• Pot is legal in Washington: Q&A with the man who is making weed legit

    Time Magazine (US)
    Monday, March 25, 2013

    mark-kleiman2Washington state gets ready to regulate legal marijuana with the help of one of America’s top drug policy analysts. Mark Kleiman is professor of public policy at the University of California in Los Angeles, and co-author of Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know. His team at Botec Analysis Corporation earned the contract to help turn Washington state’s vote to legalize marijuana into a reality. TIME talked to him about the challenging job ahead.

  • Medical marijuana dispensaries: High-tech tracking system unfulfilled

    Unrealized promises of regulating medical marijuana
    The Denver Post (US)
    Sunday, March 24, 2013

    The technology was supposed to efficiently track medical marijuana from seed to sale — the catch-phrase that came to define Colorado's efforts to regulate what had been an outlaw business. Field investigators could walk into any dispensary or grow operation and with a digital reader instantly collect data from tags attached to everything from newly potted plants to pot-infused lollipops in a regulatory system often held up as a national model and serving as the foundation for how the state will regulate recreational pot legalized by Amendment 64. (See also: Medical marijuana's unrealized regulatory goals)

  • Wall Street sees opportunity in marijuana

    Hoping to cash in if pot becomes legal nationwide, entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to potential investors
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Saturday, March 23, 2013

    wall-streetA number of businesses in the burgeoning U.S. cannabis industry are trying to enlist Wall Street's help. Some entrepreneurs see marijuana heading down the same path as Prohibition, which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol from 1920 until it was repealed in 1933. "More and more people see the inevitability," said Brendan Kennedy, chief executive of the Seattle private equity firm Privateer Holdings, which targets cannabis-focused start-ups. "They see that the Berlin Wall of cannabis prohibition is going to come down."

  • Les Cannabis Social Clubs ont rendez-vous à la préfecture

    Plusieurs de ces groupes de producteurs de cannabis ont prévu d'aller lundi déposer des demandes de statuts associatifs en préfecture
    Libération (France)
    Vendredi, 22 mars 2013

    Des Cannabis Social Clubs (CSC), groupements de personnes qui cultivent du cannabis et partagent leur production entre eux sans en faire commerce, vont se déclarer dans plusieurs préfectures lundi, a expliqué à l’AFP le porte-parole du mouvement Dominique Broc. L’objectif de ces groupements, qui prônent la dépénalisation du cannabis et l’autoproduction, est de se déclarer comme des associations à but non lucratif (loi 1901) et faire reconnaître légalement leur activité.

  • Shafer Commission Report on Marijuana and Drugs, issued 40 years ago, was ahead of its time

    Eric Sterling
    The Huffington Post (US web)
    Friday, March 22, 2013

    Forty years ago, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse said in its final report: "A coherent social policy requires a fundamental alteration of social attitudes toward drug use, and a willingness to embark on new courses when previous actions have failed." Social attitudes toward marijuana use fundamentally altered since the 1970s and 1980s with substantial majorities voting last fall to legalize marijuana in Washington and Colorado, and with state legislatures passing medical marijuana and marijuana decriminalization laws almost routinely.

  • Drop charges over ecstasy, police urged

    The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
    Thursday, March 21, 2013

    Ecstasy users should not be charged by police, former Labor health minister Neal Blewett said during a provocative keynote address to the peak police drug and alcohol forum in Australasia. Dr Blewett believes resources should target the most serious drug abusers, adding that cannabis laws around the country were ''chaotic'' and also needed reform. ''Already we struggle with drugs, including designer drugs scarcely on our horizon in the past,'' said Dr Blewett.

  • No consensus on changes to Washington marijuana law

    The Seattle Times (US)
    Thursday, March 21, 2013

    House Bill 2000, the bill by Rep. Chris Hurst, D-Enumclaw, to modify Initiative 502, marijuana legalization, offers a mix of changes that could help create a functioning market and things that might not. That ambiguity was reflected in the testimony on the bill Wednesday: the bill was opposed by Derek Franklin of the Washington Association of Substance Abuse & Violence Prevention (WASAVP), which opposed legalization, and also by Keith Henson, Pierce County director for NORML, which favored it. (See also: Some K9s trained to ignore pot in Washington)

  • Federal bill to legalize marijuana gains support in Congress

    Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013 now has 14 bi-partisan co-sponsors
    The Daily Chronic (US web)
    Thursday, March 21, 2013

    Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) joined the effort to end marijuana prohibition and start regulating marijuana like alcohol at the federal level. Rep. Pingree, as well as Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), signed on to co-sponsor H.R. 499, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013, on Monday, joining a bipartisan group of supporters in the House. There are currently 14 co-sponsors of the bill. Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013 on February 5.

  • Duped by dope

    Reality trumps ideals in German drug war
    Der Spiegel (Germany)
    Thursday, March 21, 2013

    germany-drug-warGermany's law-enforcement and legal apparatus devotes enormous resources to fighting illegal narcotics. But users are always a step ahead, and lawmakers seem uninterested in exploring alternatives to a broken system. The country spends an estimated €3.7 to €4.6 billion a year on the fight against drugs, an effort that involves law-enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges. What unites them all is the common goal of achieving a drug-free country. But is that goal even attainable anymore?

  • Legal pot: worth a try

    Copenhagen has already been given permission to experiment with hard drugs. Relaxing cannabis laws – at least on a trial basis – should be a no-brainer
    Editorial
    The Copenhagen Post (Denmark)
    Thursday, March 21, 2013

    In a country that regulates the sale of over-the-counter painkillers, you’d have thought that a reasonable way to decriminalise the sale of cannabis would have long since been rolled out, perfected and exported to other cities grappling with the same topic. Yet, to the annoyance of the city – and perhaps to the surprise of those more familiar with the country’s progressive reputation – cannabis remains on the wrong side of the law.

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