Berkeley City Council members have passed a resolution declaring the city a sanctuary for recreational marijuana. The move may be the first of its kind in the country, tweeted Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, who proposed the measure. Under the new resolution, which passed Tuesday night, no Berkeley department, agency, commission, officer or employee “shall use […]
Voters in two states chose new governors on Tuesday. Both of those elections — as well as the results of a number of local races across the country — will have huge implications for efforts to legalize marijuana. Here’s an overview of cannabis-specific ballot measures that voters approved, along with details on how the Democratic […]
California Treasurer John Chiang wants the state to consider creating a government-owned bank that could serve cannabis businesses, one of several recommendations aimed at helping bring those businesses into the financial mainstream. The recommendations, the product of a year of meetings of a cannabis working group organized by Chiang’s office, suggest there may be ways […]
Marijuana laws are changing rapidly these days, so much so that even specialized news organizations solely dedicated to tracking cannabis policy sometimes have a hard time making sense of reforms. Coverage this week by The Cannabist and Marijuana Business Daily provides a perfect example. After California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed legislation that would have […]
The fires in northern California are turning into a catastrophe for local cannabis growers. Some farmers have seen their crops incinerated, while others have watched helplessly as ash and smoke contaminate sensitive marijuana flowers. The fires in Mendocino are south of the famed Humboldt County grows, but it’s still a part of what is known […]
The large number of illegal cannabis grows in California have been recently coming to public attention, increasing state officials’ fears that the federal government will step in and take action against the state. It is estimated that the state produced 13.5 million pounds of cannabis last year, even though the state’s residents only consumed 2.5 […]
Canndescent drew inspiration from such luxury brands as Tiffany’s, Hermes and Apple in designing a line of cannabis products whose elegant packaging wouldn’t look out of place on the shelves of Neiman Marcus. But the California cultivator might not be able to emblazon its name or Chanel-influenced flower logo on T-shirts, hats or other items […]
When agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided a remote farm in Humboldt County five years ago, they found plenty to incriminate the owners, Anthony Pisarski and Sonny Moore. More than 300 marijuana plants were growing in a pair of greenhouses. Agents found guns in a house on the sprawling property and about $225,000 in […]
While the federal government continues to sandbag the issue of allowing marijuana to be regulated in the same way as alcohol and tobacco under the legitimacy that is American commerce, more of the population is coming forward in support of ending decades of pot prohibition, once and for all. The latest Quinnipiac poll, which was […]
Stuck between Congress and voters’ will, residents of this politically charged town are becoming urban gardeners, turning closets and living rooms into tiny cannabis farms while politicians dither over whether it ever will be legal to sell marijuana in the nation’s capital. They’re also ignoring a ban on sales and illegally buying cannabis from a […]
At first glance, it’s hard to decide who’s wearing the better outfit: the mustachioed man with the bud-leaf button-up and rhinestone ball cap, or the ponytail guy with the tie-dye shirt featuring a Rastafarian Cookie Monster, who looks a lot like regular Cookie Monster, but with dreadlocks and a treat you assume is laced. But […]
Orlando-based Attorney John Morgan, who financed the campaign to pass Amendment 2, filed a lawsuit Thursday demanding that the state allow patients to smoke medical marijuana. Morgan discussed details of the lawsuit during a news conference has been scheduled in front of the Leon County Courthouse in Tallahassee. Morgan told WESH 2 News in June […]
As marijuana shops sprout in states that have legalized the drug, they face a critical stumbling block, a lack of access to the kind of routine banking services other businesses take for granted. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is leading an effort to make sure vendors working with legal marijuana businesses, from chemists who test […]
Two South Carolina bills planned for introduction in 2017 would legalize medical cannabis for qualifying patients in the state, effectively nullifying the unconstitutional federal prohibition on the same. South Carolina is one of the many Southern states that allow the use of cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive cannabinoid, for specific medical conditions. However, the Palmetto state […]
Chris and Trish Thomas’ Good Body Products table was a hotspot at the Cotton Mill Holiday Craft Fair in Brattleboro, Vermont, early this December – they managed to sell out of products both days of fair, hawking all-natural salves, body butters and scents to shoppers eager for stocking stuffers and office party gifts. The most […]
In the first 10 months of 2016, Colorado marijuana shops reached a significant milestone they had barely missed in all of 2015: $1 billion in legal, regulated cannabis sales. Recreational and medical cannabis shops in America’s first 420-legal state have sold nearly $1.1 billion of marijuana and related products in 2016, according to the new […]
Below is an explanation of the Florida Amendment 2 Law passed in Nov. 2016. Welcome to the world of medical cannabis, Florida! (soon, at least…) By John B. Morgan, Esq., Hon. Jon L. Mills, Esq., Tamar Todd, Esq., and Benjamin Pollara When interpreting new laws, courts frequently refer to the intent of the “framers”, or […]
When Donald Trump offered Sen. Jeff Sessions the position of attorney general, the pick drew criticism from civil rights groups and immigrant advocates. In the fast-growing, multibillion-dollar marijuana industry, it is also raising fears. Sessions is no fan of marijuana or its legalization, based on his previous comments, and as attorney general he would oversee […]
When California voters approved Proposition 64 on Tuesday, the basic idea was simple: a majority of people in America’s most populous state believe that adults should be able to consume marijuana if they feel like it, like a glass of wine at 5 o’clock. But the details of the proposition, which stretches more than 60 […]
Two years after voters narrowly rejected a medical marijuana law in Florida, the state overwhelmingly passed Amendment 2 last week. But despite the 4 million votes cast on Election Day to legalize cannabis for medical use, patients eager to access medicine may have a long wait ahead of them as the Legislature gears up to debate the […]
With autumn tightening its grip on Alaska, the state’s first-ever commercial marijuana harvests are underway. At Greatland Ganja, a marijuana grow in this small town on the Kenai Peninsula, brothers Leif and Arthur Abel are nearly finished pulling their cannabis plants from the high tunnels they call “gnome domes,” where 10 different strains grew throughout […]
The Tampa Bay area’s first medical marijuana dispensary opened Thursday in Clearwater. The Truelieve facility opened at 24761 US 19 North. The facility sells low-THC, and, what is described as “whole plant, high-THC” medical cannabis. Patients need a doctor’s permission and to suffer from certain medical conditions to receive the THC. Patients can find a […]
Last week, the DEA decided not to reschedule the classification of marijuana as a legal drug. According to federal drug codes, cannabis is still as deadly and addictive as heroin, with no known medical value. I was surprised to see how many articles were written about this decision without mentioning the obvious: This was going […]
Canadian medical marijuana patients will be allowed to grow “limited amounts” of cannabis according to the Health Canada’s new program, called the Accessing Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (AMMPR). On August 11, the Canadian government held a teleconference to introduce the new regulations, which were drafted in response to a court decision ordering the Canadian […]
The DEA will make one small change when it comes to cannabis: the agency intends to loosen restrictions on federally-approved research of marijuana. As of this writing, only one entity has a federal license to grow cannabis for research: the University of Mississippi. Thursday’s changes will expand the number of places where cannabis can be […]
Minnesota may have already legalized medical marijuana but it wasn’t until Monday that pain patients of the state finally had the opportunity to buy it. Even though the Minnesota state legislature legalized the drug for medicinal purposes in 2014, strict laws banned the plant form in favor of pills, oils and vapors. However, to obtain […]
So far, there are few countries who have taken the initiative to end marijuana prohibition – but this is a year of big changes for many as Canada has already started taking action towards having marijuana legal by next Spring and now Italy’s parliament has sat down to discuss a bill which would make marijuana […]
Marijuana is already fully legal for recreational use in four states: Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Though marijuana remains strictly prohibited according to the letter of federal law, the federal government has effectively let states determine their own policies. A number of other states, including California, are considering initiatives to legalize marijuana this year. YouGov’s […]
At the Republican National Convention this week, Donald J. Trump will be officially crowned the party’s presidential candidate. With the possibility of a Trump presidency becoming very, very real, cannabis advocates are naturally curious about just what that would mean for legalization efforts. As with many of Trump’s policies, specifics are vexingly hard to come […]
After the first five months of the year, Colorado is on pace to reach $1 billion dollars in cannabis sales during 2016. The Colorado Department of Revenue released data Wednesday showing that Colorado cannabis shops reeled in nearly $98.6 million in sales during May, bringing the year-to-date tally for 2016 to just over $486 million. […]
This is going to be a transformative year for the United States. Not only are we set to vote in a new president for the first time in eight years this November, but we could also see the most rapid expansion of marijuana ever, with eight states now set to vote on recreational or medical […]
Rumor has it that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) plans to legalize marijuana any day now. Rumor also has it that Barack Obama is secretly a foreign-born Muslim and that the CIA had a hand in the attack that brought down the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, that first claim is about as likely to be […]
You could call it a cannabis controversy, one that is sparking heated conversation. For the second year in a row, a massive,10-foot-long mechanical joint took center stage at a popular Bay-area Fourth of July parade. According to one pro-pot group, the “World’s Biggest Blunt” was back by popular demand in Temple Terrace. Organizers told 8 […]