WeedLife News Network

Federal agents swarmed the Menominee Indian tribe's Wisconsin reservation Friday and eradicated 30,000 cannabis plants, confusing and alarming tribal leaders, policy reformers and attorneys who work with other American Indian tribes considering growing marijuana or hemp.

Menominee leaders say the plants were intended for lawful research into growing industrial hemp, which is processed and utilized for fiber, food and oil and is distinguishable from marijuana by its lower levels of the high-inducing compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Growing hemp was illegal in the U.S. for decades until an amendment to the 2014 federal farm bill allowed states to implement pilot programs growing hemp for academic or agricultural research. Several states, such as Colorado and Kentucky, have done so, and the Menominee announced earlier this year they would, too, in cooperation with the College of the Menominee Nation.

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Steven Nelson ~ U.S. News

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The legalization of marijuana has been talked about all across the country, and some states have already legalized some form of the drug. 

A group hoping to do the same in West Virginia was at the West Virginia State Capitol Sunday.

The West Virginia Senate and House are in their interim meetings at the Capitol and a group called West Virginia Norml was there and handed out a marijuana survey to members in both chambers. 

The group’s goal is to make medical marijuana legal in the Mountain State. 

There are 23 states in America that have legalized medical marijuana. Four of those states and Washington D.C. have legalized it for recreational use. 

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Christopher A. Williams, Jarrod Clay ~ WCHS

Sandwiched between a pet store and a Popeyes less than one mile southeast of the U.S. Capitol is the Metropolitan Wellness Center.

Up a flight of stairs and behind a cell phone repair shop, there's a nondescript lobby with bare walls and a handful of seats.

The only thing indicating this isn't a typical office is the reading material: High Timesmagazine and a Newsweek cover that reads: "Going Guns & Ganja."

This is one of five medical cannabis dispensaries in the district, and starting next year, the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission expects similar offices to be up and running here.

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The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board is accepting a second wave of applications for new marijuana retail licenses.

Gone are the quotas and lotteries used in the first round of licensing. Now there are no limits on the number of licenses that may be granted – a change that took some cities by surprise.

When Initiative 502, the measure to legalize pot, was implemented, state regulators set limits on how many pot stores a city or county could have. Seattle, for example, received 21 of these so-called “golden tickets.”

But when state legislators opened the licensing process to medical marijuana businesses last spring, they eliminated quotas. Instead they want to bring “gray market” medical marijuana into the state-regulated system.

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A group is launching a "Smoke the Vote" campaign to legalize marijuana in the Commonwealth.

"The war on drugs is failing," said Jenn Michelle Pedini with the Virginia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). "The time for sensible cannabis reform in Virginia is now."

Pedini says Virginians spend $70 million a year on prosecuting marijuana possession cases.

"We could be putting our money towards fighting actual crimes with victims...rape and murder here in the Commonwealth," said Pedini.

Members of the law enforcement community are raising concerns about a possible increase in drugged driving.

A group of Vermont Senators are skipping the debate over whether to legalize marijuana and heading straight to the debate over how.

Lawmakers have a number of scheduled meetings before the legislature returns in January to discuss legalization.
     

While there may be growing consensus in favor of legalization, even proponents don't agree on how that should be done.

Lawmakers met Tuesday to discuss what could the stickiest social issue of the legislative session set to resume in January: recreational marijuana legalization.
     
Government Operations Committee Chairwoman Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham County, hopes to crowdsource the best regulatory ideas to streamline debate later.

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Utah lawmakers are hoping to find a way to adjust federal law to allow for Utah’s institutions of higher education to research the health and economic aspects of cannabis or hemp products. 

Republican representative Gage Froerer told members of the health and human services committee this week that he is working with Utah’s Congressional delegation to encourage a change in Federal Drug Administration policy that would allow researchers to move forward in determining the possible agricultural, medical, and economic uses of hemp and cannabis products.

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KERRY BRINGHURST ~ Utah Public Radio

A statewide group worked to gain support for marijuana reform Saturday. 

The Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy held a training session for those wanting to help legalize marijuana. It was a fairly small group but everyone who attended seemed eager to help. 

The Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy is a grassroots group based out of Austin pushing for marijuana legislative reform. Representatives spent the day at the Janet F. Harte library in Flour Bluff teaching people how to be an advocate for marijuana reform. 

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Caroline Flores ~ KRIS TV

Two Tennessee legislators have proposed two bills that would make the possessions and “casual exchange” of under half an ounce of marijuana legal in Tennessee. Rep. Harold Love and Sen. Jeff Yarbro, both Democrats based in Nashville, hope to amend the Tennessee Code to reduce the heavy marijuana penalties currently in place in Tennessee.

Under the current code, possession of under half an ounce of marijuana could result in a $250 fine or a year in jail. The bill would also seek to change the penalty for possession of over an ounce of cannabis from a felony to a misdemeanor while also reducing that fine from $5,000 to $100. The language “casual exchange” would likely still prohibit the sale of marijuana, yet allow for non-monetary based exchanges.

According to the proposed changes to the Tennessee Code, the amendment would not alter the status of “non-leafy, resinous material containing tetrahydrocannabinol (hashish),” which is still illegal without a prescription.

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New Approach South Dakota is collecting signatures for a proposal to make medical marijuana legal.

The initiative would appear on the 2016 ballot if supporters can collect enough signatures by Nov. 9.

If the proposal appears on the 2016 ballot and is approved by the voters, it would:

• Legalize the medical use of marijuana for patients with a medical practitioner’s certification and one of several listed conditions, including cancer, AIDS/HIV, seizure disorders, PTSD, and severe pain.

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Walk along the aisles of Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe’s, Earth Fare or health food and supplement specialty stores and you’ll see hemp seeds, hemp protein powder, hemp milk and hemp oil.

Similar to its nutritional powerhouse seed food cousins, flax and chia, the health benefits of hemp seed are increasingly promoted by some health professionals.

“I’m high on hemp,” says Dr. Ann Kulze, a local physician turned national wellness guru, author and speaker, in an obvious pun on hemp’s cannabis cousin, marijuana. “What’s remarkable about hemp is that it’s so nutritionally complete.”

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David Quick ~ The Post and Courier

I’m excited that Rhode Island, my recently adopted home state, might become the first on the East Coast to legalize a commercial marijuana market. And not just for the obvious reasons, such as changing a war on drugs that disproportionately targets people of color or the option of purchasing and smoking marijuana without fear of jail time.

The state already has legal medical marijuana dispensaries and the possession of small amounts of marijuana is decriminalized. Proposed legislation in Rhode Island would take the next big steps and legalize and regulate the possession, use, cultivation and sales. And there lies the opportunity: If Rhode Island beats its neighboring states to the punch, this lovely but economically slumped sliver of a state could reap serious economic rewards, lure a stampede of tourists, and transform hip but vacancy-plagued downtown Providence into a major marijuana retail center.

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DANIEL DENVIR ~ CityLab

Philadelphia's mayor-elect Jim Kenney won a resounding victory on Tuesday. It was a predictable election but the fact that Kenney's support for marijuana reform helped to put him into office is a welcome innovation.

As a city councilman, Kenney championed decriminalization. Marijuana arrests had a massive racial disparity. Not only did Kenney win the issue at Council but he nudged Mayor Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey to do the right thing and implement the code. The result: A major decline in arrests and real boon in budget savings.

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Chris Goldstein ~ Philly420

SALEM, Ore. — Indoor growing operations for legal marijuana businesses are causing problems for Oregon’s electrical grid, according to officials from electrical utility company.

Pacific Power said Wednesday that Oregon marijuana grow operations have taken grids above capacity, blowing out seven transformers since July and causing outages and equipment damage, reported The Statesman Journal.

The problems are a remnant of marijuana’s black market past, when substandard electrical work powered the lights at growing sites.

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CARTER CO., OK -- "Please do this; to help other people, don't be selfish, open your heart, and please sign this, you could help so many,” medical marijuana advocate, Linda Aldridge says.

Linda Aldridge lost her father to cancer, she says while he was sick he became addicted to the prescription drugs he was taking to relieve his pain.

"I’ve met so many people that are battling illnesses and they're put on these pharmaceutical drugs so they're fighting their addiction as well as the illness, plus the financial burden is horrible,” Aldridge says.

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KTEN

According to the latest Gallup poll, 58 percent of Americans think marijuana should be legal. Surveys conducted in March and October found that most Ohioans agree. So why did Ohio voters overwhelmingly reject Issue 3, which would have legalized marijuana for medical and recreational use, in last week's election? Two reasons spring to mind.

1. Ohio voters do not like crony capitalism.

The campaign against Issue 3, dubbed Ohioans Against Marijuana Monopolies, focused on the initiative's most controversial feature: a cannabis cultivation cartel that would have limited commercial production to 10 sites controlled by the initiative's financial backers. As I explained here last week, that aspect of the initiative caused consternation even among people who otherwise support marijuana legalization. Two leading drug policy reform groups, the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), were conspicuously neutral on Issue 3. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) issued a decidedly ambivalent endorsement under the headline "Investor-Driven Legalization: A Bitter Pill to Swallow." The Republican Liberty Caucus of Ohio and the Libertarian Party of Ohio were opposed.

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Jacob Sullum ~ Forbes.com

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota American Indian tribe that sought to open the nation’s first marijuana resort burned its crop after federal officials signaled a potential raid, the tribal president said Monday.

Flandreau Santee Sioux President Anthony Reider told The Associated Press the tribe had three weeks of discussions with authorities that culminated with a meeting in Washington that included a Justice Department official and U.S. Attorney for South Dakota Randolph Seiler.

Reider said the tribe wasn’t told a raid was imminent — only that one was possible if the government’s concerns weren’t addressed. He said the main holdup is whether the tribe can sell marijuana to non-Indians, along with the origin of the seeds used for its crop.

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The Associated Press

Industrial hemp was made legal in North Carolina last week as a result of Gov. Pat McCrory not vetoing or signing the bill after allowing it to sit on his desk for weeks. 

The text of Senate Bill 313 states: “The General Assembly finds and declares that it is in the best interest of the citizens of North Carolina to promote and encourage the development of an industrial hemp industry in the State in order to expand employment, promote economic activity, and provide opportunities to small farmers for an environmentally sustainable and profitable use of crop lands that might otherwise be lost to agricultural production.”

The bill also mandates the creation of the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Commission. This entity will have the responsibility to “establish procedures for reporting to the Commission … for agricultural or academic research and to collaborate and coordinate research efforts with the appropriate departments or programs of North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University.”

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ALBANY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) — People with AIDS and parents of children with severe epilepsy are pressuring Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign legislation giving critically ill patients early access to medical marijuana before New York’s new medical cannabis program begins.

Advocates for sped-up access say they’ll rally outside Cuomo’s Manhattan office Tuesday, the day before Cuomo’s deadline to sign or veto the bill.

Lawmakers passed the measure earlier this year after some patients and their families said that critically ill individuals shouldn’t have to wait any longer for the drug.

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CBSNewYork/AP

SANTA FE (AP) – New Mexico Health Secretary Retta Ward says New Mexico has seen a significant jump in the number of patients participating in the state’s medical marijuana program over the past year.

Ward testified Tuesday before the Legislative Finance Committee in Santa Fe. She told lawmakers about 18,000 people are enrolled in the program, an increase of about 7,000 since the beginning of the year.

Ward attributed the increase to changes made earlier this year.

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Chelo Rivera ~ KRQE