Browsing: Legislation
Well Kansas, you almost had it. Earlier this month Dave Haley, a state rep. from Kansas City, introduced Senate Bill 9 which would have legalized medical marijuana in the Sunflower State. Unfortunately, the bill already seems doomed to meet the fate of the three unsuccessful medical marijuana bills from previous years.
The bill would allow doctors to recommend medical marijuana for certain qualifying conditions like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. Patients could grow up to twelve plants in their home and possess up to six ounces at a time. Commercial medical marijuana dispensaries would be allowed, and would be regulated by the state health department. Marijuana paraphernalia would also be allowed.
| weGrow |
59% of Arizonans — including a majority of independents — support the law allowing medical marijuana dispensaries
In a poll conducted January 9 and 10, Public Policy Polling found that 59 percent of Arizonans support the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, and also 59 percent would vote “yes” on a future initiative to legalize and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.
The poll of 600 Arizona voters was commissioned by the National Cannabis Industry Association. You can view the results by clicking here [PDF].
Despite multiple delays caused by governmental inaction and meritless lawsuits, the strictly controlled nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries mandated by 2010’s Proposition 203 are beginning to operate.
| ReLegalize Indiana |
Survey also finds 62 percent would support decriminalizing marijuana and a majority would support regulating it similarly to alcohol
More than two-thirds (68 percent) of New Hampshire voters think the state should enact a law allowing seriously ill patients to use medical marijuana if their doctors recommend it, according to a survey conducted this week by Public Policy Polling (PPP). Just 26 percent said they were opposed.
The poll, which is being released just as state lawmakers prepare to consider a medical marijuana bill in this year’s legislative session, also found that 52 percent of voters would be more likely to vote for a state legislator if he or she voted for such legislation. Just 27 percent said they’d be less likely.
| 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.
| Gene Walsh/Times Herald |
| State Senator Daylin Leach: “It is time for Pennsylvania to be a leader in jettisoning this modern-day prohibition” |
A state senator in Pennsylvania on Wednesday announced plans to introduce legislation that would legalize marijuana in Pennsylvania. State Senator Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery/Delaware) is currently looking for cosponsors for the bill.
“This past November, the people of Washington state and Colorado voted to fully legalize marijuana,” Sen. Leach said, reports The Sentinel. “Other places, including California, have had de facto legalization for some time.”
“This week, I will introduce legislation which would have Pennsylvania join these other states in ending this modern-day prohibition,” Leach said. “My bill will legalize the consumption of marijuana for adults over the age of 21, without regard to the purpose of that consumption.”
| The Raw Story |
| Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske is the wrong place to go for the truth about marijuana |
The Obama Administration has just released a new response to three WhiteHouse.gov petitions on marijuana legalization. Perhaps significantly, for the first time Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske is now saying “it is clear that we’re in the midst of a serious national conversation about marijuana.”
“I guess it makes a difference when marijuana legalization gets more votes than your boss does in an important swing state, as happened in Colorado this last election,” Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Majority, told Toke of the Town Tuesday night. “From ‘legalization is not in my vocabulary and it’s not in the president’s,’ as Gil Kerlikowske often used to say, to ‘it is clear that we’re in the midst of a serious national conversation about marijuana’ is a pretty stark shift.
“Of course, what really matters is to what extent the administration actually shifts enforcement priorities and budgets, but I sure do like hearing the U.S. drug czar acknowledge the fact that marijuana legalization is a mainstream discussion that is happening whether he likes it or not,” Angell told us.
| Wikipedia |
Although the voters in the state of Washington — home to several of the United States’ biggest naval bases — recently legalized marijuana, the Pentagon has reminded sailors that federal drug policies remain unaffected for members of the military.
The zero tolerance drug policy for all members of the U.S. Armed Forces was instituted by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981 after the fatal crash of a Prowler on board the USS Nimitz killed 14 crew members and injured 45 others. (The crash, of course, had nothing to do with marijuana, but autopsies showed several members of the flight deck crew tested positive for pot, so that gave them a convenient scapegoat upon which to blame the tragedy.)
Since Arizona voters legalized medical marijuana at the polls two years ago, fewer teens in the state are trying pot, according to a study published recently by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission.
According to the study [PDF], 28.7 percent of students surveyed admitted to using marijuana at least once, reports Stephen C. Webster at The Raw Story. That figure represents a drop from 29.9 percent in 2010. Medical marijuana legalization took effect in Arizona in 2011.
While about one in nine students who admitted using cannabis claimed they got it from a medical marijuana patient or caregiver who received it legally, the vast majority said they got it from friends, at parties or at school. The only category students cited less often than medical marijuana cardholders was “home,” but teens also cited “home” as the second most common place they got dangerous prescription drugs for illicit use.
| wn.com |
By Robert Platshorn
The Silver Tour
In 2011, with the help of Irv Rosenfeld and volunteers from NORML of Florida, I developed a free show that would entertain and educate seniors on the benefits of medical marijuana. It was something that no activist organization had ever done.
We “took it on the road.” Our first show was in front of an audience of six people, in an alleyway behind a Green Party storefront. The next show was in the back room in a Denny’s for 20 Libertarians.
When we were ready for the “Big Time,” Karen Goldstein, president of NORML of Florida, booked us into Ladies Auxiliary meeting at the Reform Synagogue of a South Florida Century Village. The show rocked! They lined up to sign letters and petitions demanding “safe legal access” to nature’s most important medicine. The rest is history.