Author: News Room

Hawaii advocates are feeling confident about the prospects of advancing marijuana legalization in the new session, with an activist coalition holding a press conference on Wednesday alongside state lawmakers to lay out the path forward for reform. There’s renewed reason for optimism in the new year, as voters elected a pro-legalization governor and lieutenant governor during the November election. Lawmakers are now prepared to introduce reform legislation after officials finalized recommendations for legalization as part of a task force. Representatives of major advocacy organization—including the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), ACLU of Hawaii and Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii—said at Wednesday’s…

Minnesota lawmakers approved a marijuana legalization bill, with a series of amendments, in a House committee on Wednesday. It’s the first of what’s expected to be many committee stops for the legislation, which builds on a reform measure that passed the full House in 2021. With majorities in both the House and Senate and control over the governorship this session, Democratic-Farmer-Labor party officials are confident that legalization will be enacted sooner than later. The House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee approved several amendments to the legislation, which was unveiled last week. The revised bill then passed the panel, which is…

Last week, New Jersey and New York regulators took each other to task over which state approached their adult-use marijuana market rollout better. Now, Connecticut’s governor is joining the rhetorical rumble after his state launched recreational sales on Tuesday, entering the tri-state war of words on cannabis. Hours before Connecticut’s first recreational shops opened their doors, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) reflected on the adult-use program in New York, which involved just one storefront late last month, saying that the limited launch “seemed crazy to me.” Lamont said in an interview with PLR radio’s Chaz and AJ show that he’s confident…

The governor of New Jersey touted the state’s growing marijuana industry during his State of the State address on Tuesday, emphasizing work that’s being done to ensure that the market is equitable and right the wrongs of the drug war. While discussing cannabis policy developments, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) also gave a nod to his invited guest, Darrin Chandler Jr., president of the minority-owned marijuana business Premium Genetics. “We are growing an entirely new and broad-based adult-use cannabis industry—an industry that is making room for women and minority small business owners,” the governor said. He also said more generally that…

France’s Council of State has formally lifted a ban on the sale of hemp flowers used to produce CBD and other cannabinoids, finalizing the overrule of a 2021 government decision. The Council, which advises the government on legislation and serves as the supreme court on matters of administrative justice, ruled that the ban on the marketing of plant tops was “disproportionate” because the sale of CBD in leaf and flower form does not pose a risk to public health.  The decision is one in a string of developments down the road to making CBD legal in France, sure to develop into…

Arizona’s highest court has issued a ruling that could remove some of the legal hazards that still exist for parents in states that have legalized marijuana. In 2019, Lindsay Ridgell, a pregnant woman living in Phoenix, used medical cannabis to treat her hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), a life-threatening condition that causes extreme nausea and vomiting and can lead to miscarriage.After healthcare workers detected cannabis markers in a blood test following the birth of her son Silas, Ridgell was reported to Arizona’s Department of Child Safety (DCS) and placed on Arizona’s child abuse registry. In the four years since, Ridgell has been…

Connecticut’s first adult-use marijuana sales launched on Tuesday—the latest state in the region where recreational shops have started opening their doors in recent months. This development comes about a month after the state Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) notified existing medical cannabis dispensaries that obtained a hybrid license that they’d soon be able to start selling to the adult-use market. DCP’s Social Equity Council voted last month to approve hybrid licenses for all of the state’s current medical cannabis producers to supply both markets. Six existing marijuana companies, with a total of nine locations, met the requirements to obtain hybrid…

Texas activists have turned in more than 37,000 signatures to place a measure on the San Antonio ballot in May to decriminalize marijuana, prevent the enforcement of abortion restriction laws and ban no-knock warrants. A coalition of advocacy groups—including Ground Game Texas, SA Stands and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC)—secured the signatures about three months after launching the local reform campaign. This builds on the activist-led cannabis decriminalization movement that Ground Game has spearheaded in cities across the Lone Star state. Major cities like Austin have already enacted decriminalization locally at the ballot, and voters passed the reform in…

Volume 5 Discreetly Dank is a recurring column dedicated to giving a voice to those who dare to be dank. Each volume will come from a different writer in need of a safe space to document what it’s really like to be a weed lover in a world that still hasn’t normalized cannabis. “I know that what I went through for a few years with weed was addiction or something like it.” There was a time in my life—those nebulous, sizzling years of my early 20s—when everything I loved about life I attributed to cannabis. I was working at a…

Washington State senators held a committee hearing on Tuesday to discuss a series of marijuana reform proposals related to employment protections, interstate commerce and social equity in the cannabis industry. And lawmakers in a House panel are also scheduled to discuss companion interstate commerce legislation later in the afternoon. The Senate Labor & Commerce Committee took up the three marijuana proposals as the state works to improve upon its adult-use market. The panel’s chair, Sen. Karen Keiser (D), is sponsoring the employment-related bill. Members didn’t vote on the legislation, but the hearings in both chambers bring the measures a step…