South Carolina state Rep. Todd Rutherford currently has a bill in the state legislature that would legalize up to two ounces of cannabis for medical use for patients with doctor’s recommendations. The only problem is that it’s going nowhere.
So Rutherford took an interesting step this week to get more support, putting the measure on the Democratic primary ballot set for June 10 even though the vote wouldn’t actually do anything. Basically, it’s a statewide pot poll of Democrats.
| Big photos below. |
Have you checked your calendar lately?
The annual 4/20 weekend is nearly upon us, and we can already smell the smoke in the air in the Mile High City. Okay, maybe that’s just the smoke from the bong on our desk.
But that smoke signals an ever-growing list of cannabis-centric events in Denver next week.
Here’s just the start.
While hundreds if not thousands of people are in jail over (increasingly bunk) medical cannabis charges up here in the states, Uruguay is legalizing medical cannabis use for prisoners who have a doctor’s recommendation.
Yesterday, Long Beach voters overwhelmingly approved taxing any marijuana dispensary operating in the city. Measure A, which won 74 percent of the vote, would impose a city business tax of 6 percent of gross receipts per dispensary as well as a $25 to $50 per square foot tax on marijuana grows.
Although dispensaries that qualify as non-profits would be taxed at a lower rate, some marijuana activists have opposed the tax for being too stiff, while others have pointed out that, unless city officials (who have a terrible track record on this issue) get around to legalizing medical marijuana, the tax is completely meaningless. Nick Schou has more over at the OC Weekly.
Pot paranoia has been quickly sweeping through the Colorado state legislature, with lawmakers crafting whatever schemes they can to butt in where they aren’t needed in order to combat a non-existent problem.
Case-in-point: last week the Denver coroner made a political statement by including marijuana consumption as a major contributing factor to the suicide-like
death of a 19-year-old college student who had consumed a pot cookie. As any cannabis consumer can tell you, marijuana doesn’t make you forget the laws of physics nor does it turn people into raging maniacs bent on causing harm to others or themselves.
Colorado’s proposed Senate Bills 177 and 178 have the potential to seriously threaten parents who chose to occasionally use state-legal cannabis in their homes, even when children aren’t in any danger whatsoever.
The proposed bills would clarify a “drug-endangered child” with regard to child abuse and neglect cases. Both bills seem to be a second attempt from Sen. Linda Newell, a Democrat from Littleton, to create a hard definition of child endangerment that includes marijuana and doesn’t take into consideration Amendment 64’s passage or medical marijuana exemptions.
| Minnesota state capitol. |
At one point yesterday it looked as though the Minnesota legislature would vote on a medical cannabis bill by the time they adjourned for a two-week Passover/Easter break later today. But now it looks like would-be Minnesota medical marijuana patients are going to have to wait at least two weeks before the issue gets picked up again.
| Rappaport Center/Flickr. |
| Boston Mayor Martin Walsh. |
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh says he will be fighting the applications of two medical marijuana dispensaries in his city in a meddling letter to state Public Health officials this week. In the letter, he tells the state health department that he expects “swift and uniform” denials if the applications have any inaccuracies in them whatsoever.
| Ryan Lackey/Flickr |
After a “month-long” investigation that included stake-outs, digging through garbage, and comparing neighbors’ electricity bills, DEA agents and Shorewood (Illinois) Police kicked down the door of a suspected pot grower at 5am on October 11th, 2013.
The suspect was 46-year-old Angela Kirking, who says she awoke to 4 DEA agents and 5 cops screaming at her with guns drawn. Kirking does admit to being a proud grower … of Hibiscus flowers, which she actually eats. It was her search for all-organic solutions for that part of her diet that brought the wrath of the federal government and local law enforcement down on her door on that October morning.
Here’s your “no shit” statement for the day: Legalizing limited amounts of marijuana in Colorado has not lead to an increase in crime in the Centennial State so far (nor will it ever).
According to data from the Colorado Department of Public Safety, crime has pretty much gone down in the Denver area in the last three months. Is it because everyone is getting stoned? Probably not. But it couldn’t hurt.