Proposition 64, also known as the Marijuana Legalization Initiative, not surprisingly passed statewide in November 2016 but wisely failed in Fresno County with 54 percent of the people voting against legalization. The district I represent strongly opposed Prop. 64. It now allows individuals 21 years or older to legally smoke marijuana and to grow up to six plants in their home, even if they are next to elementary schools. What many people don't know is that Prop. 64 also allows recreational marijuana dispensaries or businesses to be opened throughout the state unless a municipality officially prohibits or bans them, which a majority of the Fresno City Council and mayor wisely did last month. [continues 751 words]
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Facebook has shut down pages set up by several businesses licensed to legally sell marijuana in Alaska, severing what some shop owners consider a critical link to their customers. The social media giant said its standards describe what users can post, and content promoting marijuana sales isn't allowed. The issue has popped up over the last few years in states that have legalized recreational and medical pot, often coming in waves, industry officials said. Cary Carrigan, executive director of the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association, said the industry has been forced to fight the same battles repeatedly as marijuana gains broader acceptance nationally. [continues 508 words]
Heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs remain widely available throughout Ohio, often at bargain prices, a new state report reveals. If that isn't bad enough, the quality of the drugs is "is really good, too good. We've lost 12 friends in the past year (to overdoses)," said one respondent in the just-released Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network Report. The semi-annual statewide report of drug availability trends is done by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. [continues 409 words]
Gov. Matt Bevin and Attorney General Andy Beshear want a Frankfort judge to dismiss a lawsuit calling for the legalization of medical marijuana in Kentucky. In a motion filed Monday in Franklin Circuit Court, Bevin's attorneys said medical marijuana is a "political question" that should be decided by the General Assembly, not a judge. "Since at least 2014, the legislature has debated bills advocating for the lawful use of medicinal marijuana in every legislative session," attorney Barry Dunn wrote for the governor's office. "The General Assembly will consider legalizing medicinal marijuana again in the 2018 session. It is solely within the General Assembly's constitutional powers to determine whether to make medicinal marijuana lawful." [continues 534 words]
Nevada officials have declared a state of emergency over marijuana: There's not enough of it. Since recreational pot became legal two weeks ago, retail dispensaries have struggled to keep their shelves stocked and say they will soon run out if nothing is done to fix a broken supply chain. "We didn't know the demand would be this intense," Al Fasano, cofounder of Las Vegas ReLeaf, said Tuesday. "All of a sudden you have like a thousand people at the door.aE&We have to tell people we're limited in our products." [continues 856 words]
Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy has received a $3 million donation to endow a fellow in drug policy to provide objective scientific research in the highly charged political arena of drug addiction, university officials announced Wednesday. Katharine Neill Harris, who currently holds a post-doctoral fellowship in drug policy at the Baker Institute, will become the Alfred C. Glassell III Fellow in Drug Policy. The money to fund her new position comes from the Glassell Family Foundation led by Houston philanthropist Alfred C. Glassell III. [continues 299 words]
Marijuana billboard in South Boston called 'insensitive' The advertisement was from Weedmaps, a California-based company that runs an online marijuana dispensary rating service and sells inventory software to pot shops. While waiting at a stoplight on East Broadway in South Boston last week, Sheila Greene looked up at a billboard and was stunned. In white letters against a black background, a message read: "States that legalized marijuana had 25% fewer opioid-related deaths." Greene was bothered by the fact that the advertisement - from Weedmaps, a California-based company that runs an online marijuana dispensary rating service and sells inventory software to pot shops - was placed in a neighborhood hard hit by opioid abuse. "I couldn't believe it was being advertised," she said. [continues 821 words]
COLUMBUS - Louis Johnson, managing director of OMNI Medical Services, showed up Monday at a hearing about proposed rules governing physicians under Ohio's newly legal-medical marijuana program in hope the murky waters of "affirmative defense" might be cleared a bit. But he never heard the words mentioned in testimony before the hearing officer, and the words won't be found in the rules written by the Ohio Medical Board. "It's confusing a lot of municipalities and a lot of courtrooms..." Mr. Johnson said afterward. "They're applying the wait-for-the-state-is-ready rules to affirmative defense, and that's not how [the law] is written." [continues 729 words]
Until Governor David Ige approved the new law, possession of drug paraphernalia ranging from marijuana pipes to plastic bags and needles was a felony that carried a penalty of up to five years in prison and fines of up to $10,000. Now, people caught with drug paraphernalia would face no jail time and could be fined no more than $500. Gov. David Ige has quietly signed a new law that dramatically reduces the penalties for possession of all kinds of drug paraphernalia - a proposal that was opposed by Attorney General Douglas Chin as well as prosecutors on Hawaii island, Maui and in Honolulu. [continues 962 words]
Allentown's first licensed medical marijuana dispensary features a partnership between a fifth-generation Lehigh Valley native and a big-time medical cannabis company that has helped secure more than 50 licenses in states across the country. Mission Partners LLC, a subsidiary of Phoenix-based management consulting firm 4Front Ventures, hopes to open its first Mission Pennsylvania dispensary early next year in a building at 2733 W. Emmaus Ave., Allentown, that currently houses MP Outfitters. One of Mission Pennsylvania's principals is Ari Molovinsky, a 1997 Parkland High School graduate whose father, Michael, lives in South Whitehall Township and operates the "Molovinsky on Allentown" blog. [continues 1051 words]
The Coalinga City Council voted 4-1 on Thursday to immediately allow commercial marijuana cultivation within city limits. Councilman Ron Lander cast the lone no vote. The ordinances required a four-fifths majority to pass. The council also approved the sale of the city's dormant prison, Claremont Custody Center, to Ocean Grown Extracts for $4.1 million. Ocean Grown will transform the prison into a medical cannabis oil extraction plant. This sale will immediately bring Coalinga's general fund into the black. City Manager Marissa Trejo said Coalinga was $3.3 million to $3.8 million in debt. [continues 984 words]
At least 103 cities and towns - nearly one-third of all Massachusetts communities - have placed outright bans or other restrictions on marijuana businesses since voters legalized the drug for recreational use in November, according to a Globe analysis. And another 47 municipalities are actively considering restrictions, the review found, as local elected officials express unease about the state's venture into legalized recreational marijuana. Most of the restrictions are temporary, intended to allow local officials time to consider where marijuana shops should be allowed to operate in their communities - if at all. [continues 1266 words]
Tens of thousands of people use cannabis in Fresno every day. Hundreds of people work in the cannabis industry, though few will admit it publicly -- and for good reason. Cannabis business is booming in Fresno and Fresno County, even though cultivation and retail sales are banned by local ordinances. The biggest pipe dream in Fresno is that cannabis bans work. In reality, they don't. Even so, the Fresno City Council just voted to prohibit dispensaries and other "recreational" businesses made legal by the passage of Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. This is disappointing but not surprising. Medical cannabis has been legal since Proposition 215 passed in 1996, but City Hall has never bothered to draft local regulations. [continues 701 words]
Deb Sheamer and other friends of Charmaine Bassett protest her arrest and detention outside of the Lucas County Courthouse on June 21. Friends of Charmaine Bassett protest her arrest and detention outside of the Lucas County Courthouse on June 21. Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Michael Goulding on Friday found a Toledo woman charged with selling marijuana and illegal mushrooms for "spiritual purposes" competent to stand trial on felony drug charges. Charmaine Rose Bassett, 56, of the 3400 block of Secor Road entered not guilty pleas to aggravated possession of drugs, aggravated trafficking in drugs, and trafficking in marijuana. She is the founder and "medicine woman" at Anyana-Kai, a member of the Oklevueha Native American Church. [continues 298 words]
RENO, Nev. (AP) - Most of Nevada's recreational marijuana retailers are optimistic an emergency regulation that state officials are expected to approve will help keep them from running out of pot supplies, but some are "running on fumes," an industry official said Tuesday. The State Tax Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on an emergency measure Gov. Brian Sandoval endorsed late last week in an effort to allow the state to issue pot distribution licenses currently banned by a court order. [continues 448 words]
The medical marijuana industry officially has its guidelines with the passage of a bill out of the Florida Legislature on the last day of a three-day special session. The votes were 29-6 in the Senate and 103-9 in the House. The few no votes were mostly Democrats who wanted fewer restrictions in the bill, but also a few Republicans who remain against the idea of medical marijuana on principle. Gov. Rick Scott said he "absolutely" will sign the bill. That means big changes for patients, caregivers, doctors and growers, compared with the far more limited medical marijuana law passed by the Legislature in 2014, which resulted in seven grower/dispensers in the state. [continues 906 words]
TALLAHASSEE -- Arguing that Florida legislators violated voters' intent when they prohibited smoking for the medical use of marijuana, the author of the state's medical marijuana amendment sued the state on Thursday to throw out the implementing law. John Morgan, the Orlando trial lawyer who spearheaded and financed the successful campaign to make medical access to cannabis a constitutional right, filed the lawsuit in Leon County Circuit Court Thursday morning, asking the court to declare the law implementing the 2016 constitutional amendment unenforceable. [continues 1059 words]
COLUMBUS - Nearly 200 prospective medical marijuana growers submitted applications to the state for cultivation licenses, but the Department of Commerce won't say yet where those applicants want to operate. The department announced Wednesday that 185 applications were received by the state last month for two types of licenses: level II cultivators for grow operations with cultivation areas of 3,000 square feet or less, and level I cultivators, which can have up to 25,000 square feet. The state will issue 12 of each licenses. [continues 203 words]
ALBANY - Veterans groups are pressing Gov. Andrew Cuomo to allow those with post-traumatic stress disorder to use medical marijuana, urging him to sign a bill that will soon head to his desk. The state Senate voted late last month to add PTSD to the list of illnesses and ailments eligible for the state's medical-marijuana program, about six weeks after the Assembly voted to do the same. It remains unclear, however, whether Cuomo will sign the bill that could significantly expand the number of eligible patients in New York's medical-marijuana program, which is among the more restrictive in the nation. [continues 517 words]
Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday made 10 appointments to the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission, filling vacant positions and replacing six commissioners whose terms had expired. The commission is charged with implementing Maryland's medical cannabis program. The appointments include doctors, business people and several members of law enforcement. The appointments are: * Charles P. LoDico, a chemist and toxicologist for the Department of Health and Human Services. His appointment fills a vacancy for a scientist with experience in cannabis. * Barry G. Pope, a clinical pharmacist for Conduent State Healthcare LLC. He has been a registered pharmacist for 20 years. Pope was recommended for this appointment by the Maryland Pharmacists Association, and fills a vacancy for a licensed pharmacist on the commission. [continues 268 words]
