Author: News Room

At least eight parliamentary committees in Germany are set to take up a bill to legalize marijuana on Wednesday, setting the stage for expected votes on final passage on the floor of the Bundestag on Friday. As lawmakers and government officials aim for the potential enactment of legalization in April, the scheduled committee hearings indicate that things are going according to plan. This comes weeks after leaders of Germany’s so-called traffic light coalition government announced that they’d reached a final agreement on the legalization bill, resolving outstanding concerns, primarily from the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Here are the committees set to consider…

The Maryland Senate has passed a bill that’s meant to protect gun rights for medical marijuana patients under state law, sending it to the House of Delegates. In a 43-2 vote on Tuesday, the Senate approved the legislation from Sen. Mike McKay (R), without discussion. This comes about one week after it cleared the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. If enacted, the measure would protect the rights of registered medical cannabis patients to buy, own and carry firearms under Maryland law, even though they are still restricted from doing so under federal statute. The Maryland legislature also took up the issue around…

A Virginia House panel has delayed its consideration of a Senate-passed marijuana legalization bill in order to give backers of two competing legal sales proposals that were approved in votes on the floor of their respective chamber more time to hammer out a compromise. As a House General Laws subcommittee began discussion Tuesday of the Senate bill—SB 448 from Sen. Aaron Rouse (D)—the sponsor of a separate House measure announced that the two camps are now actively crafting a deal. “We’re working with Sen. Rouse right now on coming up with a compromise retail cannabis bill,” said Del. Paul Krizek…

“The war on drugs has failed. Ironically, the very policies intended to reduce drug use have only made things worse.” By Thomas C. Higdon, Maryland Coalition on Drug Use, Treatment, and Recovery via Maryland Matters As a survivor of substance use disorder, I’ve seen firsthand the devastating consequences of drug use—lives lost, families destroyed, and communities devastated. However, after taking a hard look at the data, it is clear that the harms traditionally associated with drug use (e.g., overdose, crime, poverty) are caused and/or exacerbated by long standing drug prohibition policies. To put it bluntly, the war on drugs has…

Vermont lawmakers last week began consideration of a bill that would legalize psilocybin in the state and establish a work group on how to further regulate psychedelics for therapeutic use. The Senate Health and Welfare Committee took no immediate action at the hearing, with chair Sen. Ginny Lyons (D) saying the panel would most likely hear further testimony on the proposal either this week or next week. “S.114 I think may be a bill that has the potential to be acted upon pretty quickly,” Lyons said. “We’ll see what we think about it.” Sen. Terry Williams (R) asked whether there…

“Nebraskans are obviously ready to legalize medicinal cannabis.” By Paul Hammel, Nebraska Examiner New polling found that 70 percent of respondents are ready to legalize medical marijuana in Nebraska and that a majority of those responding want to approve a novel alternative to property, sales and income taxes. The poll, conducted for Neilan Strategy Group, mirrors polling done by a group seeking to place the medical cannabis issue on the 2024 ballot. The Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana said their polling in 2022 showed that 80 percent of registered voters were in favor of legalization. “Nebraskans are clearly ready to legalize…

Another Arizona Senate committee has approved a bipartisan bill that would legalize psilocybin service centers where people could receive the psychedelic in a medically supervised setting, sending it to the floor. On Monday, the Senate Rules Committee passed the legislation from Sen. T. J. Shope (R) in a 5-2 vote. This comes about one week after the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which the sponsor chairs, unanimously approved the psychedelics measure. The bill has now been placed on the consent calendar for a floor vote for a third and final reading, indicating that it’s not considered controversial—though it may still…

The governor of Rhode Island is proposing to decouple state and federal tax policy for the marijuana industry as a partial workaround to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E that bars cannabis operators from taking deductions for business expenses. As part of his budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year that was taken up by the House Finance Committee last week, Gov. Dan McKee (D) called for cannabis industry tax relief, with specific legislative language that he wants lawmakers to adopt. “Rhode Island would join Massachusetts and Connecticut, and at least 10 other states, in decoupling from…

An Alaska Senate committee on Friday advanced a bill that would create a task force to study how to license and regulate psychedelic-assisted therapy in anticipation of eventual federal legalization of substances like MDMA and psilocybin. Before taking action on the bill, which the panel first considered earlier this month, members of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee adopted a substitute from its sponsor, Sen. Forrest Dunbar (D). The committee then moved the amended bill out of committee “with individual recommendations” and a new fiscal note that reduced the estimated cost of the task force to zero. The changes bring…

A Republican member of Maine’s House of Representatives is attempting to oust the state’s top marijuana regulator, claiming that Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) Director John Hudak is “unfairly and unjustly executing state law.” OCP under Hudak’s direction, according to Rep. David Boyer (R), has inconsistently applied regulations, set steep licensing costs and penalties for licensed businesses and at times retaliated against operators who tried to raise concerns. Hudak—a former Brookings Institution fellow who focused on marijuana at the think tank—also has conflicts of interest, Boyer claimed, that should disqualify him from some matters. The lawmaker is currently circulating an…