The push to legalize medical marijuana in Florida is nearing its final days, and the group responsible for collecting the petitions to force a vote in November is driving hard to the hoop to make that happen. United for Care, the group behind the massive petition drive, has until February 1 to turn in 700,000 signatures.
“It looks like we have around 1.1 million,” Ben Pollara, campaign director for United for Care, said yesterday. The Broward-Palm Beach New Times has the details.
| Jenny Kush. |
It was one of the most sadly ironic events of the year: On Labor Day weekend — when the heat was on to catch drunk drivers — cannabis activist Jenny Kush was killed by one of those drink drivers, as related in a Westword September cover story, “The life and tragic death of Jenny Kush.”
Now her death has been added to Arrest Angel, a site that chronicles DUI deaths across the country, and asks drivers to “think twice” before driving drunk. Click over to the Westword for more.
| New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. |
Congratulations, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: you’ve driven at least one family out of your state due to your complete lack of compassion when it comes to medical cannabis.
Meghan and Brian Wilson say that despite laws passed to help ease access to medical cannabis for children in New Jersey, their two-year-old daughter Vivian still lives a miserable existence fighting seizures caused by Dravet’s syndrome that could be helped with cannabis oil that isn’t available.
Starting Wednesday, adults 21 and up will be able to legally (at least, at the state level) purchase cannabis legally in storefronts in Colorado.
We’ll stop and let that sink in for a second.
Okay, now that your mind has finished exploding we’ll get down to a few details.
Despite the Florida Supreme Court holding up the actual petition over charges that it deceptively would open the floodgates of outright legalization in the Sunshine State from the state attorney general, the People United for Care proposal to legalize medical cannabis is gaining support.
Recent polls have shown it with support as high as 68 percent and the campaign has collected nearly 700,000 signatures so far. That’s about 17,000 more than the required 683,000 to make the ballot, but supporters say they need some cushioning in there for invalid signatures.
When you think of politics in Washington D.C., you rarely think of speed, efficiency, or common sense. Yet, in just half a year, the nation’s capital has gone from the dark ages of full prohibition, to be poised now on the verge of passing two new measures that would place it among the most liberal of jurisdictions when it comes to cannabis legislation.
The first big development, reported on here back in October, was the D.C. City Council’s 10-3 landslide decision to move forward on legislation to end the current marijuana possession laws, and replace them with more fair and effective punishments for law breakers. D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has also voiced his support for new regulations, tossing his clout behind what is already a supermajority in the City Council.
A New Jersey bill that would allow reciprocation with other state medical marijuana programs has been approved by the state General Assembly already, despite an all-but-certain veto from Republican Gov. Chris Christie.
Assembly bill 4537 now moves on to the state Senate, passed with a 50 to 23 vote. Read more on the bill below.
Assembly bill 4537 would allow New Jersey medical marijuana patients to use possess and use medical marijuana bought legally “from another jurisdiction” as well as allow other state medical marijuana patients to have pot on them when visiting New Jersey. The bill would also allow parents to serve as the primary caregivers for their children, though that only means they are legally allowed to possess it for their kids.
It’s actually a really common-sense piece of legislation that has garnered a lot of undue attention. It’s been framed as a pot passport brought about because of the need for two-year-old New Jersey medical marijuana patient Vivian Wilson and her parents purchase high-CBD cannabis in Colorado and bring it back to New Jersey. A noble cause and one we fully support, but something nobody in the New Jersey local media has pointed out is that the bill wouldn’t make purchases of cannabis in Colorado legal at all — Colorado doesn’t allow for reciprocation of medical cannabis licenses and no New Jersey law is going to change that.
In that same light, New Jersey medical marijuana patients can already visit other medical marijuana states that do have reciprocity and acquire, use and possess cannabis. More so, they can also fly between those states with it due to a quasi-legal loophole that Federal Transportation Security Administration agents defer to local law enforcement if something like cannabis were to turn up in a routine security screening. Basically, if it’s legal for a patient to have medical pot on them in that state when the TSA finds it, then the police have nothing to enforce.
The missing link is that because there are no private caregivers, the only legal cannabis is medical cannabis sold through the New Jersey medical marijuana program. A4537 would change that, but it wouldn’t change federal laws about flying between states – an image that is no doubt adding fuel to Christie’s anti-pot fire.
Every parking spot and nearly every seat was taken at the St. Louis Ethical Society Wednesday night as Show-Me Cannabis executive director John Payne took on Jason Grellner, the vice president of the Missouri Narcotics Officers Association to debate the pros and cons of marijuana legalization.The buzz started with a Riverfront Times post in October about retired Missouri drug cop Kevin Glaser’s Facebook comments about what he saw as “stupid, lazy potheads” filling up a town hall meeting in Cape Girardeau on marijuana legalization. Payne, none too happy with the comments, challenged Glaser to a debate, but the ex-drug cop declined. However, when RFT reached out to the MNOA’s Grellner for comment (Glaser is a board member of the MNOA) and told him about Payne’s challenge, he accepted.
Read the entire account of the debate as well as audience reaction over at the Riverfront Times.
| Flickr.com/Kevin Glaser. |
Remember when that Missouri drug cop said that people who think marijuana should be legalized are a bunch of illiterate potheads who collect welfare checks?
Well, that has resulted in a debate on marijuana legalization to be held this Wednesday at the Ethical Society of St. Louis. Read more over at the Riverfront Times.
According to campaign-finance reports for the month of November, lawyer and pro-medical marijuana advocate, John Morgan, has put in over $500 grand into the People United for Medical Marijuana campaign. All told, he’s put in about $972,125, almost bringing this thing to a cool million.
Meanwhile, United For Care is launching its “day of action” this weekend, looking to collect more signatures from Floridians, all while the Florida Supreme Court ponders the language in the ballot and whether or not to allow the state to choose if medical marijuana should be legalized. Broward-Palm Beach New Times has the full, local angle.