In 2016, Harris laughed at California’s legalization measure. Four years later she accepts legalization—but will she move Biden on the issue?
The post Cannabis leaders react to Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris: Will she help or hurt marijuana legalization? appeared first on Leafly.
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The post 5 Mental Health Podcasts To Get You Through 2020 appeared first on The Fresh Toast.
Enter new waters with White Whale, CBG-dominant hemp flower from Aspen Valley
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Richmond’s Mayor Levar Stoney wrote a letter with an impassioned plea for cannabis justice.
Registered voters in Arizona will determine the fate of cannabis legalization in their state.
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The post Was The Marijuana Vaping Illness Around Longer Than We Thought? appeared first on The Fresh Toast.
On November 3, Arizona voters will have a chance to bring taxed and regulated cannabis sales to the Land of Enchantment.
Last month, Smart and Safe Arizona submitted around 420,000 signatures on a petition to place a cannabis legalization measure on this year’s general election ballot. This week, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced that 255,080 of these signatures were valid – just barely exceeding the 237,645 signatures needed to qualify.
Proposition 207, as it is officially titled, would direct the state health department to issue business licenses and regulations covering legal adult-use cannabis sales. Adults would be allowed to possess up to an ounce of pot each, and would also be able to grow up to six plants for personal use only. Regulators would be given the authority to decide if home delivery or other services would be allowed.
The measure would tax legal weed sales at 16 percent, and this revenue would be used to fund the cost of implementation and regulation. Any additional revenue would be divided equally among funds for community colleges, justice programs, infrastructure, firefighters, and cops. The measure also includes provisions to create a social equity program for cannabis businesses and to allow former pot offenders to have their criminal records cleared.
Arizona actually voted on an adult-use legalization ballot measure back in 2016, but it failed by a narrow margin, with 48 percent in favor and 52 percent opposed. But this year, polls are indicating that the tide of support has grown. A poll conducted in June found that 65 percent of voters were in favor of legalization. Even more promising is the fact that the measure saw majority support in every demographic, including Republicans and adults over age 50.
Governor Doug Ducey and other Republican politicians are doing their best to discourage support for legal weed, though. The governor printed a series of arguments against legalization, which will be mailed to every voter in the state. Like most prohibitionists, Ducey is relying on myths and scare tactics to block the measure. In the mailout, Ducey argues that legalization has been linked to an increase in teen pot use – even though numerous research studies have shown that the exact opposite is true.
Arizona is joining several other states in voting on major drug reform initiatives this year. New Jersey and South Dakota will also vote to legalize adult-use pot and Mississippi will vote on legalizing medical marijuana. Campaigns to legalize adult-use in Montana and medical pot in Nebraska also look likely to succeed, as well. Washington DC will vote to decriminalize natural psychedelics this fall, and Oregon will vote on two major initiatives to legalize psilocybin-assisted therapy and to decriminalize all drugs.
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While most of your marijuana questions can be answered by conducting a thorough Google search, we thought we’d do the leg work.
The post 5 Marijuana Questions You’re Too Embarrassed To Ask appeared first on The Fresh Toast.
How Polyamorous People Are Coping With The Pandemic
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The post How Polyamorous People Are Coping With The Pandemic appeared first on The Fresh Toast.
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The Democratic Party of Vermont has created a 2020 draft platform that includes planks to legalize sales of cannabis and decriminalize drug possession. The document also addresses racial inequity in drug policies and lays out means of taking restorative measures — including police reform and no longer turning to law enforcement for dealing with social issues.
The draft platform, obtained by Marijuana Moment, calls for action to “ensure that cannabis is appropriately regulated and taxed in a manner that rights the historic wrongs of the War on Drugs and that recognizes the disproportionate impact prohibition has had on minority communities.”
Vermont decriminalized weed possession in 2018, but still hasn’t set up a system to regulate sales. A bill to establish such a program has already passed the House and Senate and is now the subject of a special session that hopefully will go into effect by the end of next month.
In larger terms of drug reform, the document declares “We must end the criminalization of poverty, addiction, and otherness, [and] adopt an approach to the possession and misuse of drugs that is motivated solely by the principles of public health and harm reduction, rather than punishing undesirable private behavior, while avoiding the criminal justice system.”
In addition, the draft seeks to create “a system to automatically expunge criminal records, so that those who have repaid their debt to society can make a fresh start” and to “prioritize, in our state and local budgets, the use of mental health and substance use counselors, social workers, and other non-police interventions, in order to more effectively provide people in crisis the help they need, without introducing unnecessary force or additional trauma.”
Dave Silberman, a cannabis advocate running for Vermont High Bailiff who served on the drafting committee, said the planks came about “following extensive outreach to subject matter experts and advocates in the field, and are intended to reflect the priorities and values of Vermont Democrats at the grassroots level, who’ve been calling for fundamental reform to our broken criminal justice system.”
The Vermont Democratic Party Convention is set for September 12, where lawmakers will debate, discuss, and possibly refine these points before they become official policy.