Twenty-five years ago today, California enacted first-in-the-nation legislation legalizing the use and cultivation of medical cannabis. Fifty-six percent of California voters decided on November 4, 1996 in favor of the ballot measure Proposition 215: The California Compassionate Use Act. It took effect the following day. The measure’s enactment met with immediate pushback from state and […]
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed a bill into law Thursday that would expand the pool of individuals who are eligible to receive medical marijuana business licenses. House Bill 4295 removes the ban on those with previous felony and misdemeanor marijuana convictions from participating in the legal medical marijuana industry. The measure would still prohibit […]
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves appears to have backed off a pledge to hold a special legislative session this fall to enact medical cannabis legalization. Earlier this week, Gov. Reeves reiterated his opposition to lawmakers’ plans to legalize patients’ access — opining that the proposed legislation isn’t restrictive enough to satisfy his concerns. Yesterday, the state’s […]
The percentage of Americans who believe that “the use of marijuana should be legal,” remains at a record high, according to nationwide polling data reported by Gallup. Sixty-eight percent of respondents endorse legalization — the same level of support reported by Gallup last year. That ties the highest percentage of support ever reported in a […]
The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and members of Congress, released a new report outlining pathways available for the Biden Administration to unilaterally end federal marijuana prohibition and to issue general amnesty for those who have been convicted of federal marijuana crimes. “This new report affirms what advocates have […]
Voters yesterday decided on a number of state and local ballot initiatives specific to marijuana policies. On the nation’s only statewide marijuana-centric ballot proposal, Colorado voters rejected Prop. 119, which sought to increase state sales taxes on retail cannabis sales. NORML’s Colorado state affiliate had campaigned against the proposition, opining that excessive taxation on regulated […]
It was an off-year election yesterday, but that doesn’t mean big referendums on the topic of marijuana and psychedelics didn’t occur. One of the biggest results, of course, is the election of a Republican Governor in Virginia. While that doesn’t carry any weight around the already legalized cannabis in the state, it could easily complicate […]
With the increasing excitement over legal marijuana comes a nagging concern in the back of our minds about a big business takeover of the plant. We’ve all seen the homogenization of the alcohol and tobacco industries, and to see the same happen with cannabis would be a shame. However, that may easily be the road […]
NORML is pleased to announce that its newly updated and revised publication, Clinical Applications for Cannabis & Cannabinoids: A Review of the Recent Scientific Literature, 2000 — 2021, is now available for download on the Kindle app. Proceeds from the purchase of the new book directly fund NORML’s cannabis advocacy efforts. This updated edition reviews […]
The marijuana provided by the University of Mississippi for clinical research purposes is genetically dissimilar to cannabis strains commercially available at retail markets in legal states, according to an analysis published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science. Since 1968, the University of Mississippi’s farm, which is governed by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, […]
