State & Local Executive Branches

The federal crackdown on medical marijuana continues in California, the first plants are now being grown in New Jersey, and there's lot's more medical marijuana news, too.

With state budgets pinched all across the land, some states this year have adopted sentencing reforms.

The Oregon Marijuana Policy Initiative is suing the state's secretary of state over its historically high invalidation rate for petition signatures. OMPI isn't dead yet.

Scandal in the Pinellas County, Florida, Sheriff's Office over its efforts to bust indoor marijuana growers is providing plenty of fodder for the sheriff's challengers this campaign season.

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.

Georgia's governor was quick to sign a welfare drug testing bill into law, but now he wants to wait for a legal challenge to a similar law in Florida before implementing that law that was supposed to go into effect July 1.

There's a whole lot of nastiness going on inside the Nevada Highway Patrol's drug dog program, and now a lawsuit by disgruntled troopers is revealing some highly questionable policing.

California continues to have conniptions over medical marijuana, a scientific review finds marijuana's Schedule I status "untenable," and much, much more.

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.

An effort to override Gov. John Lynch's veto of a medical marijuana bill succeeded in the House but fell short in the Senate.