• New Hampshire lawmakers approve marijuana legalization

    The now bill faces a tougher road to passage in the Senate, which has been where House-passed cannabis legislation has gone to die over the course of several years
    Forbes (US)
    Tuesday, January 9, 2018

    The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to legalize marijuana, five days after the Trump administration moved to rescind federal guidelines protecting state cannabis laws. Under the bill, which now moves to the state Senate, people over 21 years would be allowed to legally possess three-quarters of an ounce of marijuana and grow up to three mature cannabis plants. Retail sales locations would not be allowed. The noncommercial approach is similar to a bill advancing in Vermont. The swift action by the two states represents a stunning rebuke to the Trump administration's anti-cannabis move, which was also roundly slammed by dozens of members of Congress from both parties. (See also: Op-ed: New Hampshire’s gov won’t sign marijuana bill. And that’s a good thing)

  • How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan

    After 16 years and $1tn spent, there is no end to the fighting – but western intervention has resulted in Afghanistan becoming the world’s first true narco-state
    The Guardian (UK)
    Tuesday, January 9, 2018

    After fighting the longest war in its history, the US stands at the brink of defeat in Afghanistan. How could this be possible? How could the world’s sole superpower have battled continuously for more than 16 years – deploying more than 100,000 troops at the conflict’s peak, sacrificing the lives of nearly 2,300 soldiers, spending more than $1tn (£740bn) on its military operations, lavishing a record $100bn more on “nation-building”, helping fund and train an army of 350,000 Afghan allies – and still not be able to pacify one of the world’s most impoverished nations? In the American failure lies a paradox: Washington’s massive military juggernaut has been stopped in its steel tracks by a small pink flower – the opium poppy.

  • How legalization is already hurting California's small pot farmers

    Could new regulations mean the end of the mom-and-pop grows that created cannabis culture?
    Rolling Stone (US)
    Monday, January 8, 2018

    Chiah Rodriques webLegality is more nuanced than it may seem in a state that legalized weed. And California's mom-and-pop growers are up against a confluence of factors pushing them out of the industry: federal prohibition increasingly backed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, conflicting state and local regulations, big business competition, black market competition and a tricky relationship to the law enforcement they need for protection. In order to get a state license, generally a cannabis business must first obtain a local license. The state officially has hundreds of localities, but not every one will set up cannabis regulations; in fact, a handful don't want legal canna-businesses altogether.

  • New Pew poll: Support for marijuana legalization inches up among Americans

    Millennials and Generation Xers favor legal cannabis use at levels of 70 percent and 66 percent, respectively
    The Cannabist (US)
    Monday, January 8, 2018

    Marijuana legalization continues to be viewed more favorably by Americans, buoyed by substantial support from younger adults, according to the latest survey from the Pew Research Center. Overall, 61 percent of Americans surveyed said they support legalization, a 4-percentage-point increase from last year, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2017 of 1,504 adults. A total of 37 percent of adults surveyed said marijuana should not be legal; 5 percent were undecided or refused to answer. The “six in 10 Americans” support levels align with recently published results from longstanding polling firm Gallup, which reported in October that 64 percent of adult survey respondents said that marijuana should be legalized.

  • US turns to Trump targets – UN, China and Mexico – for help in opioid crisis

    Washington has requested UN help declare fentanyl illegal in US and China, as White House works with Mexico to address the drug’s spread, official says
    The Guardian (UK)
    Sunday, January 7, 2018

    The president declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, with most recent government estimates suggesting the more than 64,000 fatal overdoses in 2016 outnumber the total number of American deaths in the Vietnam War. Richard Baum, acting director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that the US had requested the UN help declare fentanyl – an opioid at the heart of the crisis in the US – illegal in both the US and China. The US claims fentanyl manufactured in China – available for purchase online or imported into the US via established trafficking routes – contributes to the epidemic currently facing the country. (See also: China disputes Trump’s claim of flood of Chinese fentanyl into US)

  • Cannabis chaos — Sessions has no exit strategy for his war on drugs

    The Cole Memo was a strategic retreat from a full-frontal assault on marijuana criminalization
    The Hill (US)
    Sunday, January 7, 2018

    One of the great social and political experiments of this decade, marijuana legalization, faces its greatest existential threat: Jeff Sessions. Twenty-nine states have exercised their rights and legalized marijuana for medical or adult use, despite marijuana possession remaining a federal crime. The anti-commandeering doctrine, long recognized as part of the 10 amendment, protects states from having to use resources to enforce federal law. State laws contradicting federal laws come at the cost of political and policy tensions that can only be eased by federal guidance. For the last four years, that relied on Obama era guidance like the Cole Memo’s objectives and goals as a way to proceed with state-legal marijuana without fear of overreaching federal intervention. (See also: Attorney General’s Memorandum on Federal Marijuana Enforcement: Possible Impacts)

  • Jeff Sessions’s endless war on marijuana

    The new policy is blind to the massive cultural shift toward legalization that has been happening at the state level in recent years
    The New York Times (US)
    Sunday, January 7, 2018

    nyt logoThe key to understanding the Trump administration’s approach to policy, it seems, is to look at what most Americans want and then imagine the opposite. Consider the new guidance on marijuana that Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued last week, which reverses Obama-era policy and gives prosecutors more leeway to enforce federal laws against the drug in states where it is legal. Mr. Sessions has been on a lifelong crusade against the plant, which he considers the root of many of society’s ills. And yet more than six in 10 Americans, and seven in 10 of those under 30, believe marijuana should be legal, twice as many as in 2000. (See also: Attorney General’s Memorandum on Federal Marijuana Enforcement: Possible Impacts)

  • California’s cannabis crowd isn’t afraid of the Big Bad Attorney General

    Sweeping changes in federal enforcement are unlikely, experts say
    Mother Jones (US)
    Saturday, January 6, 2018

    Lots of people, obviously, are unhappy with Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ reversal of Obama-era guidelines de-prioritizing federal enforcement of marijuana laws in states that have legalized pot for recreational or medicinal use. Thursday’s announcement drew a swift rebuke from criminal justice reformers and members of Congress concerned about a potential federal crackdown on the burgeoning multibillion-dollar industry. So does Sessions’ move signal the beginning of the end for legal weed? Mark Kleiman, an expert on federal drug laws at New York University, doesn’t think so. “All he really said was if a US attorney wants to make one of these cases, I’m withdrawing the guidance telling him not to do so.”

  • Time to shed medieval mindsets as we wage war on marijuana

    Yonden Lhatoo is not impressed by record cannabis seizures and arrests in Hong Kong while the rest of the world moves towards legalisation of marijuana – at least for medical use
    South China Morning Post (China)
    Saturday, January 6, 2018

    It seems an eternity ago that two top High Court judges called for the decriminalisation of cannabis in Hong Kong, arguing that enforcement legislation was outdated and good citizens were finding themselves on the wrong side of the law over its use. “Cannabis use is now so widespread that [keeping it illegal] makes people think the law is an ass,” Justice Kaplan said. That was back in 1994. It’s 2018 now and their words of wisdom have fallen by the wayside. Now, in Hong Kong, the authorities are going medieval on marijuana, regularly seizing it by the sack load and arresting scores of suspects – one in seven aged 20 or below – in one widely publicised crackdown after another.

  • Vermont House votes to legalize marijuana

    The vote came hours after Sessions rescinded an Obama-era policy that ordered U.S. attorneys in states where marijuana has been legalized to deprioritize prosecution of marijuana-related cases
    The Hill (US)
    Thursday, January 4, 2018

    The Vermont House passed a bill to legalize recreational possession of marijuana just hours after Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded a Department of Justice policy on legal marijuana. Lawmakers voted 81-63 in favor of the bill, which would allow adults over the age of 21 to grow and possess small amounts of legal marijuana beginning in July. The State Senate still needs to approve the measure, but Vermont Governor Phil Scott (R) has signaled that he will sign the bill. He vetoed a similar measure last year. Vermont will become the ninth state to make recreational marijuana legal for adults upon the bill’s signing, and the first state to legalize marijuana via its state legislature. (See also: Vermont lawmakers approve marijuana legalization bill)

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