Oct 8, 2013 | MMJ News
By Anna Challet
At New America Media
SAN FRANCISCO – For the first time, over half of Californians are expressing support for the legalization of non-medical marijuana, according to new statewide survey results. With support having possibly reached a tipping point and efforts to produce a 2014 ballot initiative already underway, what might legalization look like in California?
The survey, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from the James Irvine Foundation, shows that 52 percent of Californians, as well as 60 percent of likely voters, support legalization. As recently as March of last year, PPIC found that support was at 45 percent.
“Our state has for many years lived with medical marijuana – not to say it isn’t controversial in locations, but it’s generally accepted,” PPIC president Mark Baldassare told The Sacramento Bee. “It’s really now a different political context for having discussions about where does California go with legalization.”
Over 60 percent of both non-Hispanic whites and African Americans are supportive, as opposed to 36 percent of Latinos. Some 48 percent of Asian Americans express support. Across all age groups from 18 to over 55, support stands at about 50 percent.
(more…)
Oct 1, 2013 | MMJ News
By Nick Schou
At OC Weekly Blog
On Sept. 27, California Governor Jerry Brown finally signed a bill to legalize industrial hemp, the non-psychoactive close relative of marijuana that can be made into everything from paper and rope to fiberglass substitute, shampoo and toothpaste.
The last time hemp was legally grown in the U.S. was in 1957. For years, hemp products have been sold legally in California and other states, but the raw materials have had to be imported from Asia and Europe. The law signed by Brown on Friday was introduced by longtime medical marijuana backer Mark Leno, (D-San Francisco) and allows the California Dept. of Food and Agriculture to regulate hemp like any other crop.
But will the feds allow California to harvest the country’s first legal hemp crop in decades next year?It’s too early to tell, but given the fact that the Obama administration recently stated–via the so-called Cole memorandum–that it will not interfere in states that have well regulated recreational or medical marijuana industries, this could be a crop ready for legal harvest after all. Today, California Attorney General Kamala Harris is reportedly seeking answers from the U.S. Justice Department.
(more…)
Sep 18, 2013 | MMJ News
By Patrik Jonsson
At The Christian Science Monitor
Speculation is afoot after the Justice Department signaled it will mostly leave to states the responsibility to regulate use. Washington State and Colorado are already working out details of legal marijuana.
Now the question is… Is it possible that most US states will legalize marijuana for recreational use?
Already, Washington State and Colorado are working out detailed regulations for such use after voters last year approved the possession and consumption of personal amounts of pot. And 20 states, plus the District of Columbia, have allowed marijuana for medicinal purposes.
It’s been 17 years since California voters shocked the world by allowing doctors to write prescriptions for pot and almost exactly 31 years since Ronald Reagan assured the nation that “we’re going to win the war” on marijuana and other illicit drugs.
Now this summer, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has signaled that it will mostly leave to states the responsibility to regulate individuals’ use of pot. And a majority of Americans – 52 percent, according to the Pew Research Center, now agree with that ubiquitous reggae plea: “Le-ga-lize it.”
Yes, people are still being arrested for selling, even consuming, outlawed street drugs, and many members of society are still troubled by, among other things, new psychoactive compounds like the club drug “Molly,” which has been blamed for several recent deaths.
(more…)
Sep 15, 2013 | MMJ News
By Liz Halloran
at npr.com
When the Obama administration recently announced it wouldn’t challenge the decision by Colorado and Washington voters to fully legalize marijuana, criticism rained down.
The administration’s position, complained one Colorado congressman, was tantamount to allowing states to opt out of the federal law banning pot possession, cultivation and sale.
Other anti-legalization activists predicted that the administration was waving the white flag in the war on drugs.
The first claim is essentially true: The states will be creating their own regulatory regimes.
As for the idea of a surrender in the war on drugs, the reality is a little more complicated.
Whatever its effect, the administration’s hands-off position in Colorado and Washington will reverberate well beyond those states. And it could actually end up imposing some semblance of order in what drug law expert Mark Kleiman describes as the “Wild West” of medical marijuana.
“And that would be a potentially very, very good result,” says Kleiman, who previously worked in the Justice Department’s criminal division and is author of Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know.
(more…)
Sep 10, 2013 | MMJ News
By Staff
At eNews Park Forrest
Sacramento, CA—(ENEWSPF)—September 9, 2013. A week after the Justice Department issued a memorandum, providing guidance on the role of federal law enforcement with respect to state marijuana laws, California legislators introduced a bill today that would bring long awaited regulations to medical marijuana businesses across the state. In the non-binding memo released a week ago Thursday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole claimed that as long as states implement “strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems to control the cultivation, distribution, sale, and possession of marijuana,” the DOJ would defer to local and state law enforcement. In response, the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Control Act (MCRCA) was introduced today as AB 604 by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) and co-authored by Senators Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Mark Leno (D-San Francisco).
“Not only are patients in California barraged by virtually daily closures of dispensaries due to aggressive attacks by the Justice Department, but the patchwork system of local bans and regulations in the state leaves hundreds of thousands of patients without safe access to medical marijuana,” said Don Duncan, California Director of Americans for Safe Access, the country’s leading medical marijuana advocacy group. “It’s time for state legislators to roll up their sleeves and finish the job of implementing California’s medical marijuana law.” Although more than 50 localities have adopted dispensary regulations in California, more than 200 have banned the activity outright.
(more…)
Sep 9, 2013 | MMJ News
By Josh Crank
At Lawyers.com
U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, one of four federal attorneys behind the nearly two-year crackdown on medical marijuana in California, suggested her enforcement will continue despite new drug policy guidance from the Department of Justice.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced in late August that the federal government won’t sue to block state laws legalizing marijuana in various forms, including the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington. An accompanying memo issued by Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole identified eight specific enforcement priorities on which the U.S. Attorneys should focus.
In the wake of the Justice Department memo, Haag spokesperson Lili Arauzhaase made a brief comment:
“At this time the US Attorney is not releasing any public statements. The office is evaluating the new guidelines and for the most part it appears that the cases that have been brought in this district are already in compliance with the guidelines. Therefore, we do not expect a significant change.”
(more…)
