| William Breathes. |
| Afgoey. |
Amendment 2 got more votes than Rick Scott, Jeff Atwater, and Pam Bondi. More Floridians voted yes on 2 than they did no. Yet, Florida remains a state without legalized medical marijuana. Simply because it couldn’t get those final two percentage points to push it over the top.
What did Amendment 2 in was, not surprisingly, demographics.
| Infused oils. |
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows the cannabis industry that last week’s inaugural National Cannabis Industry Association’s Infused Product and Extraction Symposium in Denver focused heavily on safety issues — both consumer safety and employee safety. The importance of proper procedures and protocols was emphasized in almost every session.
For example, local trainer Maureen McNamara presented her three-hour food handler course with a bit of a twist, customizing it with cannabis-specific information.
| Manitou Springs Facebook page |
Just over three months after Maggie’s Farm opened its doors as the first recreational pot shop in Manitou Springs and began dumping money into town coffers, voters gave the business a thumbs-up, overwhelmingly defeating a proposal to ban recreational pot sales in the town.
Florida voters overwhelmingly approved of medical marijuana (58% to about 42%) but lost because they needed to get 60%. And yet the Anti-Amedment 2 people claim a victory when they clearly don’t have the majority opinion on their side.
Amendment 2 may have missed narrowly missed the 60 percent voter threshold needed to pass a constitutional amendment, but main sponsor John Morgan has already announced he’ll place another medical marijuana amendment on the ballot in 2016. This time, there’s an even better chance it will pass.
Alaska voters approved legalizing small amounts of cannabis for adults 21 an up on Tuesday, but it might be months before they can legally light up. According to Cynthia Franklin, head of Alaska’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, the bill won’t technically become law until 90 days after the election counting has been officially completed and certified, and that isn’t expected until November 28.
According to the Denver Post, the summer of 2014 will set all-time tourism records — and stats suggest the year as a whole will do so, as well. However, the Post article makes no mention of the possible part the legalization of limited marijuana sales has played when it comes to such visits.
That’s no surprise, since many state and local officials have been either mum on the topic or hostile toward it for months, if not years — a situation that’s puzzling to at least one representative of the cannabis industry.
Tim Casey, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s longtime lawyer, wants out of the hot-potato Melendres racial-profiling case now that it’s in a “compliance phase.”
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona don’t want him to leave so fast, though — not with questions and things left to discover related to corrupt deputy Ramon Charley Armendariz, who hung himself in May rather than submit to arrest.
Voters in Santa Fe and Bernalillo County yesterday approved measures that call for the decriminalization an ounce of weed or less at the state level yesterday. The move didn’t actually change any laws, though. It’s more of a proclamation from voters to elected officials.
Oh, and it doesn’t actually hold the lawmakers to any promises either. Thankfully, there’s enough momentum that New Mexicans can expect several decriminalization and legalization measures to come their way in 2015.
We told you earlier this week about marijuana decriminalization measures in Berkley, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge and several other towns in Michigan and suburbs of Detroit. In total, there were 11 measures scattered around the state.
Well, voters did the right thing in six of those communities last night and passed bills lowering or eliminating marijuana penalties for small amounts of cannabis.
Florida voters failed to get enough “yes” votes for medical cannabis yesterday by about two percentage points. Voters approved the bill overwhelmingly, with 58 percent for the measure and only 42 percent against it. But a 60 percent approval rating was needed to pass Amendment 2.
Amendment 2 supporters were disheartened but promised to run the measure again in the future.