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The State of Marijuana in Texas After the 2017 Legislative Session

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By on Uncategorized

At the close of the 2017 legislative session, marijuana remains illegal to produce, possess, use or sell in Texas. While cities like Dallas have moved to implement cite-and-release policies, which allow police to send people holding marijuana home with a court summons, the state maintains its stiff penalties for drugs.

This year, however, legislators on both sides of the aisle made progress toward loosening and removing those restrictions. While Texas Gov. Greg Abbott won’t have any bills coming across his desk in 2017 to reform the state’s marijuana policies, there are signs that he or his successor might get an opportunity to do so in 2019. With an eye toward what’s coming, let’s take a look at how several marijuana bills performed this session

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Florida’s Medical Marijuana Patients Are Screwed After State Fails to Pass Medical Pot Laws

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By on Legislation, Medical

Remember when 72 percent of Floridians voted to usher in a new era of open access to medical marijuana? That triumphant moment for medical weed was just in November, but for Florida patients this morning, it feels like a lifetime ago.

Late this past Friday, a bill to regulate the new weed industry imploded in Tallahassee. Then medical marijuana’s two biggest champions — über-lawyer John Morgan and United for Care campaign consultant Ben Pollara — viciously turned on each other in a spicy Twitter beef.

Now the fate of medical marijuana access lies in the hands of Gov. Rick Scott’s Department of Health, which has already signaled it will enact even more restrictive rules. The whole situation is likely to end up in court, meaning hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be wasted — and patients, in the meantime, still won’t have the easy access to marijuana that voters overwhelmingly backed in November.

South Florida Town Council Slams State Legislature for Inaction on Medical Marijuana

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By on Legislation, Medical

Three days after state lawmakers failed to pass a bill establishing rules for medical marijuana, Miami Springs Vice Mayor Bob Best shook his head at a council meeting Monday night as the city attorney explained it was time to extend the city’s moratorium on dispensaries.

“The purpose of the moratorium was for us to have something ready when that hit, and, apparently, based on the legislative session, nothing’s gonna happen,” Best complained.

Opioid Hospitalization Rates Lower in States With Legal Medical Marijuana

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By on Uncategorized

States with legal medical marijuana have fewer opiod-related hospitalizations per capita, according to new research published early this month in the Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence. At the same time, those states did not see an increase in hospitalizations related to the consumption of cannabis, the study determined.

Yuyan Shi, the lead author of the study, is an assistant professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California in San Diego. Using the State Inpatient Database, Shi looked at hospital records in 27 states between 1997 and 2014. Over that time, she found that marijuana and opiate hospitalizations increased by an average of 300 percent. (Over 50,000 people died in this country last year from drug overdoses.)

Floridians Are Pissed at State Legislators for Delaying Medical Pot Rules

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By on Legislation, Medical

In November, more than seven in ten Floridians at the polls checked yes on Amendment 2, which legalized medical marijuana in the Sunshine State. Considering Floridians would probably split 50-50 if asked whether they’d like a free delicious cupcake, that’s an amazing result.

So state legislators shouldn’t be shocked that a solid majority of the state is pretty upset with them today. Four months after that overwhelming vote, Tallahassee looks far away from passing the rules that will let dispensaries open up shop around the state. In fact, the first draft of those rules would make it more difficult than ever to get medical pot.

That’s not at all what voters asked for at the ballot box, and a new poll shows they’re less than pleased with how Tally is handling medical marijuana.

Ask a Stoner: How Can I Send Marijuana to an Out-of-State Friend?

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By on Opinion

Dear Stoner: I want to send some marijuana for a friend in need who lives in a non-MMJ state. What do you recommend?
TJ

Dear TJ: For shipping, repackage the MMJ products (foil for candy bars, baggies for brownies, vials for tinctures, vitamin bottles for pills, etc.). Put stuff like clothes, chips or any random trinket on top of the pot to make it look like a care package. If you’re really paranoid, you can shave off or melt the green “THC” stamps most edibles have now, but you’re probably wasting your time: I ship with USPS without a return address and pay with cash, and usually use a fake name for the receiver. The Post Office doesn’t require an ID check from the sender or receiver, and you’ll still get a tracking number.

Colorado Officials Ready to Fight Trump Administration Over State’s Marijuana Laws

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By on News

After Attorney General Jeff Sessions told an assembly of the country’s attorneys general that state marijuana laws are in violation of federal law, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman came out fighting for this state’s rights.

Coffman, a Republican, said that while the Trump administration’s intentions regarding marijuana are unclear, she plans to uphold the Colorado Constitution — including Amendment 64, which legalized the recreational sale and use of marijuana in 2012.

Jeff Sessions Attacks Marijuana Again in Address to State Attorneys General

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By on News

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tied the regulated marijuana industry to opioid addiction last week. At a press briefing, he told reporters: “I think that when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing that we should be doing is encouraging people…. There’s still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.”

Opioid addiction is a well-documented epidemic in the United States; 33,000 people died from overdosing on prescription painkillers, heroin and similar drugs in 2015 — a number on par with those killed by firearms and those who died in car accidents in the same year. But opioid use is down in Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational marijuana.

Sessions: States With Legal Marijuana Are in Violation of Federal Law

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By on News

Ever since Donald Trump nominated Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as attorney general, industry advocates have worried that Sessions might use his new position to crack down on marijuana.

At his confirmation hearing last month, Sessions was evasive when asked what he would do as attorney general now that 60 percent of Americans live in a state where marijuana is legal — 28 states in all.  He said he would fall in line with the administration’s stance on marijuana; because Trump had made supportive comments about medical marijuana on the campaign trial and did not come out against recreational marijuana, the industry took that to mean that the administration would not pursue legal action against the industry.

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