Search Results: governor (548)

Graphic: Sensible Colorado

​Nearly half of Colorado’s voters say all marijuana use — not just the state’s growing medical cannabis industry — should be legal and taxed, according to a new statewide poll by Rasmussen Reports.

The telephone survey of 500 likely Colorado voters showed 49 percent saying marijuana should be legal and taxed, with 39 percent saying pot should remain illegal and 13 percent are undecided, reports Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal.
For whatever reason, men in Colorado are much more supportive than women in the state when it comes to legalizing and taxing the herb. Predictably, Democrats and independents view pot more favorably than Republicans, the poll found.

Photo: Marty Caivano
Todd Young stands among his growing medical marijuana plants at the Therapeutic Compassion Center in Boulder last year. A combination of state and city laws being considered would force all dispensaries to offset 100 percent of their electricity use with wind or solar power.

​A Colorado bill that sets regulations for the growing medical marijuana industry would probably have the unintended side effect of forcing all dispensaries in Boulder to use 100 percent wind or solar energy.

House Bill 1284, which appears to be on its way to the governor’s desk this week, contains a provision requiring all dispensaries to grow at least 70 percent of the marijuana they sell, reports Heath Urie at the Boulder Daily Camera.

At the same time, city regulations being considered in Boulder, which will probably be approved May 18, would require dispensaries that grow any amount of their own cannabis to offset 100 percent of the electricity they use by subscribing to wind power, connecting to a community solar garden or using on-site solar panels.

Photo: A Greener Country

​A bill regulating Colorado’s medical marijuana dispensaries is almost ready for the governor’s desk after legislators Thursday decided to keep the location of licensed cannabis-growing operations confidential.

The change would require the addresses of growing facilities to be blacked out on copies of their licensing documents requested by the public, reports John Ingold of The Denver Post.
It would mean that Colorado residents couldn’t learn from public records if there are legal marijuana-growing operations in their neighborhoods.

Photo: The Wow Report
Dennis Peron is co-author of Prop 215, which legalized medical marijuana in California

​Dennis Peron, the “father of medical marijuana” who co-authored Proposition 215, the 1996 ballot initiative which legalized medical cannabis in California, has suffered a stroke, reports Joe Eskenazi at SF Weekly.

“That’s why I didn’t give a speech at the Hemp Expo,” Peron, 65, told the Weekly. The cannabis guru and gay rights activist said he suffered the stroke about a month ago and underwent an operation Sunday to “unclog my artery.”
Peron in the 1990s came to serve as a figurehead for the cannabis legalization movement, and was highly influential in the debate in California, thus helping to change the political atmosphere surrounding marijuana in the United States.
A Long Island native, Peron served the Air Force in Vietnam and afterward moved to San Francisco’s Castro District in 1969, where he sold marijuana and ran the Big Top pot supermarket out of his home in the 1970s.
He opened the Church Street Compassion Center in 1993, the very first “pot club” in the United States, which became the legendary San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club in 1995, a year before Prop 215 legalized medical pot.

Photo: Idaho Moms 4 Marijuana

​Idaho Rep. Tom Trail (R-Moscow) is proposing a measure that would make Idaho the 15th station in the nation to legalize the medical use of marijuana for patients with chronic illnesses.

The bill would allow patients with illnesses like cancer, AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, muscular dystrophy, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis to have access to legal marijuana grown and distributed through state-monitored dispensaries, reports KLEW.
According to Trail, the legislation would be “the most restrictive medical marijuana law in the nation” because it would permit doctors to recommend it only for a list of serious chronic illnesses.
The law, in what unfortunately may become a trend after New Jersey’s Legislature passed a similar measure, would also forbid patients from growing their own marijuana. Patients would be limited to two ounces of dispensary-purchased pot per month.

Photo: Loretta Nall
Loretta Nall: “We plan to keep fighting our way through the process”

​An Alabama House committee approved a bill Wednesday that would legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes in the Heart of Dixie.

This is the first time in Alabama history that a medical marijuana bill has advanced out of committee to the House floor.

Patricia Todd (D-Birmingham), who sponsors the bill, said it had no real chance of being approved by both the House and the Senate before this legislative session ends in five days, reports Scott Johnson of the Montgomery Advertiser.
The bill, known as the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act, is named after a medical marijuana patient with a brain tumor who fought to make the herb legal for medicine in Alabama. Phillips died in 2007 at the age of 38.
Marijuana was the only thing that allowed Phillips to function normally, according to his mother, Jackie Phillips. Without it, she said, Michael had seven or eight seizures a day.
“I could see the difference in him when he smoked and when he didn’t,” Phillips said.


Photo: Pundit Kitchen

​Immediately following her Tuesday speech at the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America’s national convention, a marijuana advocacy group says it will offer former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin $25,000 to deliver a similar address to supporters of a regulated cannabis market in the United States.

In exchange for the $25,000, Palin will be asked to speak at one of the upcoming events of Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws (NSML), according to NSML campaign manager Dave Schwartz.
According to Schwartz, Palin will be asked to acknowledge the fact that marijuana is just as legitimate a recreational substance as alcohol, which she is talking about at the WSWA convention (and in fact, marijuana is objectively much safer), and endorse taxing and regulating marijuana in Nevada and throughout the U.S.

Photo: Just Another Blog (From L.A.)
Then-Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown (center) with Linda Ronstadt (the babe), Jackson Browne (right), David Lindley (left) and the Eagles in the late 1970s

​Back in the 1970s when he was dating Linda Ronstadt, hanging with the Eagles and was the dashing young governor of California, a few roaches were allegedly — and famously — spotted by a reporter in the aftermath of a wild party at Jerry Brown’s place. For a brief, shining moment, “Governor Moonbeam” was the darling of the counterculture crowd.

Especially after his 1975 signing of California’s marijuana decrim law, Brown seemed just about as hip as a politician could be, considering. He even admitted trying pot.
But it’s funny what 30 years can do.

Graphic: South Dakota Coalition for Compassion

​Encouraged by their near miss four years ago, medical marijuana supporters say they have a better chance this year to persuade South Dakotans to legalize the plant for treating pain, nausea and other health problems.

A similar measured failed in 2006, getting about 48 percent of the vote. It was the only time in American history that medical marijuana lost a statewide popular election.
But a coalition of patients, doctors, nurses and others will campaign this summer, explaining how marijuana can help people with serious illnesses, said organizer Emmett Reistroffer, reports Chet Brokaw of The Associated Press.
“We feel like once people learn about the therapeutic uses, they will compassionately support the measure,” Reistroffer said. “If we help them understand marijuana is a medicine, we think we’ll gain their votes.”

Graphic: Emerald Herb

​A bill to expand Washington State’s medical marijuana law cleared the Legislature Thursday, and is headed to the governor’s desk.

Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign SB 5798, which allows naturopathic doctors, nurse practitioners, and advanced physicians’ assistants to recommend the medical use of cannabis to their patients.
The new law will increase patient access to health care professionals willing to authorize medical cannabis.
Because of the conflict between state and federal pot laws, many doctors fear retribution from the federal government and are reluctant to sign medical cannabis paperwork. To comply with the law, many qualifying patients are forced to travel to the city and pay $200 to see a doctor willing to sign a medical marijuana authorization form.
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