State & Local Executive Branches

Medical marijuana wars continue in California, a Michigan town gets intrusive, Nevada prepares to rake in the dough from dispensaries, and Washington patients organize in the face of legalization.

The NYPD's stop-and-frisk program unconstitutionally targets racial minorities, a federal judge ruled Monday. Mayor Bloomberg isn't happy, but civil libertarians and black and brown New Yorkers are.

Gov. Pat Quinn (D) Thursday signed into law the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Act, making Illinois the 21st medical marijuana state.

Illinois joins the ranks of the medical marijuana states; meanwhile, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are moving to put their medical marijuana programs in place, and there's more news, too.

A dispensary is now open for business in the nation's capital, several dozen are coming to Arizona, dispensary and cultivation battles continue in California, Massachusetts advocates prepare to protest restrictive regulations, and the DEA hits a Michigan dispensary.

New Hampshire becomes the 19th medical marijuana state, some folks in Kentucky would like it to become one, too; and the local tussling continues in California. And in late news, the DEA strikes in Washington State.

An Oklahoma prosecutor's scheme to let a private security contractor profit from highway drug stop asset seizures has come unravelled amidst charges of "policing for profit" and "policing for private profit."

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan has signed the medical marijuana bill into law. All of New England is now medical marijuana territory.

From the big picture of the origins and state of marijuana prohibition in America to the close-up portrait of one of the country's most pot-friendly and -dependent local economies, Doug Fine delivers with "Too Big to Fail."