Search Results: legalization (1475)

Latinos have been depicted as having an intimate and historic relationship with marijuana. Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa and his men are said to have smoked pot and brought it with them when they crossed the border, helping to inspire American prohibition early last century. The 1978 film Up in Smoke featuring Cheech Marin made cannabis appear to be an everyday elixir for Mexican-Americans and hippies alike. But the truth about Latinos and weed is little more complex.

Older and immigrant Latinos tend to be more socially conservative, particularly when it comes to drug use. The Public Policy Institute of California said last year that a majority of Latinos are opposed to full legalization for pot.

That’s why those who are allied against the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, or Proposition 63 (the recreational marijuana initiative slated for November’s ballot in California), are counting on Latino voters to help them defeat it.

New Jersey state senator Nicholas Scutari takes questions at his press conference on marijuana refor

During a four-day trip to Colorado earlier this month that took him through Boulder, Golden and Denver, New Jersey senator Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat from Union, examined the effects of legalizing recreational marijuana. He concluded that similar legislation could benefit New Jersey.

His trip included visits to dispensaries and meetings with state officials, law enforcement and local business owners. In a press conference held when he returned home, he said he came away with a better understanding of safety regulations, such as making sure packaging on marijuana products indicates clear dosage levels and equipping police departments with drug-recognition experts.

 

Stacey Theis spent untold hours in recent months tooling across Arizona in her bright-green CannaBus, talking to voters and collecting signatures for a grassroots marijuana-legalization campaign.

After Wednesday’s announcement by the group, Arizonans for Mindful Regulation, that it was halting its 2016 petition drive a month before the state’s July 7 deadline to hand in signatures, Theis and other volunteers wanted to keep working toward their goal. AZFMR’s website claims that more than 114,000 signatures have been gathered, and Theis believes it’s possible to collect and turn in the 150,652 valid signatures needed to make the ballot.

Customers of Arizona’s largest utility shouldn’t be forced to help contribute to an anti-marijuana-legalization campaign, consumer advocates say.

AsĀ Phoenix New Times reported on Monday, Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, the holding company for Arizona Public Service, made a recent donation of $10,000 to Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, a group led by Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk that’s fighting to keep cannabis a felony in Arizona. Click here for story.


In 1999, the voters in Maine approved the state’s first medical marijuana bill with a lopsided 61% approval. A decade later, the law was improved upon to allow for storefront dispensaries and to broaden the list of acceptable medical conditions that marijuana could be recommended for. In 2011, the law was built upon once again, protecting patients’ rights by making many registration processes optional.
In November of 2013 Portland, Oregon became the first city on the east coast to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults over the age of 21. In November of this year, the city of South Portland became the second.
Statewide recreational marijuana legalization -similar to what we’ve seen in Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and D.C. – appears to be inevitable in Maine.

Benjamin Russell Halgren via GoFundMe.com.

Even messier than gay marriage, the wild inconsistencies of marijuana policies across the nation are really too chaotic for anyone to keep up with. In the span of a week, the federal government came out in support of medical marijuana, and two states neighboring Colorado sued the weed mecca over its lax laws.
Congress’s shift on medical marijuana policy came rolled up in a massive spending bill that President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday. For the first time, the federal government is giving individual states the option to decide whether weed has any medicinal value. For more, visit the Minneapolis City Pages.

The Missouri marijuana-legalization activists who filed an initiative petition to get legal weed on the 2016 ballot are re-filing their paperwork after the secretary of state’s office rejected it for minor form issues. So if you were looking to comment on or sign the petition, you’ll have to wait a little longer.
Before a new ballot initiative is approved by the secretary of state’s office, the attorney general takes a look-see to make sure the language conforms to legal style, which can be tricky. After KC NORML submitted its proposal to regulate marijuana like food — meaning no age restrictions, no DUI risk, no taxes for medical product — the attorney general’s office rejected it for minor style issues, including incorrect underlining and brackets.

In a move that political pundits and cable news carnival barkers are calling a “bi-partisan victory” the U.S. Senate narrowly avoided another damaging government shutdown by passing a last-minute multilayered spending bill over the weekend to keep the gears turning in Washington D.C. until at least September of next year.
To see just how convoluted and counterproductive our political process has become, you need look no further than this spending bill, and buried deep within in it, one Republican’s response to the weed legalization movement that he sees surging through state politics, including the nation’s capital.

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