For the third time in less than two months, New Approach Oregon has received $100,000 towards their cause from the Drug Policy Alliance of New York. That brings the total donations over the last two months to more than $300,000 thanks to two other $100,000 donations.
On Tuesday, the New York State Senate’s Health Committee voted to approve the Compassionate Care Act. If the bill goes on to pass the full senate, it would create a comprehensive statewide system for New Yorkers to access medical marijuana.
I know what you’re thinking–didn’t Governor Andrew Cuomo say back in January that he was going to legalize medical weed? Yeah, he said that, but his declaration came with a truckload of caveats: the program would be limited only to patients with specific ailments, and the marijuana, which the state planned to buy from the federal government, would be dispensed at just 20 hospitals. That plan, which was allocated $0 of funding in this year’s state budget, has enough built-in logistical obstacles that, realistically, it will years before it sees the light of day, if it does at all. Read more over at the Village Voice.
| Commons/LasVegasLover |
High rollers. Glitzy casinos. Feathered showgirls. And now, weed.
Las Vegas has long been a city of overindulgence. That little slogan, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” exists for a reason. And that reason? Debauchery. Throw a little weed to the mix and it may just push that Vegas-bred stimulation into overdrive.
Not that legalization is a new subject in Nevada, mind you. When it comes to weed, the state has long been on board for medical use, with the state’s voters electing to legalize medical marijuana way back in 2000. And Nevada doesn’t only have medi-pot on the brain; a petition has been filed to legalize recreational pot as well that is expected to pass by 2016, which will create a blanket legalization of the plant for the state. The Houston Press has more.
| Peyton Manning. |
When headlines started popping up about Peyton Manning being busted on drug charges, some Broncos fans likely hit the panic button. But frankly, we feel sorrier for Manning herself.
Yes, herself. This particular Peyton Manning is an eighteen-year-old woman from Nashville whose relatively modest arrest has made headlines across the country because her parents chose to name her after a certain legendary quarterback who played his college ball at Tennessee.
| This is why we can’t have nice things. |
Marijuana isn’t physically addictive and nobody has ever died from a marijuana overdose. On the other hand, codeine addiction is a very serious problem that can often lead to the abuse of other pharmaceutical drugs. It also results in the overdose deaths of thousand of Americans every year.
So why not conflate the two into one product with the street name given to the intentional abuse of codeine? That surely screams “medical”, right? Apparently so if you’re California-based Actabliss.
Texas. The state just puts a certain fear in cannabis users. If you’re not from the state, you just know you don’t ever want to be caught there. If you’re from the state, you know a certain kind of creeping paranoia regarding law enforcement that few other states know. So legalization is just a pipe dream, right?
Maybe not. Angelica Leicht at our sister paper, Houston Press, takes a look at the possibility of marijuana legalization in Texas – which could happen sooner than you think.
| Toke of the Town + Flickr/Keith Bacongco |
North Carolina state Rep. Kelly Alexander is sick of lawmakers in his state refusing to even debate the issue of medical marijuana. He’s attempted several pieces of legislation over the last few years – all shot down in committee – and says the time is right for voters to speak their minds on medical marijuana in the polls.
But other lawmakers hoping to pass a very strict CBD-only medical marijuana bill for children say Alexander’s proposal might sink their ship.
If law enforcement officials in Montana have their way, they’ll know exactly where every single private, state-legal medical marijuana grow in the Big Sky state is located.
Illinois already has medical marijuana laws on the books, but the program has been slow to roll out and it does not cover one of the fastest growing patient populations: epileptic children.
So it is with great relief that a bill adding epilepsy and severe seizure disorders to the list of state-approved qualifying conditions for medical cannabis patients has made it through both the House and Senate with few changes and seems likely to be passed into law.
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Florida lawmakers passed a CBD-only medical marijuana bill this past session, and already it seems that things are moving along to get patients the accesses to the medicine they need. According to our friends at the Broward-Palm Beach New Times, 39 nurseries have been approved to grow the low-THC cannabis.
It hasn’t been easy to get on the list, which requires — among other things — that a nursery has operated continuously for at least 30 years. Head over to The Pulp for more on just who is vying for the remaining cultivation licenses.