Tag Archives: marijuana

CNBC reports: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer proposed legislation Wednesday to legalize marijuana at the federal level, a move aimed at easing restrictive drug policies that have disproportionally impacted communities of color and the poor. The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and introduce regulations to tax cannabis products. “This is monumental. At …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Team USA’s roster of track and field athletes at the Tokyo Olympics will be missing its biggest newsmaker ahead of the Games: sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson. The 21-year-old winner of the U.S. Olympic track and field trials’ women’s 100 meters last month was left off the team named Tuesday by USA Track & Field, after an …

Oregon’s The Olympian reports: American champion Sha’Carri Richardson cannot run in the Olympic 100-meter race after testing positive for a chemical found in marijuana. Richardson, who won the 100 at Olympic trials in 10.86 seconds on June 19, told of her ban Friday on the “Today Show.” She tested positive at the Olympic trials and so her result is erased. …

The Associated Press reports: Mexico’s Supreme Court ordered the government Monday to issue permits for the personal use of marijuana and for the growing of limited amounts of pot plants, after the country’s Congress took too long to approve a limited legalization law. In 2019, the court ruled that prohibiting marijuana was unconstitutional, and gave lawmakers until this past April …

Axios reports: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote Monday that the federal prohibition on marijuana may no longer be needed because of the government’s “mixed signals” on the issue. Why it matters: Thomas, one of the court’s conservative justices, wrote the opinion Monday as the court declined to hear the appeal of a Colorado medical marijuana dispensary that was …

ABC News reports: Gov. Ned Lamont on Tuesday signed a bill making Connecticut the 19th state to legalize recreational use of marijuana, which remains an illegal drug under federal law. People age 21 and older will be allowed to possess and consume marijuana beginning on July 1 under the new law, which also lays the groundwork for a new cannabis …

The Hartford Courant reports: Following more than seven hours of debate, the Connecticut House of Representatives avoided a threatened gubernatorial veto and approved a revised bill that would legalize marijuana in the state. The measure cleared the House by a largely party-line vote of 76 to 62. Twelve Democrats joined all but one Republican–Rep. Rick Hayes of Putnam–in voting no. …

The Birmingham News reports: Gov. Kay Ivey has signed into law a bill that will allow Alabamians to use medical marijuana products for more than a dozen conditions and symptoms. The bill, Senate Bill 46, sets up a system to regulate medical marijuana from the cultivation of the plants, to processing and testing the products, to selling them in dispensaries. …

The Mississippi Free Press reports: The Mississippi Supreme Court today killed the medical-marijuana program that 68% of Mississippi voters approved in 2020, and with it, the state’s entire ballot-initiative process. The ruling means that voter-driven efforts to adopt early voting and expand Medicaid in the state are also now dead. The language of the law says that citizens collecting signatures …

The Miami Herald reports: A high-profile effort to legalize marijuana was all but killed by the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday. In a 5-2 decision, justices ruled a constitutional ballot initiative by Make it Legal Florida to be “misleading.” The ruling came after Attorney General Ashley Moody asked for the Court to advise whether the potential constitutional initiative would be …

The Associated Press reports: Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Saturday signed legislation making it more difficult to get initiatives or referendums on ballots in what is widely seen as an attempt to stop a medical marijuana initiative and other left-leaning causes in the conservative state. The Republican governor signed into law the measure backers said is needed because the current …

Pew Research reports: As more states, including Virginia and New York, continue to legalize marijuana, an overwhelming share of U.S. adults (91%) say either that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use (60%) or that it should be legal for medical use only (31%). Fewer than one-in-ten (8%) say marijuana should not be legal for use by adults. …

Politico reports: President Joe Biden has been a conspicuous outlier among Democrats when it comes to supporting marijuana legalization. But Schumer said Biden’s reticence won’t deter the Senate from taking aggressive action to loosen federal restrictions. “I want to make my arguments to him, as many other advocates will,” Schumer said in an interview with POLITICO this week. “But at …

The Hill reports: A recent memorandum from the New York Police Department (NYPD) advises officers not to stop residents who are smoking marijuana in public. The memo shared with The Hill on Friday outlines how officers are to approach the drug after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed recreational weed into law. It says that smoking marijuana in places …

The New York Daily News reports: “I hope I’m missing something but it appears (the bill) is legalizing the smoking of marijuana outside,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said. “That’s not something that most other states did. They legalized marijuana but it was still illegal to smoke outside and in public.” The NYPD fields “10s of 10s of 10s of thousands” …

The New York Daily News reports: New York state lawmakers approved legislation legalizing adult use marijuana Tuesday after debating in blunt terms the benefits and pitfalls of pot. The bill, passed by both the Democratic-led Senate and Assembly, removes cannabis from the list of controlled substances and will eventually legalize, tax and regulate recreational pot for adults over 21. Many …

The New York Daily News reports: The sale of recreational marijuana would be legal for adults 21 and older in the Empire State, under a bill top lawmakers agreed to late Saturday. It’s expected to pass both chambers of the legislature as soon as next week. Coming after years of harsh penalties for marijuana possession — with many New Yorkers …

Bloomberg News reports: New York is ready to legalize recreational marijuana. The state would impose special pot taxes and prepare to license dispensaries under an agreement reached by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders. The deal that legislative leaders brokered with Cuomo (D) calls for a 13% sales tax, 9% of which would go to the state and 4% to …

Politico reports: The White House on Friday sought to downplay the number of staffers whose jobs have been derailed by their prior cannabis use. A Daily Beast article published Thursday reported that “dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program” because of admissions of prior marijuana use. Several staffers …

The Daily Beast reports: Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the …