California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday vetoed a bill that would have allowed marijuana businesses to advertise on billboards along most highways in the state.
The legislation would “weaken” protections included in Proposition 64, the cannabis legalization ballot measure that voters approved in 2016, the governor said in a veto message.
“When the voters passed Proposition 64, they enacted robust protections shielding youth from exposure to cannabis and cannabis advertising,” Newsom wrote. “Among other things, voters completely prohibited billboard-based cannabis advertising on all Interstate Highways, and on all State Highways that cross the California border. Allowing advertising on these high-traffic thoroughfares could expose young passengers to cannabis advertising.”
Nonprofit Arkansas True Grass is working to put an amendment on the November 2022 ballot to allow for the recreational use of marijuana in Arkansas. The group needs 89,101 signatures to make the ballot.
Jesse Raphael, the Northwest Arkansas spokesman for True Grass, said the group has more than 20,000 signatures. The deadline to gather signatures is in June 2022, and he said he felt good about the progress so far.
The group, which formed in 2015, has been gathering signatures of registered voters since mid-2020. It had worked on a medical marijuana initiative that didn’t make the ballot in 2016. Raphael noted the pandemic impacted efforts for a ballot initiative last year.
While True Grass members are among the 79,420 patients in the existing medical marijuana program, he said it has shortcomings, including the limited medical conditions to qualify. Also, it’s accounted for high product prices and doesn’t allow the patients to grow medical marijuana, he explained. The proposed amendment would address these issues, he said.
Under the amendment, residents who are at least 21 could grow up to 12 marijuana plants. Depending on the license acquired, licensees could sell marijuana plants, seeds and products. Also, those in jail for nonviolent, marijuana-related crimes would be released, and anyone convicted of such offenses would have their records expunged. He said the former would affect thousands of people, and the latter would impact tens of thousands who could enter the workforce and reduce the unemployment rate.
GRANTS, N.M. – Marijuana use is becoming more widely accepted – but for decades there’s been one powerful opponent: the federal government. It is still classified as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning the feds view it like they view cocaine, heroin and meth.
But, now marijuana is moving into a class of its own because federal officials are finally allowing cannabis to be researched. Politicians and Bright Green Corporation came together in Grants, New Mexico where they will be growing a different type of green because they are breaking ground on a very unique facility.
“A lot of this is stuff that has been advocated for by a lot of folks in the community and industry over the last three years, and I don’t see it’s going to make it through the legislative process any time soon,” Jed Green, who helped establish the group Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action, said of State Questions 817 and 818.
According to Green, a new Oklahoma State Cannabis Commission would take over industry oversight from the Oklahoma State Medical Marijuana Authority, which had itself been created under the state Department of Health by State Question 788.
Green was among those who helped get SQ788 on the June 2018 ballot, which brought cannabis to dispensary shelves for licensed patients by that fall. As of September, Oklahoma had more than 375,000 licensed cannabis patients, as well as more than 2,300 dispensaries, 8,600 growers and 1,500 processors, respectively.
The Cannabis Control Board (Board) consists of five (5) board members. The Board is charged with implementing the Marihuana Regulation & Taxation Act and advancing the cannabis industry in New York State.
Meetings of the Cannabis Control Board will be announced on this web page prior to the meeting.
The policy to not randomly test players for marijuana has been in place since the Orlando restart and will continue this season.
The NBA has agreed to not randomly test players for marijuana this season, a continuation of the policy that was put in place last year for the COVID-19 “restart bubble” and has remained since.
Drug testing will continue for things such as human growth hormone and performance-enhancers, along with what the league calls “drugs of abuse” — such as methamphetamine, cocaine and opiates. But the league’s agreement with the National Basketball Players Association over random marijuana tests will continue for at least another season.
“We have agreed with the NBPA to extend the suspension of random testing for marijuana for the 2021-22 season and focus our random testing program on performance-enhancing products and drugs of abuse,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said Wednesday.
Republican Sen. Mike Regan, a former U.S. marshal who spent years fighting the drug wars, is now calling for marijuana to be legalized in Pennsylvania.
“I think it’s inevitable,” said Regan, R-Cumberland/York counties. “It’s common sense to think we’re going to do it at some time and it should be done smart.”
Regan’s bill would allow adults to use marijuana for recreational purposes. Gov. Tom Wolf signed the law allowing marijuana for medicinal purposes in 2016.
The legislation is still a work in progress. But in a memo he began circulating on Monday seeking support from lawmakers, Regan stated, “As chairman of the Senate Law and Justice Committee and a former member of law enforcement, rather than sit idly by and allow others to shape the legislation, I am stepping up to be a leader on the issue, as I did on medical marijuana.”
Activists in Nebraska on Friday unveiled the language of a pair of initiatives to legalize medical marijuana in the state. Supporters now have until July of next year to gather thousands of voter signatures to put the measures on the 2022 ballot.
The petitioning drive to qualify the two initiatives will begin Saturday in Lincoln, near a University of Nebraska football game at Memorial Stadium, where advocates say they plan to “take advantage of the crowds” to “kick off the effort.”
Can’t wait to launch the new campaign to legalize medical marijuana today! https://t.co/KEay2BUeMR
— State Senator Adam Morfeld (@Adam_Morfeld) October 2, 2021
Together, the two initiatives from Medical Marijuana (NMM) would protect qualified patients from legal consequences for cannabis and regulate businesses that produce, distribute and sell marijuana products to those patients. Advocates say they’re done waiting for lawmakers to act on the issue and will instead take the issue directly to voters.
The rapper’s legal team has made a plea – twice – to a North Carolina judge asking for the “compassionate release” of a man serving a 20-year prison sentence over marijuana charges, Page Six has exclusively learned.
