The Trend Toward Legalizing Recreational Marijuana

Marijuana legalization endangers public health.

In Montana, medical marijuana was legalized in 2011, but the state legislature passed strict dispensary laws that were upheld by the state supreme court earlier this year and have effectively put dispensaries out of business. Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada are also voting on measures that would make the drug legal to possess and use in small amounts for people over 21.

California, which legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes 20 years ago, is days away from legalizing the plant for recreation use, according to two new surveys.

“The California initiative is going to be the gold standard”, said Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which is supporting legalization.

Meanwhile, however, recreational consumers 21 or older would no longer face fines for possessing up to an ounce, and they would be allowed to grow marijuana at home (up to six plants per household), which is now a felony.

Climate change initiatives aren’t the only green measure on the ballot across the country for this November 8 election. Please email alison.bauter@patch.com to share your thoughts on these important issues.

There’s a lot more on the ballot Tuesday than candidates for president and Congress.

The Knights of Columbus, also donors in the campaign against legalization, told The Atlantic, “The focus of the state of MA should be on helping people, not giving them easier access to the false hope inherent in drug use, which does not solve problems but compounds them”. In Nevada, no new poll results were reported this week. Medical marijuana is already permitted in half the 50 USA states, and recreational use is allowed in Alaska, Colorado, Washington state, OR and the District of Columbia.

Health care measures are on the ballot in four states, including California, where voters could limit payments by state agencies to pharmaceutical companies, setting drug costs at the discounted prices enjoyed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Is marijuana mind-set changing in the Bible Belt?

Question 2 is known as the initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol.

If all or some of the nine measures pass, the 2016 election could potentially jolt the country out of prohibition, said Morgan Fox, communications manager for Marijuana Policy Project, a leading pro-pot group.

Central to the debate over whether Harvard, and any college in MA, would permit marijuana use on campus is its relationship with the federal government.

It’s no wonder MA is among the states considered ripe for legalization.

I recently met with law enforcement and community leaders from three states that have legalized marijuana. Both ballot measures handily won approval, and Question 4 appears poised to do the same next week.

Capital Punishment has effectively been nullified in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

There’s evidence of that trend already playing out in California, with low-income cities such as Adelanto and Desert Hot Springs among the first to permit commercial marijuana cultivation in hopes of balancing their budgets with pot tax revenues.

Corey Welford, a spokesman for the anti-marijuana committee, said, “We believe we have the resources to compete, and we think our greatest strength is the coalition of grassroots supporters in communities who have opposed this ballot question”.

Jacob SullumIn recent polls, support for Proposition 64, California’s marijuana legalization initiative, ranges from 51 percent to 58 percent, while opposition ranges from 30 percent to 40 percent.

Whether you are disturbed by De La Luz’s vision of a “corporate cannabis coup”, which bears more than a passing resemblance to prohibitionists’ warnings about the dangers posed by Big Marijuana, will depend on whether you think small businesses are inherently better than big ones.

More than $9 million has been spent by both sides here in MA, with most of that total pouring from outside state lines and on the side of legalization. In 2014, shortly after OR and Alaska each passed recreational marijuana initiatives, marijuana stocks shot through the roof only to completely deflate a short time later. As CEO of the Santa Barbara Council on Alcoholism & Drug Abuse, which sees the impact of marijuana use in young people’s lives on a regular basis at our Daniel Bryant Youth & Family Treatment Center, I’d like to challenge the common perception that marijuana is not addictive.

“It’s really not about medical marijuana”.

“These numbers are created to make government drool and say, ‘How much can we get out of our cultivators and farmers?'” said Jude Thilman, a Fort Bragg resident and member of the Mendocino Cannabis Policy Council at a May meeting of the Mendocino County Supervisors. This tells us people already are fed up with public displays of drug use. This year, polls show a close division.