Lowest Priority Policies

A lowest law enforcement priority initiative for adult marijuana possession offenses in Fayetteville, Arkansas, seems set for the November ballot as organizers hand in nearly a thousand additional signatures. They needed 300 valid ones.

The people who managed to overturn Mendocino County's groundbreaking Measure G, which barred prosecution of anyone growing fewer than 25 plants, are feeling emboldened. Now, they have hatched a new scheme to further tighten the screws.

An initiative that would make adult marijuana possession offenses the lowest law enforcement priority is in the signature-gathering phase in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Two weeks ago, we reported on the battle over Mendocino County's Measure B, which would rein in the county's liberal cultivation laws. Now the results are in: B won in a squeaker.

California's Mendocino County has grown rich off of marijuana, but problems have come with the prosperity. Now, everyone is waiting to see whether last week's still undecided election will mean the county takes a step backward from its liberal cultivation laws.

For the second time in less than a year, voters in Hailey, Idaho, have passed a trio of marijuana reform municipal initiatives. The first time around, city officials rejected them. Now what will they do?

For 30 years, residents of Hawaii's Big Island have endured the annual helicopter swoops and marijuana field raids of "Operation Green Harvest." But last week, the local government said "no thank you" to the state and federal funding that support the operation.

In November, voters in Hailey, Idaho, approved initiatives legalizing medical marijuana and industrial hemp and instructing the town to make marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority. Now, the Idaho attorney general's office has found those initiatives to be "invalid" and the city is balking at implementing them.

A week after Denver voters for the third time in as many years signaled that marijuana users should not be arrested, city officials are moving -- reluctantly -- to implement a lowest priority initiative.

For the third time in as many years, Denver voters have approved a marijuana reform measure. A lowest law enforcement priority initiative passed with 57% of the vote. Will city officials finally listen to the voters?