Author: News Room

“Employees were basically told, ‘If you talk to the union, if you take a card, if you take a sticker, you’re out.” By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent The first day was a breeze. Sean Shannon and Danny Foster walked into several marijuana dispensaries around Missouri with their matching “Union For Cannabis Workers” shirts and talked to employees about the possibility of unionizing. “The first day, there were 57 stops amongst the teams,” said Shannon, lead organizer with UFCW Local 655, which actually stands for United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. “Reception was out-of-this-world positive. Workers were so excited.” Shannon…

Bipartisan Wisconsin lawmakers will soon be introducing a bill to decriminalize low-level marijuana possession—an incremental reform that they hope will break the logjam on cannabis policy in the GOP-controlled legislature. As other legislators push for broader adult-use legalization, Reps. Shae Sortwell (R) and Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D), along with Sen. Lena Taylor (D), are sponsoring the simple decriminalization legislation, which would also give employers more discretion in workplace cannabis testing policies. The bill would make possession of up to 14 grams of cannabis punishable by a $100 civil forfeiture, without the threat of jail time. It would also stop courts from…

A final vote on a bill to legalize marijuana in Germany that was initially planned for this week has been called off amid concerns from leaders of the country’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). The delay means that action on the landmark proposal will be postponed until next year. “It always has to be approved by the parliamentary groups in the end,” Dirk Heidenblut, an SPD member of Germany’s Bundestag who is responsible for the party’s cannabis policy, said in an Instagram post. “And if a faction leader, in this case the SPD, has concerns, then it cannot be set up…

A coalition of military veterans organizations is pushing President Joe Biden to ensure that the ongoing administrative review into marijuana’s scheduling status is completed in a “timely manner” and also take steps to “counter” misinformation while pursuing broader reform. In a letter sent to the president last week, multiple veterans-focused groups expressed appreciation for his directive initiating the marijuana review last year, which led the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to recommend that cannabis be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). “This process represents a significant opportunity for our nation…

An Ohio Senate committee has given initial approval to a newly unveiled proposal to fundamentally alter the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law that’s set to take effect later this week. The legislation being advanced in the GOP-controlled chamber would eliminate a home grow option for adults, reduce the possession limit, raise the sales tax on cannabis and steer funding away from social equity programs and toward law enforcement—along with other amendments concerning THC limits, public consumption and more. During a 30-minute hearing on Monday, the Senate General Government Committee voted 4-1 to attach the cannabis legislation to an unrelated House-passed…

Despite fears by critics that marijuana legalization would lead to sharp increases in problematic use, newly published data from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows that states where cannabis sales remained illegal typically had the highest rates of treatment admissions for the drug. The data, which was published last week and covers 2021, show admissions to substance use treatment services among people aged 12 and older who go to state-licensed facilities. All told, the SAMHSA report presents findings from nearly 1.5 million admissions nationwide over the course of the year. Of all the tallied admissions…

Two new bills regarding medical marijuana have been prefiled for New Hampshire’s legislative session that begins in January, with at least seven others already requested by lawmakers. One of the two proposals prefiled on Friday, HB 1231, would allow patients and caregivers to cultivate marijuana for therapeutic use. It’s sponsored by Rep. Wendy Thomas (D), as well as fellow Democratic Reps. Maria Perez, Jodi Newell, Alissandra Murray and Jonah Wheeler. Thomas sponsored similar medical marijuana homegrow legislation last session. Under the new legislation, home cultivation would be limited to three mature cannabis plants, three immature plants and 12 seedlings, and…

A man in Minnesota is providing free growing and cannabis basics workshops—free to the public—to help people get a foot in the door of the industry. Minnesota allows home cultivation under its recently approved adult-use cannabis law, and residents are eager to see if they have a green thumb. Minnesota adults are allowed to grow up to eight plants, four mature. Growing cannabis takes years of experience to master, but you gotta start somewhere.  Inforum reports that Steve Rosenfeldt, who is the owner of Ediblez OTC in Moorhead, Minnesota, wants to share his expertise with the plant to others. Rosenfeldt…

With oral arguments set for Monday in a federal court case over a proposed Philadelphia safe drug consumption site, counsel for the would-be facility sent a letter to the judge in the case on Thursday calling out the Department of Justice (DOJ) for taking apparently contradictory legal positions. In the Philadelphia safe consumption site case itself, the letter says, DOJ has argued that the harm reduction aims of Safehouse, the nonprofit attempting to open facility where people can use illicit substances in a medically supervised environment, are “socio-political” rather than religious. In a separate case involving an Episcopal church in…

As cannabis came out of the dark ages, brothers Daniel and Bryan Eatmon, aka Old E and Bleezy, of Mendo Dope gave the world one of its first insider glimpses into the Emerald Triangle. Sure we had Weed Wars, a limited reality show series that debuted in 2011, but not long after, Mendo Dope started giving us an authentic look at the hill in between the tunes and very reputable cannabis they were growing. Old E and Bleezy popped their first cannabis seeds in the valleys of Mendocino County, California in 2006. That was still very much the dark ages…