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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.

Boosted by support from younger voters, California is poised to legalize REC on Tuesday, creating the world’s largest cannabis market.
Manufacturers are  getting ready. So are tech start-ups. MED sales in the state climbed 132% between 2010 and 2015. Growers are bracing for a price crash.

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.

Flickr/IntelFreePress..

It looks like there’s finally an official plan in place for the purchase of some more body cameras for hundreds of local law enforcement officers.
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson announced this afternoon that her office plans to dole out $1 million to the Houston Police Department and $900,000 to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office for the purchase of hundreds of body cameras, which will be worn by officers while they’re on duty. The money will come from assets the office has seized during criminal investigations, Anderson said.

Flickr.com/Mr.Thomas

When it comes to sentencing nonviolent drug felons, St. Louis County prosecutors are not afraid to use the “Prior and Persistent Drug Offender” statute, Missouri’s three-strike drug law that allows — and sometimes forces — judges to hand out decades in prison for very small amounts of drugs.
A review of 100 Prior and Persistent Drug Offender cases that were brought to the appeal level mostly within the past fifteen years found that 47 were in the St. Louis area, including the county and city. Get more over at the Riverfront Times.

Flickr.com

The Washington Post in a video segment yesterday detailed two sets of parents using cannabis to control seizures in their children – specifically the cannabinoid CBD.
In the cannabis community, this is common knowledge and the reason why many patients seek marijuana as their therapy. Nevertheless, it’s a powerful video to watch as these two kids — like dozens if not hundreds of others — find relief from their painful affliction with cannabis.

Sunrun
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: “It’s not fair, it’s not right. it must end, and it must end now.”

Cuomo: Marijuana Arrests That “Stigmatize and Criminalize… Must End Now” 
Proposal Would Standardize Penalties, End Tens of Thousands of Annual Unlawful, Biased Marijuana Possession Arrests
In his State of the State address on Wednesday, New York Governor Cuomo made a passionate call for reforming New York’s marijuana possession laws in order to reduce unlawful, biased, and costly arrests. The governor noted the discrepancy in the law between public and private possession of small amounts of marijuana, and proposed standardizing penalties for possession.

Caravan4Peace
Caravan participants, together with national and local community leaders, expressed their solidarity with those incarcerated

Participants Denounce the Incarceration of Immigrants and the Incarceration of People Who Use Drugs
During symbolic visit to “Tent City” jail, poet Javier Sicilia and other Mexican victims of War On Drugs to condemn inhumane practices of Joe Arpaio, longtime drug war enforcer and anti-immigrant sheriff
On third stop of cross-country journey, Caravan expresses its solidarity with those incarcerated and demands an end to drug war that has resulted in more than 60,000 killed and 10,000 disappeared in Mexico
On Thursday, the “Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity” will visit Maricopa County’s notorious “Tent City” jail to denounce the criminalization and inhumane treatment of immigrants and people who use drugs.
Led by Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, the Caravan will condemn the dehumanizing practices of Joe Arpaio, the infamous anti-immigrant sheriff and former DEA agent, who has made enforcing the failed prohibition of drugs a centerpiece of his career.

Drug Policy Alliance
An online advocacy campaign features powerful video testimonials from people who have been illegally searched and falsely charged for marijuana possession in New York City

Major Online Advocacy Campaign Features Powerful Video Testimonials; Hundreds Traveling to Albany to Pressure State Leaders
 
Drive to Pass Bipartisan Legislation Comes on Heels of Cuomo, Bloomberg and Kelly Announcing Support for Closing Major Loophole in State’s Marijuana Decriminalization Law
 
On the heels of the announcement by New York Governor Cuomo, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly of their support for ending the practice of arresting individuals for possessing small amounts of marijuana in public view, a major coalition of local and national organizations is launching a massive effort in the final weeks of the legislative session to win reform.

Metro
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo

NYC Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Kelly Follow Suit
 Advocates Applaud Governor’s Leadership
Coalition Planning Massive Push for Next Two Weeks to Pass Marijuana Reform Law; Includes Major Online Advocacy Campaign Featuring Powerful Video Testimonials, and Hundreds Traveling to Albany to Pressure State Leaders
On Monday,, New York Governor Cuomo, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly all came out in support of ending the practice of arresting individuals for possessing small amounts of marijuana in public view.

NORML Women’s Alliance of Butte County

​NORML Women’s Alliance Calls For Grand Jury Investigation
Several legal, qualified medical marijuana patients recently have had their children taken away by the Butte County, California Children’s Services Division. In response, the NORML Women’s Alliance last Friday put forward a complaint to the Grand Jury of Butte County requesting an investigation into the County Children’s Services Division for the agency’s perceived and widespread misconduct.
“The questionable actions and perceived misconduct by the Butte County CSD has compelled us to file an official request for an investigation by the Grand Jury in Butte County,” Sabrina Fendrick of the NORML Women’s Alliance told Toke of the Town from Washington, D.C., on Thursday afternoon. 
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