Author: News Room

Missouri officials have approved the first dispensaries to start selling marijuana to adult consumers and began accepting applications for people to grow their own cannabis at home—three days ahead of schedule. The state Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) accepted several applications from existing medical cannabis businesses for dual licensees on Friday, and those that were approved are now officially able to open their doors to the recreational market. DHSS, has regulatory authority over the program and is responsible for issuing all cannabis licenses, started initial work to prepare the rules back in August after it was confirmed cannabis…

Washington State lawmakers took public testimony Thursday on a bill that would, more than a decade after voters approved cannabis legalization, finally allow adults to grow the plant for themselves at home. House Bill 1614, heard by the House Committee on Regulated Substances and Gaming, would permit cultivation of up to six cannabis plants for personal use by residents 21 and older. A vote on the bill by the panel is scheduled for next week. Washington was one of the first in the nation to legalize cannabis, but its 2012 law didn’t include homegrow provisions. While most other legal states…

So you want to play around with plant intercourse! That’s great. I’m here to help you with that, and I’ve enlisted the help of some of the finest weed wizards on planet Earth to assist me. It’s not exactly simple, but it’s easy enough to accomplish in the comfort of your own home if you’re dedicated enough. For the sake of simplicity and efficiency, I’m going to boil this down to some very rudimentary and basic options. Breeding is a complex art that has an unlimited complexity threshold, and as such, it would be insane to explain all of it…

A marijuana industry-backed campaign to put a legalization initiative before voters on the 2024 ballot has cleared its first hurdle, with enough signatures on a petition to initiate a state Supreme Court review of its language. Smart & Safe Florida filed the measure last summer, and the campaign has so far turned in 294,037 valid signatures to get the review started—a key step toward ballot placement, as News Service Florida first reported. They needed 222,898 signatures to prompt the court review of the initiative. The Florida Supreme Court will be looking to make sure that the text of the proposal…

A Virginia Senate bill to establish a statewide psilocybin advisory board and move the psychedelic to a lower schedule under state statute is headed to the floor following its approval in committee. The Senate Education and Health Committee passed the legislation from Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D) in a 14-1 vote on Thursday—about a week after it advanced out of a subcommittee. The measure now heads to the full Senate for consideration, but time is running thin in the short session, with a crossover deadline on Tuesday for bills to clear their originating chamber. Advocates are encouraged to see psychedelics reform…

“The perfect shouldn’t stand in the way of the good.” By Darrell Ehrlick, Daily Montanan In its first major revision proposed to Montana’s marijuana laws since the state legalized recreational use in 2021, a House panel heard a series of bills that would adjust and change laws governing pot. Among those bills and changes is House Bill 128, proposed by Rep. Josh Kassmier, (R), which makes a number of changes to the 68-page law that passed in 2021. Among those changes was moving the marijuana testing laboratories from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services to the Montana…

A bill to legalize marijuana in Minnesota cleared its sixth House committee on Thursday. A Senate panel hearing on a companion version was also scheduled, but it’s been postponed. The House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee approved the legislation from Rep. Zack Stephenson (D) in a voice vote. The bill is now nearly halfway through its expected committee stops in the chamber. “Minnesotans are ready for this. Our current laws regarding cannabis are doing more harm than good,” Stephenson said in opening remarks to the panel. “Minnesotans deserve the freedom and respect to make their own decisions about cannabis use.”…

Oklahoma stands to generate nearly half a billion dollars in revenue from adult-use marijuana sales in the first five years of implementation if voters approve the reform at the ballot next month, according to a new economic analysis. The Yes on 820 campaign released the report on Thursday, showing the state’s projected combined tax revenue from medical and recreational marijuana sales from 2024-2028 at $821 million. The proposed 15 percent excise tax for adult-use cannabis products would account for more than half of that revenue, at $434 million, the analysis that was conducted by Vicente Sederberg LLP and the Oklahoma…

Four out of five Texans support legalizing medical cannabis and decriminalizing possession of marijuana—and a strong majority across party lines also backs broader recreational legalization—according to a new poll. The poll from YouGov and the University of Houston asked respondents about a wide range of legislative issues, including cannabis reform. It found that 82 percent favor medical marijuana legalization, 81 percent back making simple possession punishable by a citation similar to a traffic ticket and 67 percent support legalizing cannabis for adult use. For the medical marijuana question, that majority includes 93 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and…

The measure would deliver real money to people harmed by the Drug War, but its cannabis licensing set-asides are unlikely to benefit many victims. By Khurshid Khoja, Greenbridge Corporate Counsel The newly introduced “Comprehensive Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Act of 2023” in Washington, D.C. is a welcomed and necessary turning point in our nation’s on-going debate on cannabis policy and social equity. The measure proposed to the D.C. Council last week would pay cash restitution to “residents who were arrested, convicted, or incarcerated for a cannabis-related offense in the District prior to March 27, 2015,” or their spouses or children.…