Author: News Room

A Hawaii House lawmaker says a marijuana legalization bill that passed the Senate last week represents an “incredible compromise” that contains the key provisions needed to advance in her chamber. At a virtual town hall event hosted by the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) on Monday, Rep. Jeanne Kapela (D) talked about next steps for SB 669, which cleared the Senate with amendments ahead of a crossover deadline. Kapela, who sponsored a separate legalization measure that did not advance in the House by that deadline, described the Senate-passed bill as a “really good starting point for us,” especially because the legislation…

A Kentucky Senate committee on Tuesday approved a bill to legalize medical marijuana in the state. The Senate Licensing & Occupations Committee passed the legislation from Sen. Stephen West (R) and 12 other senators in a 8-3 vote. It now heads to the Senate floor with just days left in the session. “I didn’t intend to ever get into medical marijuana and take a look at the issue,” West told the panel ahead of the vote, adding that he was moved after hearing the stories of constituents. The committee chair, Sen. John Schickel (R), only recently committed to holding a…

The United Nations’s (UN) drug control body is suggesting that the U.S. is out of compliance with a decades-old international drug treaty because the federal government is passively allowing states within the country to legalize marijuana. While the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has routinely criticized countries for allowing the enactment of cannabis legalization due to their obligations under the 1961 Single Convention to maintain prohibition, a section of the new annual report report it released last week stands out by appearing to indirectly address state-level reform efforts in the U.S. Press release – International Narcotics Control Board expresses…

Vermont lawmakers introduced four major drug reform proposals this month: Two of the bills would decriminalize simple possession of all drugs and expand harm reduction services, another would remove criminal penalties for using or selling psilocybin and a fourth would decriminalize certain psychedelic plants and fungi. Even if the bills win legislative approval, however, they face an obstacle in Gov. Phil Scott (R), who last year vetoed a pair of bills containing more restrained drug policy reforms. The new all-drug decriminalization legislation, H.423, from Reps. Logan Nicoll (D) and Taylor Small (P/D), boasts 47 co-sponsors, or nearly a third of…

A bill introduced in the U.S. Congress would allow convicted drug felons to own or serve in principal roles in hemp companies, striking down restrictions in the 2018 Farm Bill. The proposed law, sponsored by two Republican and two Democrat members of the House of Representatives, would end what the lawmakers say is discriminatory federal policy in the Farm Bill, a landmark measure that legalized industrial hemp across the U.S. but relegated those convicted of felony drug offenses in the past 10 years to low-level jobs in the industry. ‘Stunted by red tape’ “The industry’s growth is being stunted by…

“It’s a mammoth task. We know it’s an issue in every county and every circuit. And so we’re just trying to slowly figure out what’s the fairest and the most equitable method to proceed.” By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent After three months of looking through old marijuana charges, Boone County Circuit Court Clerk Christy Blakemore—along with clerks and judges around the state—has come to a realization. There’s no quick way to wipe those records clean. And, it’s going to take a lot more money for overtime to go through the mountain of expungements in Boone County by summertime. “It’s just…

Despite legalization, workers in New York still face weed tests from certain jobs. Here’s what you need to know. Don’t bring out the streamers or start packing your pipe before your morning commute just yet. It’s easy to assume that cannabis legalization would automatically flip the switches on all forms of cannabis criminalization, and strike down the hammer on companies looking to weed out their employees who enjoy a weekend or after-hours toke. On the federal level, most private companies play it by ear when it comes to drug testing their employees. Only certain agencies require that their employees be drug…

Top New Hampshire lawmakers on Monday gave an overview of the path to enact a marijuana legalization bill this session, days after a House panel advanced a separate medical cannabis home cultivation measure last week. The House already approved a legalization bill from Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R) and Minority Leader Matthew Wilhelm (D) late last month. But it was then sent to the Ways & Means Committee for consideration before it can be transmitted to the Senate. In a committee hearing on Monday, Osborne described the types of compromises that have gone into HB 639 so far in order…

Even as the Biden administration works to promote the idea of taking a new approach to marijuana policy, the president is again proposing to keep banning Washington, D.C. from allowing cannabis sales. While President Joe Biden’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2024 does maintain a long-standing appropriations rider to prevent Justice Department interference in state- and territory-level medical cannabis programs that advocates support, they are dismayed to see D.C.’s autonomy on marijuana commerce is being targeted by the president for the third year in a row. The budget appendix, released on Monday, also proposes to keep riders intact to safeguard…

It started with a meeting at the police station followed by a smelly bus trip, as the late Dr. Raphael Mechoulam recalled years later. The future “father of cannabis research” had just scored some hashish – from Tel Aviv police, of all sources – when he boarded a bus to return to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, where he’d been researching steroids. With the recommendation of his Institute overseer, Mechoulam had turned to the police for a supply of hash from cannabis seized in drug busts to use in his initial 1960s research. He packed up the hash…