The Washington State Liquor Control Board, which has been charged with regulating the voter-created recreational marijuana industry, will not be limiting the size of cannabis grow operations, reports Jake Ellison at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“The board has that ability and has not chosen at this time to set the size,” Mikhail Carpenter, a spokesman for the board told the paper this week.
| VOTE! |
Portland, Maine voters will decide this November whether or not to legalize up to 2.5 ounce of cannabis for adults 21 and older in the city prompted by a petition signed by more than 3,200 residents – more than double the 1,500 that were necessary.
Portland City Council last night voted 5 to 1 not to accept the measures, but to put the measure to voters. The majority of the voting members seemed against the plan. Council member John Coyne, told the Portland Press Herald that the move “lowers the bar for Portland” and invites the feds to choke-off federal funding and could potentially risk state funding as well.
The United For Care Campaign, a group run by People United for Medical Marijuana, is looking to get legalized medical marijuana on the ballot in Florida in November of 2014 as a Constitutional Amendment. And they are looking to hire a few hard working folks to help them do it.
The group, which needs one million signatures on petitions from registered Florida voters before January 31st, has placed an ad on Craigslist, recruiting self-motivated people to make that happen, and offering them pay to do so. The Broward-Palm Beach New Times has the local angle.
For over four decades now, advocates for the responsible use of marijuana have been fighting an uphill battle against the Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. government in an attempt to get weed moved off of the Schedule I list of drugs. The goal for groups like Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is to get pot moved down to at least Schedule II, where it can be studied and prescribed more effectively.
Founded in 2002, ASA has been helping to lead the way in cannabis law reform, lending their influence and expertise to local City Council decisions, all the way up to Supreme Court cases. It is there, with the U.S. Supreme Court, that Americans for Safe Access currently finds themselves fighting for the rightful rescheduling of marijuana.
| Hemp plant growing in front of a police station in Göttingen, Germany. |
Beautiful Göttingen, Germany has become a lot more beautiful over the last few weeks as hundreds of cannabis plants have begun sprouting in flower boxes, gardens and street sides all over the small college town.
No, the town isn’t a legal haven for cannabis – though Germans tend to be relatively tolerant about personal cannabis use. It’s a protest from the group “A Few Autonomous Flower Children” who say it’s high time Germany legalized cannabis outright.
| North Shore edibles in Colorado. |
According to the Michigan Supreme Court, THC-infused edibles are not considered “usable marijuana” under state medical marijuana laws unless they contain actual plant material.
Because, you know, THC isn’t useful and doesn’t come from the plant or anything like that.
The decision stems from a 2011 traffic stop in which Earl Chambers was pulled over, searched and slapped with intent to deliver charges for the mason jars and plastic baggies full of herb he had on him as well as for the brownies. Not only was he charged for the dry weight of the dry herb, he was charged with the full weight of the brownies themselves.
A few weeks ago, we told you about the strange case of Ray McFeters, a 73-year-old veteran living near Lake Mille Lacs, Minnesota who could face up to 12 years in prison for his 25 to 30 bowls-a-day marijuana habit. But don’t think that McFeters’s pending legal quandary curbed his pot use. “I love pot,” he says. “Pot saved my life. I’ll never stop smoking pot.”
The Minneapolis City Pages has the rest of McFeters’s story.
| “Ay, no.” |
A housekeeper for a 23-year-old man in Chicago unknowingly ate a pot-filled brownie earlier this week.
That shouldn’t normally be a headline, but apparently this woman couldn’t handle her shit and freaked out. So bad, in fact, that the 23-year-old resident of the house called 911 for an ambulance – even though he clearly knew what she had consumed because he’s the one who made the brownie in the first place.
Could cannabis legalization and regulation be coming to Canada? At least one activist says yes, and claims now is the time to push for it.
Canadian cannabis activist Dana Larsen has received the okay from the British Columbia officials to begin collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would prevent police from enforcing marijuana laws – effectively legalizing the plant.
| @NBCLA twitter. |
Earlier this week, we told you about an unnamed suspected medical marijuana dispensary robber who shot at police while trying to flee. We’ve now got a name and possible punishment: the L.A. County District Attorney’s office this week charged the 30-year-old with “two counts of attempted murder of a peace officer, two counts of second-degree robbery, one count of second-degree commercial burglary and two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon,” according to a statement.
While the robbery can’t be blamed on the dispensary itself, as one reader pointed out in our comments, without banks to take their money these retail pot shops are going to become targets for crime like this. LA Weekly has the rest of the follow up.