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Rhode Island state lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday that would end marijuana prohibition and establish a system to regulate and tax the weed. “Marijuana prohibition is an ineffective and wasteful policy, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer," state Sen. Joshua Miller (D), sponsor of a Senate bill, said in a statement.
Former Broncos tight end Nate Jackson thinks that it won't be long before the NFL has to remove marijuana from its list of banned substances. Jackson, who admitted to self-medicating with marijuana during his playing days to avoid a post-NFL addiction to painkillers, says marijuana can help players deal with the physical and psychological pain, including head injuries.
Famed ice cream impresarios Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield declared on HuffPo Live that they’d support making a cannabis-infused version of their sweet treats available where marijuana is legal. “Makes sense to me,” Cohen said, while savoring a bite of ice cream. “Combine your pleasures.”
In a dramatic and unexpected conclusion to a widely criticized federal prosecution, the jury for the criminal trial of the so-called Kettle Falls Five has voted to acquit the three remaining defendants on all charges except one for manufacturing fewer than 100 marijuana plants.
In Texas, a conservative lawmaker filed a bill to completely deregulate marijuana in the Lone Star State Monday, proposing to strike any mention of the psychoactive plant from state law. "Everything that God made is good, even marijuana" said state Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, who filed the bill.
In New York City, there were nine more homicides in January and February than there were in the same time period last year. Police Chief Bill Bratton blames the 17 percent increase on pot. According to Bratton, marijuana — which he calls a “seemingly innocent drug” — is one of the root causes of the shootings.
Utah is considering a bill that would allow patients with certain debilitating conditions to be treated with edible forms of marijuana. If the bill passes, the state's wildlife may "cultivate a taste" for the plant, lose their fear of humans, and basically be high all the time. That's according to testimony presented to a Utah Senate panel last week by an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) endorsed marijuana federalism during an exchange with Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity. Yet it seems inconsistent with Cruz's criticism of the Obama administration for failing to interfere with legalization in Colorado and Washington.
While the Pew Research Center survey published on Friday shows a 14-percentage point gap between Republicans and Democrats under the age of 34, six-in-10 GOP-leaning Millennials still said they favor legalizing cannabis. Seventy-seven percent of surveyed Democrats in the same age group held that view.
A new study was released last week showing that smoking skunk-type cannabis can increase the risk of psychotic episodes. Unfortunately for the researcher, and the legion of journalists who wrote about it without fact-checking the study, the study’s methodology and definitions are entirely hogwash.
Possession of small amounts of marijuana became legal in the District of Columbia on Thursday, launching a pot "green rush" despite a face-off between local officials and the Republican-led U.S. Congress over the new standards. The U.S. capital joined Washington state, Alaska and Colorado in making marijuana lawful for recreational use.
Americans for Safe Access estimates hundreds of medical marijuana patients throughout California are being denied organ transplants that could save their lives. But that may soon change. Earlier this month, Assemblymember Marc Levine (D) introduced legislation that would explicitly protect these patients from being kept off transplant lists because of their cannabis use.
After many years of dialogue about the culturally entrenched drug, and emboldened by changes to drug laws in U.S. states, Jamaica's Parliament on Tuesday night gave final approval to an act decriminalizing small amounts of pot and establishing a licensing agency to regulate a lawful medical marijuana industry.
Compared with other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use. Those are the top-line findings of recent research published in the journal Scientific Reports, a subsidiary of Nature.
Smoking, growing and possessing marijuana becomes legal in America's wildest state Tuesday, thanks to a voter initiative aimed at clearing away 40 years of conflicting laws and court rulings. Making Alaska the third state to legalize recreational marijuana was the goal of a coalition including libertarians, rugged individualists and small-government Republicans.
Medical marijuana may soon come with a kosher seal of approval. The Orthodox Union that offers kosher certification is in early discussions with parties interested in offering kosher medical marijuana products, according to the The Jewish Daily Forward.
Since 1976, authorities across the Netherlands have chosen to openly ignore that cannabis use is illegal here, and they prosecute no one in possession of less than five grams of marijuana for personal use. It’s why hundreds of “coffee shops” sprung up across Amsterdam and the Netherlands. But that’s no longer the case.
The federal government has dropped all charges against a Washington medical marijuana patient who was recently diagnosed with late-stage cancer, in a high-profile case that involves the patient and his family growing medical cannabis at their home.
