Ballot Measures

Last week's middle of the week holiday made things fairly quiet on the medical marijuana front, but it looks like Massachusetts voters will have a chance to join the ranks of the medical marijuana states in November, and other efforts are underway in some surprising places.

The feds continue to play hardball in California and local elected officials across the state are grappling with the issues. Meanwhile, Vermont moves ahead on dispensaries while New Hampshire's medical marijuana bill can't overcome a gubernatorial veto, and that's not all.

It's mainly news from California this week, with DEA and LAPD raids leading the way, but also some snippets from Colorado and Montana, and the DEA head goes on the hot seat.

Two Oregon marijuana legalization initiatives are in a mad scramble to make the ballot after being hit with unprecedented high invalidation rates for signatures already handed in. And they only have two weeks to go.

After a brief hiatus, the DEA wrecking ball was back at work in California this week. Also, an important court victory in Colorado, a couple of court losses in Oregon, and Vermont is accepting dispensary applications. And there's a whole bunch more, too.

More Massachusetts voters will have a chance to weigh in on marijuana policy if a series of signature-gathering campaigns in electoral districts succeeds. It already has in one district. This will be the 7th consecutive election activists have put marijuana-related questions on ballots in the Bay State.

A new Angus-Reid poll is the latest to show majority support for legalization. It also found broad support for the idea that the drug war is a failure, but not for legalizing other drugs.

Connecticut becomes the 17th medical marijuana state, localities in various medical marijuana states continue to try to keep a lid on the green medicine, and two raids go down and 34 warning letters go down in LA County right at press time.

Detroit elected officials' efforts to block city residents from voting to legalize marijuana have been shot down by the state Supreme Court. The issue should be on the primary ballot in August.

The biggest medical marijuana news this week has to be the Oregon election that saw a pro-medical marijuana attorney general candidate win against a former interim US Attorney, but there was plenty of other news, as well.