It has raised more money than almost anyone else.
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
Privateer Holdings, parent company of Leafly and other cannabis brands, raised $40M bringing its total to more than $100M.
It’s a big step towards national legalization.
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
It’s one of many theories.
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
Three Phoenix cops resigned and face criminal charges after allegedly forcing a 19-year old to eat marijuana or go to jail.
Pro-legalization activists say opponent Kevin Sabet broke the law by displaying a bag of infused gummies on a television panel in Boston. Sabet didn’t return an email requesting comment.
Politicians have not caught up with public opinion.
The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.
A new poll found that for the first time, Republicans narrowly favor legalizing marijuana, 45% to 42%. Last week, however, Republicans voted against including support for MED in their party platform. As far as I saw, the plant went unmentioned at the convention.
Hillary Clinton named Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) as her running mate. Speaking at a high school in April, Kaine said he favors “drastic changes in sentencing laws…[but] wouldn’t vote for a law at the federal or state level that would decriminalize marijuana.” Kaine has a NORML rating of F.
Donald Trump has a NORML rating of C+. Hillary Clinton gets a B+. Libertarian Gary Johnson scores an A+.
Leafly meets Ann Lee, founder of Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition (RAMP). Lee, 86, attended the GOP convention as an alternate in the Texas delegation. Her son Richard Lee founded the trade school Oaksterdam University in Oakland.
Decriminalization appears to have support from the Texas Association of Business and bipartisan support in the Texas legislature. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) opposes legalization.
Marijuana.com digs up that the DEA has reduced the size of its 2017 cannabis order from last year. This hints, the piece suggests, that the agency will not reschedule. The DEA gets its weed from a facility at the University of Mississippi, the only federally legal grow in the country.
Fifty-one percent of voters oppose Massachusetts’ REC initiative and 41% percent support. The numbers are similar in Arizona.
An Arizona judge will hear cannabis-opponents in a case that could block the upcoming REC vote. They argue that the 100-word petition voters signed didn’t adequately explain the effects of legalization. Plaintiffs include Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery (R), Phoenix’s lead prosecutor.
Last year, before a weed convention in Phoenix, Montgomery offered “An aside, just a polite warning to folks traveling here…I can’t confirm or deny whether or not local or federal law enforcement may be on hand in an undercover capacity. So welcome to Phoenix, enjoy your stay, but be careful.”
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) opposes the state’s MED initiative. In Wisconsin, a poll found that REC legalization has 59% support. Activists are collecting signatures for a MED initiative in Oklahoma.
Florida’s first CBD dispensary opens this week. The state is expected to vote on MED in November.
Is smoking pot a guaranteed religious freedom?
Excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.
The activist known as New Jersey Weedman will be able to argue in court that raids on his Trenton, N.J. “cannabis temple” violate his religious freedom.
Kayvan Khalatbari, a prominent activist and businessman in Denver, discussed the industry’s lack of diversity with Vice.
Sports Illustrated travels to Humboldt to ask about the industry’s impact on high school and college sports there. “There are probably no other public schools in the world that have ever offered clipping trays — trays for clipping marijuana on — as part of their auction for the PTA fair,” local journalist Kym Kemp says.
NFL running back turned cannabis investor Ricky Williams is the subject of a new Sports Illustrated documentary. He estimates that 70 percent of NFL players smoke marijuana.
Harper’s Bazaar visits the annual Spirit Weavers Gathering, a getaway for New Age-inclined women, that the article calls “the world’s chicest cult.” There, author Marisa Meltzer hears of a California pot farm that has fertilized the plant with menstrual blood for two generations.
A Canadian known as Marijuana Man makes $78,000 a year getting high on Youtube. He told an interviewer that he’s had internet “since 1984.”
There’s a crowdfunding campaign to bring “industrial hemp building and farming ambassador” Klara Marosszeky to California for a visit. She’s based in Australia.
Wired visits high-end edibles maker Défoncé Chocolatier. (Défoncé means ‘wasted’.)
“The Summer Fair,” a festival in Portland this month, will have free pot giveaways.
Netflix will make “Disjointed,” a weed sitcom starring Kathy Bates.
The Reductress recommends “ Healthy Snacks To Balance Out All The Junk You’ll Devour When You’re High Tonight.”
Voters in Santa Fe and Bernalillo County yesterday approved measures that call for the decriminalization an ounce of weed or less at the state level yesterday. The move didn’t actually change any laws, though. It’s more of a proclamation from voters to elected officials.
Oh, and it doesn’t actually hold the lawmakers to any promises either. Thankfully, there’s enough momentum that New Mexicans can expect several decriminalization and legalization measures to come their way in 2015.
Las Vegas city leaders could give the final nod for medical pot dispensaries to begin operating in the city by next week, though at least one councilmember says they should wait for further guidance from the state.
| Legalize it. |
What would marijuana legalization look like in Vermont? We know the answer is “awesome” but state leaders want to examine the fiscal, social and health impacts that legalizing even limited amounts of cannabis for adults would bring. So the state is pairing up with the Rand Corporation to study those questions and have an answer by next fall so lawmakers can begin discussing the issue.
“In conjunction with the team from Rand, and our internal system we’re going to really try to put together a really high quality report,” said Jeb Spaulding, administration secretary for the governor’s office. “That addresses all of the issues that are related to the legalization of marijuana use.”
The passage of a medical marijuana proposal is in the hands of the New York Senate, though it’s unclear which way the Republican-heavy group will lean and they’ve only got two weeks to decide.
The New York state General Assembly handily passed a medical cannabis bill that would legalize the use and possession of up to 2.5 ounces as well as create state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries last week on a 91 to 34 vote.
The Hawaiian Islands have historically been known for exporting fresh fruits and nuts, dank coffee beans, and sunburnt tourists. While the many legends of amazing pakalolo strains like Kauai Electric, Kona Gold, and the infamous Maui Wowie have made their way to the mainland over the years, extremely strict anti-cannabis state laws, and a lack of will to reform them, have kept Hawaii’s finest weed a well-kept secret.
One high-ranking state lawmaker hopes to change that, though, and in the process help turn marijuana into Hawaii’s new number one cash crop.