Reefer common sense is taking over Miami Beach. When voters go to the polls in November to elect a new mayor, they will also get the chance to answer a non-binding straw ballot question on whether the city commission should adopt a resolution urging the federal government and the Florida Legislature to decriminalize and approve the medicinal use of marijuana in the Sunshine State.
The Miami Beach City Commission quietly approved the straw ballot language in July as a compromise with a pro-pot organization that had collected more than 8,000 signatures from voters in support of a measure to remove criminal penalties for anyone caught with small amounts of weed. Miami New Times has more.

New York City mayoral candidate John Liu yesterday proposed regulating and taxing legalized (limited) amounts of cannabis as part of his campaign platform yesterday.
And while the idea is commendable in a city with thousands of marijuana arrests each year and a racial bias in enforcing marijuana laws that borders on criminal, Liu’s plan is based on questionable statistics, cannabis price-fixing and a tax rate of over 28 percent.