Rolling Cannabis Politics Thread

aaaaaaaaaaand there are still no medical dispensaries opened in massachusetts, nearly 2 1/2 years after medical cannabis was legalized by voters

starting to think there is a small chance that 2016 will come and voters in MA will vote for full recreational weed before medical becomes available here

aaaaaaaaaaand there are still no medical dispensaries opened in massachusetts, nearly 2 1/2 years after medical cannabis was legalized by voters

― marcos

why?

licensing, inspection, and various permit delays from the state, which doesn't seem to have a huge interest in getting this going b/c it is content to rake in millions of dollars in dispensary application fees

that's p stupid, they're missing out on a lot of tax revenue. that shit keeps Oakland solvent!

yeah, kinda silly. there's a lot of dispensaries where i live (vancouver, bc) and it's not even legal!

it's all silly
it's silly how in some states you can walk into a freaking store and buy OG purple super kush kief-dabs-shatter and the next state over you get arrested for a joint .

yea, i wonder how soon there will be a federal reclassification of the drug. probably not until say 20 states or so (at least) have legalized it

My town has a store literally named Mary Jane's Pot Shop where you can buy anything from $5 .3 gm pre-packed bowls to $216 vacuum-sealed ounces with grower's brand names while over the border six miles east any amount at all can get you a year in prison and all of the store employees would be subject to a five year felony.

Since it opened it's been funny to randomly smell weed when out and about. It's rare to NOT smell it when I walk through the student neighborhood but now there's like the old man down the street who seems to smoke in his garage a lot, which I like to think explains his crazy Christmas lights.

yeah the weirdest is full legal states right next door to arrest-and-possibly-kill-with-swat-teams states but the western us is p insane generally i guess.

it's just a phase we're going through. not the insane part, but the legal next to SWAT team part.

It's even more insane cause mine is the liberal nanny state that tells you how to live your life and the neighbors are the hardcore libertarian / get government out of everything in the name of FREEDOM folks.

weed is a threat to freedom

haha yeah, that is rich xp

this situation is just begging for a Smokey and the Bandit re-boot where they try to smuggle weed across state lines

would watch

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/03/09/in-a-first-senators-plan-to-introduce-federal-medical-marijuana-bill/

about fucking time!

Rand Paul, Cory Booker and Kristen Gillibrand is a hell of a superteam but whatever gets it done

Great news

live stream here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTPi5lpXqOE

aw they carer

I don't see this passing a Republican congress tho th

tbh

nice

Honestly, don't know what to expect, it's not a strictly partisan issue. I think it may be a longshot, but I could also imagine the votes being cobbled together by a mix of democrats and republicans.

xpost

well they're not gonna tax gas

i don't count on congress to do basically anything positive for the most part so i have my doubts about this but at least it is a start.

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/march-marijuana-mania-5-states-moving-legalization

State pushes forward to legalize marijuana (MA)

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/22/lawmakers-mull-marijuana-legalization/golTlLjcXUbSjuBqHyFmaN/story.html

State pushes forward to legalize marijuana

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DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF/FILE

Some legislators would rather write the proposed law themselves rather than have activists do it, allowing for lots of public input and final say.
By Joshua MillerGlobe Staff March 23, 2015

Beacon Hill legislators are working on a marijuana legalization proposal, in part as an effort to short-circuit an expected 2016 ballot push.

Advocates have long planned an initiative petition to legalize the recreational use of the drug for adults, and political analysts have expected that measure to pass in the next presidential election year.

But some lawmakers are balking at the prospect of activists unilaterally writing a law that would have such a profound effect on the state. The legislators would rather write the proposed law themselves, allow for lots of public input, and have final say on the scope and details.

“Wouldn’t it be a good idea for the Legislature to look at it ahead of time, listen to every point of view, anticipate every problem that we could, and try to do it right?” said Senator Patricia D. Jehlen, Democrat of Somerville and a lead sponsor of a bill to legalize, tax, and regulate recreational use of marijuana.

woops sorry for all that junk in the c&p

anyways i fully expect any legislative effort in MA to basically amount to a few years of bullshit wrangling and posturing, after which i'd be shocked if a bill was actually created

despite the medical cannabis bullshit here i still think a 2016 ballot initiative would be better

Choom Gang veteran:

"It shouldn't be young people's biggest priority. Let's put it in perspective. Young people, I understand this is important to you. But you should be thinking about climate change, the economy, jobs, war and peace. Maybe way at the bottom you should be thinking about marijuana."

http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-critique-young-people-want-legal-marijuana-100000746.html

Elsewhere, Chrischrischristie says he would not legalize w33d in NJ for the tax revenue bcz "that's BLOOD MONEY."

imho a position favoring legalization might very well be arrived at by someone thinking about the economy, jobs, and peace

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/indiana-marijuana-church_n_6970028.html

Indiana's new "religious freedom" law has been widely criticized and condemned by many, but an innovative marijuana activist in the state is using the bill's legal protections as a means to set up a new religious sect -- the First Church of Cannabis, where members would aim to use marijuana freely as a sacrament in a state where the substance remains banned.

"It's a new religion for people who happen to live in our day and age," Levin told The Huffington Post in an interview Monday. "All these old religions, guys walking across the desert without Dr. Scholls inserts, drinking wine out of goat bladders, no compass, speaking Latin and Hebrew -- I cannot relate to that shit. I drive by Burger Kings, bars and corn fields. I cannot relate to an antique magic book."

As Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act last Thursday, Levin was filing registration paperwork with the secretary of state, which was approved on Friday, he announced on the church's Facebook page.

http://time.com/13328/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-2016/

Q. Marijuana legalization in Vermont and indeed in the country is a trend. What do you make of it?

It is a trend, but I think it has a lot of political support from young people especially. It probably will continue to move forward. Colorado led the way. Other states I expect will follow. I have supported the increased use of marijuana for medical purposes, and I can tell you when I was Mayor of the City of Burlington, which includes the University of Vermont, I don’t recall that anybody was arrested for marijuana use. And I have real concerns about implications of the war on drugs that has. We have been engaged in for decades now with a huge cost and the destruction of a whole lot of lives of people who were never involved in any violent activities.

In Vermont right now we’re dealing with a very serious problem with heroin use and use of prescription drugs. We lost over 50 people as a result of overdoses of prescription drugs and heroin. So I am concerned about the overuse of dangerous drugs. And we’ll see what’s going to happen, but I think that debate will take place in Vermont.

Q. So you don’t support the recreational legalization of marijuana in Vermont?

I’m going to look at the issue. It’s not that I support it or don’t support it. To me it is not one of the major issues facing this country. I’ll look at it. I think it has a lot of support and I’ll be talking to young people and others about the issues. But there are two sides to a story.

I don't know this for sure but I think if Sanders came out for federal medical marijuana, or (though from the interview makes it sound unlikely) recreational, he would probably see a lot of youth support for his campaign. At the very least it might force Hillary to also support mm. I hope this is among the issues he plans to focus on in the campaign.

today governor of puerto rico signed executive order legalizing medical marijuana

federal medical marijuana

would at the very least entail delisting it as a schedule 1 drug

was looking for a good link to post how happy i am about this:

The amendments approved by the full Senate and are now included in Senate Bill 3 are:

Vaporization for cancer, PTSD and seizures (Senator Camera Bartolotta)
Chronic or intractable pain (Senator Camera Bartolotta)
Diabetes (Senator Mike Folmer on behalf of Senator Don White)
Crohn’s Disease (Senator Mike Folmer)

http://fox43.com/2015/05/12/senate-passes-medical-marijuana-bill/

i wrote a ton of letters to my state senator about why crohn's should be included (my primary argument was that medical mj is not just pain management for cd sufferers but can actually induce full remissions) so i'm pretty thrilled it's now in the bill. but i was reading the link and i thought this opening graf was pretty amazing:

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania State Senate passed Senator Mike Folmer’s (R – Lebanon, Dauphin, York) Senate Bill 3 to allow the use of medical cannabis in the Commonwealth: 40-7. Folmer’s legislation would allow thousands of ill and suffering Pennsylvanians the ability to utilize cannabis, a natural plant from God, to treat their ailments.

kinda amazing. i assume they use the god language bc they're fox, but to use that language in defense of medicinal cannabis legislation seems like a huge deal to me.

poppies and coca bushes everywhere approve this message

pretty sure methamphetamine is a (semi)natural molecule made by man via God

/trenchant

I'm going to start calling it "that natural plant from God"

word.

i'm familiar enough with stoner metal to know that smoking weed actually means having your mind blown by Satan; these godly pot pushers can't fool me

Delaware decriminalizes:

https://www.mpp.org/news/press/gov-markell-signs-delaware-marijuana-decriminalization-bill-into-law/

meanwhile Colorado rules that you can still be fired for smoking at home:

http://projects.registerguard.com/apf/biz/us-marijuana-workplace/

The Oregon legislature has a bill pending that is likely to pass, allowing about 40% of the counties (all of them rural) to ban legal marijuana without requiring a further popular vote, because the initiative that legalized pot was voted down in these counties by 55% or more. It is being analogized to the 'dry' counties when Prohibition ended. This is probably good politics atm and doesn't really bother me.

They are also tinkering with the method and amount of taxation, and setting the tax rate at what seems a bit too high to me (~20%). But again, this is quite naturally an era of experimentation and instability in regard to legalization, so this is not a huge concern to me either. The main thing is to move ahead.

ohio's ballot measure is very interesting (and not very great imo, despite a step forward in legalizing cannabis) and will effectively give only 10 companies the right to grow wholesale: http://time.com/3921751/ohio-marijuana-ballot-measure/