Arizona State House
AZ Medical Marijuana Vote in Closest Split
(Update: It's down to just 724 votes behind, as of Friday afternoon, and I was mistaken before, counting goes on till Tuesday.
Medical Marijuana
The District of Columbia's Revised Medical Marijuana Rules Remain Restrictive
Today, the District published a revised set of rules and regulations for the city's medical marijuana program, which is set to kick off in earnest in January 2011. But despite the hopes of many, the system being put in place to regulate the growth, sale and use of medical marijuana hasn't gotten any less restrictive.
LA City Council Pushes for Medical Marijuana Tax on March Ballot
The Los Angeles City Council pushed for a ballot measure to begin taxing medical marijuana. There are cities in California that tax medical marijuana, such as San Jose, La Puente, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento, and Berkeley. With a vote of 9-3 the Los Angeles City Council has informed city attorneyâs to draft a ballot measure for the March 8 election in favor of taxing marijuana.
'Cannabiz: The Explosive Rise of the Medical Marijuana Industry' â Author Interview
Veteran Bay Area investigative reporter John Geluardi released his first book, Cannabiz: The Explosive Rise of the Medical Marijuana Industry this October. A former staff writer for the SF Weekly, Geluardi saw so much momentum building behind medical pot, he researched and reported a 200-page non-fiction paperback. Geluardi talks about investing in pot, economies of scale, and new fissures in the field in this two-part Q&A edited for length and clarity.
Gap Closes for Arizona Medical Marijuana Measure
Arizona's measure to legalize medical marijuana is still trailing but the gap is closing. The measure was about 3,100 votes below the 50 percent plus one needed for passage after more votes were counted on Thursday afternoon -- by Thursday night when more totals were posted, the measure was losing by less than 1,500 votes. Elections officials say about 14,000 early ballots and 45,000 provisional ballots are left to be processed and counted from the Nov. 2 election.
Steve Cooley, California's greatest threat to medical marijuana
These "Stoners Against Legalization" Fools Should Have Opposed Steve Cooley, Not Prop 19
On November 2nd, I was walking through Oaksterdam with Steve Silverman, when we happened across a group of misguided young pot-grower types clad in "No on 19" t-shirts flyering the neighborhood with anti-legalization propaganda. "Are you seriously out here defending marijuana prohibition?" Steve asked, to which their spokesman replied, "I like things the way they are now." I suggested that if he really cares about medical marijuana, maybe he should stop worrying about Prop 19 and put his time and energy into defeating Steve Cooley. His response was classic: "Who the hell is Steve Cooley?"
Judge to Hear Medical Marijuana Case Against Wal-Mart
A federal judge on will hear arguments in the lawsuit on behalf of Joseph Casias, a 30-year-old cancer patient who lost his job after a routine drug screen found he had used medical marijuana. Casias was registered in Michigan to use it to treat pain.
uscapitol_2.jpg
The Republican House and Drug Reform: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly [FEATURE]
With the Republicans taking over the House, the landscape of Capitol Hill drug reform has shifted, mainly for the worse. But not entirely.
voting booth (wikimedia.org)
Election 2010: Races Still Undecided and Odds and Ends
It's not a done deal yet in the Arizona medical marijuana vote, the California attorney general vote, and a Washington state representative race of interest to drug reformers. Also, some election odds and ends.
New Campaign! 26 States by 2012!
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Dear friends, To have a shot at removing the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana, we need at least 26 states to legalize medical marijuana. This will give us a clear path to victory in Congress and/or the federal courts. As of today, medical marijuana is legal in 14 states and the District of Columbia. To get to 26 states, we need to run ballot initiatives in some tough states in November 2012 – Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. And to get on these five ballots in November 2012, we need to start the signature drives soon, with the first being in Arkansas. Please help MPP succeed with a new experiment: I want to see if we can fund the entire signature drive in Arkansas through monthly credit card donations from you and others on this e-mail list. Please start donating $10 or more on your credit card today. As soon as we get up to $10,000 in monthly donations, we'll start funding the signature drive in Arkansas. Public opinion polling shows that 58% of Arkansans would vote for a medical marijuana initiative there, so the key is to put such a question on the ballot for them to approve. Assuming a typical validity rate of 60% for signatures collected, we'll need to collect 110,000 gross signatures in order to end up with the required 65,000 valid signatures. It costs about $1.50 to collect and verify each signature, so here's the cost of the campaign:
The signature drive will take about 18 months to complete, so as soon as you and other allies begin monthly credit card donations totaling $10,000, we'll start the signature drive, and then you can sit back and watch us win in Arkansas, and hopefully other states, too. In a couple weeks, I'll update you on how much money we're receiving in new monthly donations for the Arkansas campaign. Please help me show that this experiment can work — that fewer than 1,000 people across the entire country can join together to help the first state in the deep south to legalize medical marijuana. We need to do this if we want to get to 26 states. Please donate $10 or more on your credit card today so that we can start the signature drive in Arkansas.Thank you. Sincerely,
| Help us meet our mission Raised in ’10:$2,721,628 MPP will be able to tackle all of the projects in our 2010 strategic plan if you help us meet this challenge. | ||||||
To contact MPP, please click here or reply to this e-mail. Our mailing address is Marijuana Policy Project, 236 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20002. Any donations you make to MPP may be used for political purposes, such as supporting or opposing candidates for federal office. | |||||||
Rob Kampia