Browsing: Legalize It

New Hampshire state house.

Adults in New Hampshire are one step closer to being able to use, purchase and cultivate limited amounts of cannabis after the state house yesterday gave preliminary approved to a legalization proposal.
House Bill 492, modeled after Colorado’s marijuan laws, would legalize up to an ounce of pot for personal possession for adults 21 and up. It would also legalize personal cultvaiton of up to six plants as well as establish a system for allowing sales of recreational cannabis through licensed, taxed storefronts.

Flickr.com/DenverJeffrey

Houstonian Joe Mattingly likes the finer things in life. Namely, he enjoys expensive ski trips to Vail, Beaver Creek, Utah and Lake Tahoe. And now he’s thinking about visiting Steamboat Springs. The only problem? Colorado legalized marijuana and this Texan doesn’t want it interfering with his vacation. In fact, he might choose another destination if he and the youngsters with him are subjected to to the sight or scent of pot, or the sound of people talking about it.
“While Colorado politics is certainly none of my business, I thought that my thoughts might potentially be of interest to some people in Steamboat,” he wrote Steamboat Today last week. Translation: “I clearly think Colorado politics is my business and I’m going to tell you why right now.”
Denver Westword has more.

A new St. Cloud State University survey shows that the overwhelming majority of Minnesotans favor legalizing marijuana for medical purposes.More than three-fourths of people interviewed in late October — 76 percent — answered yes to the question, “Would you support or oppose making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe?”

As for full legalization? They weren’t as warm to that. Minneapolis City Pages has more.

Making money off of gold nuggets could be soon replaced by green nuggets in Alaska as a ballot initiative to legalize pot for adults 21 and up collected and submitted at least 45,000 signatures Wednesday -15,000 more than necessary to qualify it for a vote this August.
“It’s not that the initiative would bring marijuana to Alaska,” Bill Parker, a campaigner for the bill and a former Department of Corrections deputy, told the Anchorage Daily News Wednesday. “Marijuana is already in Alaska. It would legalize, regulate and tax it. It would treat it like alcohol.”

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Maryland won’t be legalizing cannabis for adult use any time soon, according to Gov. Martin O’Malley, who called cannabis a gateway drug yesterday in a radio interview.
“I’m not much in favor of it,” O’Malley told WEAA’s “Anapolis Summit” program. “I’ve seen what drug addiction has done to the people of our state and the people of [Baltimore].”

Marijuana grows on trees, but some newly minted Colorado recreational centers faced a shortages less than a week after opening — even though medical dispensary shelves remain stocked. As a result, several retail stores, including the high-profile 3D Cannabis Center, have voiced concerns that they won’t be able to keep filling the bowls of recreational tokers.
Though demand is high, the shortage isn’t necessarily due just to tourists and herb-hungry locals pilfering pot by the pound from the shelves. Instead, the shortage was likely caused before sales could even begin, thanks to a quick timetable for centers going through the recreational-sales process and a limited number of plants shops were able to transfer over to the recreational side.

The inability of marijuana businesses to straight-forwardly stash their cash in standard financial institutions due to federal banking regulations aimed at stopping drug trafficking has been an issue in Colorado for years. But despite Obama administration statements about possible fixes and a request from Governor John Hickenlooper more than three months ago, nothing has been done. Now, however, with the recreational pot biz reportedly taking in more than $5 million in the first five days of sales, the Denver City Council is raising its voice.
The Denver Westword has the rest.

Wikimedia commons/Mats Holmström
Beatrice Ask.

Apparently it’s somewhat well known political satire isn’t huge in Sweden. That was made painfully clear this week when Beatrice Ask, Sweden’s Justice Minister, posted a link to a satirical article claiming that 37 people had overdosed and died on the day Colorado legalized adult sales of cannabis.
“Stupid and sad,” she wrote after posting the article on line via Facebook. “My first bill in the youth wing was called Outfight the Drugs! In this matter I haven’t changed opinion at all.”

Video and more below.

The inability of marijuana businesses to straight-forwardly stash their cash in standard financial institutions due to federal banking regulations aimed at stopping drug trafficking has been an issue in Colorado for years. But despite Obama administration statements about possible fixes and a request from Governor John Hickenlooper more than three months ago, nothing has been done. Now, however, with the recreational pot biz reportedly taking in more than $5 million in the first five days of sales, the Denver City Council is raising its voice.
Denver Westword has more.

New Hampshire state house.

Kicking off the New Year with a bhang, New Hampshire’s House is set to vote Wednesday on a plan that would legalize up to an ounce of pot for adults 21 and up for recreational purposes (or, for whatever purpose you may have for using cannabis). The bill, dubbed House Bill 492, is among the first few to be debate in the 2014 session.
Under the proposal, the state would legalize and regulate cannabis dispensaries to sell herb taxed at a rate of $30 per ounce. Adults 21 and up would be able to grow up to six plants at a time at home. Generally speaking, the plan is identical to the one passed in Colorado in 2012.

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