Oregon came relatively close to legalizing marijuana in 2012. Measure 80, which would have allowed licensed commercial sales and unlicensed personal cultivation, had very little financial backing and no support from major legalization groups, yet nevertheless garnered 46.5 percent of the vote.
What would happen if Oregon legalization advocates had the financial and policy support that went into Colorado and Washington? According to the Marijuana Policy Project’s Steve Fox, we may find out in 2016: . . . Read Complete Report
Tvert is now the communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, the national lobbying group that is the parent organization for Tvert’s SAFER Colorado and was the main funder for Colorado’s Amendment 64. . . . Read Complete Report
by Erik Altieri, NORML Communications DirectorJanuary
1/7/2012
The votes this past November in Colorado and Washington to regulate marijuana for adults have sparked a fire of change that seems to be spreading across the country. This month, both state and federal legislatures will return to work to kick off the 2013 legislative session and it is already shaping up to be one of the busiest in recent memory for marijuana reformers. Bills are already slated to be introduced in states such as Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Texas – with many more to be introduced in the coming weeks. It is very likely that on top of federal legislation coming down the pipeline, nearly two dozen marijuana reform measures will also be introduced across the country in various states. NORML will be providing you withAction Alerts as new bills are introduced, easily allowing you to contact your elected officials and ask them to support these important reform measures. . . . Read Complete Report
Mexico, which has fought a long war against drug cartels that supply U.S. users, is rethinking its marijuana policy after Colorado and Washington approved legalization.
MEXICO CITY — Forgive the Mexicans for trying to get this straight:
So now the United States, which has spent decades battling Mexican marijuana, is on a legalization bender?
The same United States that long viewed cannabis as a menace, funding crop-poisoning programs, tearing up auto bodies at the border, and deploying sniffer dogs, fiber-optic scopes and backscatter X-ray machines to detect the lowly weed? . . . Read Complete Report
President Barack Obama pledged on Friday that he will not go after Washington state and Colorado for legalizing marijuana.
Obama was asked — in a Barbara Walters interview airing Friday on ABC — whether he supports making marijuana legal, reported The Associated Press. “I wouldn’t go that far,” the President said.
But Obama said he wouldn’t press the issue by going after recreational users in states where voters legalized marijuana in the November elections. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” he said. . . . Read Complete Report
At least four state legislatures will consider replacing marijuana prohibition with regulation
On Election Day, voters in the states of Colorado and Washington approved ballot initiatives to remove criminal penalties for adult marijuana use and regulate the substance in a manner similar to alcohol. State legislators from Rhode Island and Maine on Thursday will join the Marijuana Policy Project on a teleconference press call to announce that they are introducing similar bills to tax and regulate marijuana in their state legislatures. . . . Read Complete Report
Mark Twain is said to have remarked that a gold rush is a good time to be in the pick and shovel business. Investors may be able to apply that same bit of wisdom to the growing number of U.S. states that have legalized pot.
Although federal law prohibits the sale or possession of marijuana, Massachusetts last week joined the ranks of states — 18 plus Washington, D.C. — that allow its use for people suffering from chronic illnesses like cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. In Washington and Colorado, meanwhile, voters passed an initiative to allow pot for recreational use. . . . Read Complete Report
How are the authorities reacting to pot legalization in Washington and Colorado? Well, Attorney General Eric Holder says “I don’t know [if I’ll be coming back for four more years]“, according to a newly released video of Mr. Holder speaking at a law school. Many see that as the warm-up before the departure of the embattled AG, who oversaw a largely ineffective crackdown on medical marijuana.
Kristen Gwynne at AlterNet does a great round-up of all other responses today, noting that the governor of Colorado said, “The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don’t break out the Cheetos or goldfish too quickly.” . . . Read Complete Report
It has long been a popular argument among campaigners for reform of America‘s marijuana laws that legalization would strike a major blow against the violent Mexican drug gangs that have brought so much misery to parts of that country and, increasingly, along the US border.
The logic is simple. Marijuana smuggling is a major earner for drug gangs, so a legal crop in the US would have a dramatic impact on their operations, lowering the amount of money available to them to bribe cops and hire killers south of the border. . . . Read Complete Report
Pot Legal in Colorado and Washington, but Feds Still Loom
Published on Nov 7, 2012
Democrats may be high on President Obama’s re-election victory today, but constituents in Colorado and Washington state are feeling the buzz a little stronger than everyone else. The western states have become the first ever in America to legalize pot for recreational use. . . . posted with video on youtube
Prohibition of alcohol was finally overturned, not by the FEDS making it legal, but by legalizing alcohol state by state, thereby ignoring the 18th Amendment.
First the State of New York legalized it while it was still illegal under Federal law. Then other states started to legalize until it reached the point that the FEDs didn’t have enough officers to enforce the law. Then, and only then, did the FEDS join in by passing The 21st Amendment which repealed the 18th Amendment,the prohibition of alcohol. Amendment 21 repeals Amendment 18. This is the same plan being used for the legalization of marijuana. Looks like we’re on the right track. Smoke um if you got um!!!. . . EDITOR
2 states legalize pot, but don’t ‘break out the Cheetos’ yet
By Alan Duke, CNN
updated 12:17 PM EST, Wed November 7, 2012
Los Angeles (CNN) — Pro-pot groups cheered passage of referendums legalizing recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington state as the “light at the end of the tunnel” in their 50-year campaign to make the drug legal nationwide.
“Yesterday’s elections have forever changed the playing field regarding cannabis prohibition laws in America (and probably in large parts of the world too),” Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML — the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws — wrote in a celebratory blog Wednesday.
But Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper warned it’s too soon to “break out the Cheetos” since his state must still navigate federal laws before citizens can legally buy and sell cannabis. . . . Read Complete Report
Yesterday’s elections have forever changed the playing field regarding cannabis prohibition laws in America (and probably in large parts of the world too)
The citizens of Colorado, Washington and Massachusetts delivered game changing victories last night for the nearly fifty year-old cannabis law reform Movement. Massachusetts becomes the eighteenth state to pass legal protections for qualified medical patients who’ve cannabis recommended to them by a physician. Colorado and Washington become the first places in the world, ever, where citizens have cast votes to reject cannabis prohibition, and replace the failed public policy with alternatives like tax-n-regulate models (similar to the control and taxation models widely accepted for alcohol and tobacco product use by adults). . . . Read Complete Report
First Announcement of Marijuana Legalization EVER in World History
Published on Nov 6, 2012
November 7, 2012, was a historic day. For the first time since Marijuana was criminalized worldwide with UN’s “Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs” in 1961, a state has legalized marijuana!
Historic Propositions to Legalize Personal Use Amounts of Cannabis For All Adults Hold Double Digit Leads In Colorado and Washington
Washington, DC: Millions of voters will decide on Election Day in favor of ballot measures to legalize and regulate the use of cannabis by adults. Voters in three states – Colorado, Oregon, and Washington – will decide on statewide ballot measures to legalize the possession and distribution of cannabis for those over 21 years of age. Voters in three additional states –Arkansas, Massachusetts, and Montana – will decide on measures to allow for the therapeutic use of cannabis by patients with qualifying ailments. In Michigan, voters in four cities – totaling over a million people – will decide on municipal measures to legalize or depenalize the adult use of cannabis.
Ballot measures in Colorado, Massachusetts, and Washington hold double digit leads, according to the latest statewide polls. . . . Read Complete Report
