released on August 1 will clarify what happened. (An email query from WeedWeek was not returned.)

The Amendment would have banned products with higher than 16% THC, which account for 80% of cannabis products in Colorado. “Make no mistake,” the Post writes, “139 was an anti-pot measure designed to gut the industry. And it’ll be back.”

With industry support, California plans to regulate water use by growers.

Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, explains his ambivalence about California’s upcoming Adult Use of Marijuana Act vote: “The initiative is decidedly more friendly to big business and will lead to rapid consolidation of the industry. This is an avoidable and undesirable outcome.” (See the initiative’s exact language here.)

Montanans will vote on a measure to expand the state’s MED program. L.A. County voters will decide on a marijuana business tax to benefit the homeless. The L.A. Times tells government officials, “Legal marijuana should not be seen as the solution to your revenue problems.”

A federal judge rejected the claim that current federal laws are “so arbitrary and irrational as to be unconstitutional.” The complaint was brought by Charles and Alexander Green, two Californian brothers accused of trafficking.

A proposed MED measure in North Dakota would be too expensive, the state health department said. The Pennsylvania legislature approved growing hemp for research.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock (D)  blames legal weed for the “urban travelers” who have caused violent episodes on Denver’s 16th Street Mall, the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare. Recently, a 32-year old Indiana man was arrested after video showed him attacking pedestrians with lengths of PVC pipe. It’s not clear whether he was high at the time.

Other recent incidents, also caught on video, have seen arrests after attacks and aggressive panhandling. New research shows that legal states have seen a drop in Medicare prescriptions for anti-depressants and opiods, and a corresponding reduction in Medicare costs.

Prescriptions did not drop for drugs like blood-thinners that can’t plausibly be replaced with MED. (Read that study here.) If California legalizes REC in November, it could influence federal policy on banking and other issues. Regulators in the state said they will start inspecting dispensary scales  to ensure that customers are getting their money’s worth.

Massachusetts’ REC initiative will be on the ballot in November. Gov. Charlie Baker (R), Boston Mayor Marty Walsh (D) and Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo (D) have banded together to oppose it. Arkansas voters will decide on a MED initiative. Fortune sees signs of a backlash in Colorado. Murders in California’s Lake County, a center of growing, reached a 10-year high of eight last year. Donna Weinholtz, wife of Utah gubernatorial candidate Mike Weinholtz (D), is under federal investigation related to her MED use.

The rules for Alaska’s pot café’s are under review. Voters in the state’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough will decide on a commercial ban in the fall. Former Liberal Party deputy prime minister Anne McLellan will lead Canada’s nine-member legalization task force. McLellan is a former law professor at the University of Alberta. Canada’s legal purchasing age may vary across provinces, but the government wants a consistent national law on DUI. Both LSU and Southern University are exercising their option to grow Louisiana’s MED supply.

This article also appeared in the the pot-focused weekly newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

“Who’s got the lighter?! Let’s spark the fire!”

There are states with medical and recreational marijuana laws on the books where a person can adhere to all of their specific state laws, pay all applicable local tax and licensing fees, and conduct a safe and honest business in the cannabis industry. But, in many cases, they still cannot get a company credit card with which to conduct the day-to-day merchant services that are essential to any type of business.
So it is pretty interesting to see singer Gwen Stefani, no stranger to some weed, featured in a new MasterCard television ad. It is even more interesting when you hear the song that MasterCard marketing execs chose to represent their multibillion dollar brand.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was one of a wave of pie-eyed freshman Republicans swept into office in the 2010 midterm election, the consequences of which, we will all be paying for, for quite some time. Upon squeaking his way into office, Governor Walker immediately cut a billion dollars from the state’s education budget, another half a billion from the Medicaid budget, and effectively stripped all of the state’s labor unions of all traditional collective bargaining rights.

Wikimedia Commons
Governor Scott Walker (R-WI)


By refusing to participate in the Affordable Care Act, enacting a malevolent voter ID law to discourage voting, and by paying for tens of millions of dollars’ worth of corporate tax breaks by firing unprecedented numbers of teachers, police and firefighters, Governor Walker has earned his spot as a Republican front runner, and serves as an example, rather than a shame, for his colleagues.
So it should come as no surprise that when President Obama recently spoke out about the dangers of alcohol versus the dangers of weed, Walker had to pipe up.

Compton Mayor Aja Brown.

Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, the city of Compton, CA gained an infamous reputation across mainstream America as a drug-addled wasteland, ruled by gangs and racked by unthinkable violence.
Fueled at the time by accounts from gangster rap titles and Hollywood portrayals of the hardened region of South Central Los Angeles, today Compton is much less violent, but just as vulnerable, running a $40-million deficit as it struggles to try to avoid all out bankruptcy. It’s not hard to see that a change of direction is needed.

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