This week, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed two historic measures into law, making Colorado the first state in the country to officially authorize a legalized and regulated cannabis market. These measures, House Bills 1317 and 1318, are the first-in-the nation regulations governing the statewide commercial production and retail sale of cannabis to those age 21 and older. HB 1317 establishes a regulatory framework for retail cannabis businesses, which are anticipated to begin operating in early 2014. House Bill 1318 proposes tax rates for commercial marijuana production and sales. These regulations […]
Month: May 2013
A curiosity
A lot of people are now talking about Jamen Shively – a name I had not heard before Thursday. Here’s the basics:
A former Microsoft executive plans to create the first U.S. national marijuana brand, with cannabis he hopes to eventually import legally from Mexico, and said he was kicking off his business by acquiring […]
Marijuana Prohibition Puts Industry Women at Risk
Most women who survive violence are hesitant to seek help in general. However, women in the pot industry are under even more pressure to keep quiet because they are part of a culture that promotes secrecy.
NORML’s Keith Stroup and Erik Altieri on The Bob Edwards Show
Last week, NORML Founder/Legal Counsel Keith Stroup and NORML Communications Director, Erik Altieri, sat down with Bob Edwards (former host of NPR’s Morning Edition) on his SiriusXM talk radio program. The three discussed a wide range of issues, including the benefits of legalization, current pending legislation, industrial hemp, and more. “You ask why legalize marijuana? In reality, why we should legalize marijuana is the same as most of the stated goals of the people who say they want prohibition. We want to decrease youth access, we want to create safer […]
Fail: Drug Czar Tries To Link Marijuana and Crime
The nation’s so-called ‘drug czar’, Gil Kerlikowske, convened a press conference last week to release new government data on drug use in America. The major talking points for the presentation were two fold: *Insist that cannabis is linked to crime *The public sentiment in favor of legalization is an unfortunate attraction to ‘bumper sticker solutions’ One could write a doctoral thesis on Mr.Kerlikowske’s supposition and claims, but suffice for space and time, let’s let the now much more watchdog media on the issue of ending cannabis prohibition better describe what they’ve […]
Rat Park
We’ve showcased the outstanding work of cartoonist Stuart McMillan before.
Well, Stuart has a new drug-war-related piece about the Rat Park experiments led by Professor Bruce Alexander who saw the flaw in the research that had seemed to suggest hopeless addiction was inevitable with easy access to drugs.
Particularly if you’re not familiar with […]
Another data point in ‘Prison isn’t the only metric in ruined lives’
Let’s stop wrecking lives over a bag of weed by Paul Zuckerberg in the Washington Post.
In a little office on the third floor of Metropolitan Police Headquarters on Indiana Avenue NW is a small window to the future — open to some, closed to many. This is where you get your D.C. “police clearance.”
[…]
Brookings Institute Webcast: The Politics Of Marijuana Legalization
Update: Watch the very interesting panel discussion—where the major take away point from the data and interpretation of it is that it unlikely that the country will return to a time when a majority of Americans support cannabis prohibition law enforcement. Watch video here. Also and maybe of far greater significance is the white paper by Brookings scholars William Galston and E.J. Dionne, Jr., The New Politics of Marijuana Legalization: Why Opinion is Changing’. It is an extraordinarily well researched and data-rich paper that well demonstrates a very large, and […]
International discussions on drug policy reform
The Global Drug Prohibition Regime: Half a Century of Failed Policymaking?
This is a very good 16-minute video put together by the always excellent Hungarian Civil Liberties Union.
The participants of the discussion forum were: Sandeep Chawla, Deputy Executive Director and Director, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs, United Nations Office on Drugs and […]
Why are we so upset? After all, there are relatively few people in federal prison just for marijuana possession.
That’s the mantra we hear over and over from the apologists for bad policy like Kevin Sabet and Keith Humphreys.
Of course, this argument has so many holes in it you could drive a SWAT team through it.
Most marijuana cases are handled at the city or state level, not federal local level, so federal […]