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Tag: marijuana legalization

  • Biden Won't Legalize Marijuana Because It May Be "A Gateway Drug"

    Biden Won't Legalize Marijuana Because It May Be "A Gateway Drug"

    The former VP is holding his ground on opposing marijuana legalization despite its overall acceptance amongst his presidential candidate peers.

    During a recent town hall in Las Vegas, former Vice President Joe Biden reinforced his anti-marijuana legalization stance, citing the lack of evidence of its effects as a major issue.

    “The truth of the matter is, there’s not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug,” Biden said during the Vegas townhall, according to Business Insider. “It’s a debate, and I want a lot more before I legalize it nationally. I want to make sure we know a lot more about the science behind it.”

    Back in March, Andrew Bates, a campaign spokesperson for Biden, solidified the former VP’s stance on marijuana — Biden believed that the Schedule I drug should be decriminalized and that states should be able to make decisions about legalizing it. 

    States Rights

    “Vice President Biden does not believe anyone should be in jail simply for smoking or possessing marijuana. He supports decriminalizing marijuana and automatically expunging prior criminal records for marijuana possession, so those affected don’t have to figure out how to petition for it or pay for a lawyer,” Bates said in a statement to CNN. “He would allow states to continue to make their own choices regarding legalization and would seek to make it easier to conduct research on marijuana’s positive and negative health impacts by rescheduling it as a Schedule II drug.” 

    Currently, marijuana is classified as a Schedule ! drug alongside heroin and LSD. This scheduling makes researching the drug and its possible short and long-term effects extremely difficult.

    “Indeed, the moment that a drug gets a Schedule I, which is done in order to protect the public so that they don’t get exposed to it, it makes research much harder,” NIDA Director Nora Volkow said, according to Marijuana Moment. “This is because [researchers] actually have to through a registration process that is actually lengthy and cumbersome.”

    Not Enough Evidence

    The debate over whether marijuana is a gateway drug is ongoing. The CDC says more research is needed to make that determination while the National Institute on Drug Abuse also appears to suggest there is not enough evidence to declare marijuana a gateway drug. 

    Studies have shown that while there is a correlation between marijuana use and the use of other drugs, the same can be said of alcohol and tobacco. But multiple studies say there is not enough evidence to prove that it specifically leads to the use of harder drugs.

    Biden’s stance on marijuana legalization goes against many of his fellow democratic candidates for president.

    Where Other Presidential Candidates Stand

    Kamala Harris took to Twitter on Monday, Nov 18, to laud her new bill and take a jab at Biden.

    “Let’s be clear: marijuana isn’t a gateway drug and should be legalized. Glad to see my bill with Rep. Nadler take the next step in the House this week.” Harris’s new bill would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances list altogether, expunge marijuana-related crimes from records and protect people of color from being dicriminated against for marijuana use or possession.

    Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro all support marijuana legalization. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Could Federal Legalization Solve The THC Vaping Illness Outbreak?

    Could Federal Legalization Solve The THC Vaping Illness Outbreak?

    Experts are starting to think that legalization may be the only way to find out the cause of the illnesses once and for all.

    Experts are increasingly looking toward federal decriminalization as a solution to the outbreak of severe lung illness and death across the U.S., according to a report by Vox.

    Close to 1,500 people have become ill and at least 33 have died from the mysterious illness, which began to suddenly crop up in March. As researchers look into the source of the problem, evidence has begun arising that most of these cases involve illicit, black market THC oil cartridges.

    Both national and statewide data have consistently shown that a strong majority of the patients of this lung illness had recently used a THC vaping product. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that 78% of the reporting patients had used these products in the past while 92% of individuals from a similar survey in Utah had done so before getting sick.

    Because the THC vape market has largely shifted from relying on dried flower to oils, most of the patients who had vaped cannabis had done so with the oil form of the substance. 

    From Dried Herb To Processed Oils

    “What’s changed is that people used to vape dried herb and now you have more vaping of pre-processed manufactured oils, which involve different ingredients,” said University of Waterloo in Ontario public health researcher David Hammond.

    At the same time, data is showing that the majority of these products were obtained outside of legal sale. Most of them were “acquired from informal sources such as friends or illicit in-person and online dealers,” according to the CDC, and a New York Department of Health study found that the “vast majority” of their lung illness cases could be traced back to black market cartridges.

    Regulators Need To Catch Up

    THC products are often being developed faster than regulations can keep up with them, and authorities are having a hard time getting a handle on the black market that is likely responsible for the lung illnesses that have sickened so many.

    “Federal agencies exert little oversight, and regulation is left to a patchwork of inadequate state agencies,” said former FDA commissioner FDA Scott Gottlieb for the Wall Street Journal. “The weak state bodies sanction the adoption of unsafe practices such as vaping concentrates, while allowing an illegal market in cannabis to flourish.”

    With all this information coming together, experts are beginning to conclude that the most effective and reasonable path remaining is full federal cannabis legalization.

    “What federal legalization would do is allow for a more uniform and predictable and clear set of rules that would draw on the experience and expertise of the federal agencies in regulating consumer markets,” said Northwestern University professor Leo Beletsky.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • My Family Is Obsessed with Legal Marijuana

    My Family Is Obsessed with Legal Marijuana

    Mason jars of homegrown flower, plans for a “bud and breakfast,” and a pipe named Zelda: How one family holiday opened my eyes to just how rapidly the cannabis-ation of America is rolling out.

    In my long-sober view, the new normal now wafting across my extended family from legal and soon-to-be legal weed states is nothing short of surreal.

    The U.S. is in the midst of a profound social shift. According to an October 2018 Gallup poll, 66% of Americans now support legalization of marijuana, up from 44% in 2009 (and 14% in 1969!). One in three Americans currently live in a state where pot is completely legit for adults, and with New York and New Jersey poised to join the legalization bandwagon, that number is likely to drop to one in two. National legalization is one of the more mundane talking points among the 2020 Presidential candidates, and the U.S. House of Representatives recently took a break from pondering impeachment to pass the SAFE Banking Act to ease restrictions on financing of marijuana-related ventures. The recent vaping scare notwithstanding, cannabis has gone from taboo to mainstream in the generational blink of an eye.

    Are We Rolling Into Post-Prohibition with a Clear Head?

    It’s that generational aspect of this marijuana moment in America that is most intriguing to me. As I celebrate more than 30 years of a sobriety that very much includes abstinence from pot, it seems that every other Baby Boomer I know — from my 65-year-old Alaska-homesteading sister to high school classmates moving gleefully into Parrothead-themed retirement communities — is reliving their doobie-driven youth with medical or recreational pot. Meanwhile, my Generation Z nephew tells me that he and his college friends consider marijuana as indispensable as their iPhones.

    Everyone I’m related to seems to be smoking, dabbing, growing, marketing, or otherwise celebrating cannabis. As I anticipate another family Thanksgiving turning into Weedsgiving, I have to wonder: Are we rolling into post-prohibition with a clear head?

    It’s not like we’re strangers to the dangers of substances in my family. It all goes back to the patriarch, our charming drunken newspaperman of a dad, a man who always had a pint and a half-written novel in his top desk drawer. By the time he died in the mid-1980s, he couldn’t write, or walk, or remember more than 30 minutes at a time. Alcohol had taken it all away.

    That was about when I got sober, having followed far enough in dad’s footsteps to know I had to stop. Our mom quit her Gallo Vin Rose and Marlboros not long after, and my sisters dialed their partying back to near zero as well. Our younger brother? He was always the straight one anyway, his only apparent vice a cigar once a year, smoked in his California backyard to avoid bothering anyone.

    Fast forward to 2017. We’re standing in that same backyard a year after voters across the Golden State approved Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, and 20 years after California pioneered medical marijuana. I’ve come to Bakersfield for my niece’s pop-up wedding shower, but I’m the one who gets a surprise: my clean-living little brother, his ever-sensible wife, and our earthy-sane older sister all sharing a joint amid the streamers and hydrangeas. 

    Is It Purely Medicinal If You Also Get High?

    “It helps unkink my back just like it does Nancy’s,” my sister Adrian says, nodding toward our sister-in-law, “though at home I prefer my pipe.” Since Alaska legalized in 2015, she says, her little town of Haines is considering a future as a marijuana tourist destination.

    Brother Matt exhales and scratches his beard. “Honestly, it just helps me concentrate when I’m working on software, and then lets me ease up after.”

    What a bunch of potheads! I think, but don’t say. Instead I nod and listen and try to parse the difference between the toke you take for an ache and the pill you might pop for the same, or the puff that relaxes versus the bourbon that unwinds. Is it purely medicinal if you also get high? Is that pipe ritual upon waking the equivalent of a morning espresso — or a morning vodka? 

    I wonder what our parents, gone now more than 7 and 30 years respectively, might say about this latest chapter in the family history. Mom might chuckle at the sight of adults indulging in what she’d always known as a dumb kid pursuit, the province of the runaways she counseled at the shelter where she was lead social worker all those years. Dad might raise a glass of port — his drink of choice near the end — to anything that eases the pain that living sometimes brings. “And you say it’s legal now?” they would both ask, looking around anxiously. “Marijuana, legal. Imagine that.”

    A little over a year later, in the fall of 2018, we gather all the generations together for a once-a-decade family reunion at our sister Melody’s Airbnb in the Berkshire Mountains. Massachusetts has just legalized recreational marijuana, and Melody’s turned her green thumb to the task of growing. 

    Family Revelations

    Melody got sober the same time I did, and doesn’t herself partake. But the bounty of her harvest has the extended family abuzz. In pairs and trios, our siblings and spouses and offspring step out onto the smoking porch. Niece Kelly huddles with Melody to craft a listing for the inn as the Berkshires’ newest “bud and breakfast,” complete with a crystal bubbler pipe in each room. 

    Matt tells us what his wife and daughters have known since the early 1990s: that he smokes daily but didn’t want his sober sisters to find out; he’s now relieved to be out of the cannabis closet. When Melody hands out jars of bud for folks to take home as a souvenir of the weekend, our formerly militantly straight-edge nephew sheepishly claims one. “My friends got me a pipe for my 21st birthday,” he says. “I named it Zelda.”

    “Fitzgerald?” I ask, shaking my head at the enduring appeal of addiction and madness.

    “No, from Nintendo,” my nephew giggles. In his tween years, he spent hours composing electronic music for video games, and now I imagine him doing the same with Zelda and his Massachusetts weed, which he tells me “all of New York knows is the best.”

    On the way back to the city, I’ve designated myself the driver. Everyone else in the rental minivan is in various states of sleep or stupor, except for Adrian, who gets a little speedy after the third bowl of the day. She’s telling a story about the elders she works with back home, how gummies are getting this one off of painkillers and CBD ointment turns out to be just the thing for that one’s bad knee. 

    Half-listening, I have a vision of the senior center of the not-so-distant future. Old people who are my age now, swaying in their wheelchairs and walkers while aides pass among them, dispensing wafers and puffs of vape. A visiting DJ plays “Sugar Magnolia,” some Marley and a touch of Wu Tang. Staffers smoking up on their break outside create a welcoming cloud for the teenager who walks in with a water pipe wrapped in cellophane and ribbons for grandpop. A visiting daughter rubs sweet-skunky oil into her mom’s hands, fingers entwining. The world beyond is raging, but everything here is chill.

    I get a chill.

    Coming Home

    I drop off the rental car and head straight to an AA meeting. I’ve never been happier to raise my hand.

    “I’m Mickey, I’m an alcoholic, and I’m celebrating 33 years clean and sober.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Sitting Presidents Have Biggest Influence Over Public Cannabis Approval

    Sitting Presidents Have Biggest Influence Over Public Cannabis Approval

    Some believe that if a Democrat takes office in 2020, federal cannabis legalization will soon follow, as all major candidates support the issue.

    A recent study found that the sitting U.S. president has a high level of influence over public perceptions around cannabis and whether the substance should be legalized on a state or federal level.

    The study, published in the journal Defiant Behavior, looked at “the relationship between the president and Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana legalization from 1975 through 2016” using data from the General Social Survey and the American Presidency Project,

    “Findings indicate that confidence in the executive branch, fear of crime, and presidential drug rhetoric predict attitudes toward legalization despite controls for other factors such as estimated levels of marijuana use and arrests,” write study authors Dr. Richard J. Stringer and Professor Scott R. Maggard. 

    Shifting Attitudes Toward Marijuana 

    Over the past decade, presidential attitudes toward the Schedule I drug have shifted from “just say no” to the current president, who has expressed a desire to leave the legalization and regulation of cannabis up to the states and focus the energy of the Justice Department elsewhere, following in the footsteps of former President Barack Obama.

    Trump reiterated this stance as recently as late August, after he was asked by a reporter whether the drug would be federally legalized while he was in office.

    “We’re going to see what’s going on. It’s a very big subject and right now we are allowing states to make that decision,” Trump said at the press briefing. “A lot of states are making that decision, but we’re allowing states to make that decision.”

    According to Marijuana Moment, the study on presidential influence over public attitudes toward cannabis found that for every percent increase in the number of words about drugs in a president’s State of the Union address, odds of favoring legalization decrease by 6%.

    At the same time, those who have high confidence in the administration “correlated with 29% decrease in supporting legalization.”

    As of October 2018, 62% of the U.S. population favored federal cannabis legalization.

    Saying No To “Just Say No”

    The data examined by researchers starts with the administration of former President Gerald Ford, who was more moderate on marijuana than his predecessor, Richard Nixon, who launched the failed “war on drugs.”

    However, Ford’s presidency did not result in much change to federal drug policy. The Reagan administration then launched the famous “Just Say No” campaign, resulting in a 27% drop in public support for cannabis.

    It’s largely expected that if a Democratic candidate takes the Oval Office in 2020, federal cannabis legalization will soon follow, as all major candidates have expressed support for this action.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Senior Marijuana Use Increases, But Where Is The Research?

    Senior Marijuana Use Increases, But Where Is The Research?

    Marijuana’s Schedule I status makes it very difficult for scientists to uncover its potential benefits. 

    An op-ed in Forbes looked at the possible health benefits of marijuana and psilocybin for seniors while also noting that research on these subjects remains deadlocked by marijuana’s status as a Schedule I narcotic.

    Senior contributor Howard Gleckman cited studies that found that while marijuana use among seniors increased over the past decade, and some studies have begun to look at the potential therapeutic benefits of both marijuana and psychedelics, hard data on both the positive and negative impact of both drugs remains elusive.

    Marijuana’s Impact

    Gleckman cited two recent studies on the subject—one, a $17 million research initiative by John Hopkins Medicine—believed to be the first in the United States and the largest of its kind in the world—to explore if psilocybin, the active chemical in psychedelic mushrooms, can be an effective form of treatment for opioid and alcohol addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and anorexia.

    The second was an issue of the Public Policy and Aging Report, published by the Gerentological Society of America and devoted to marijuana use among adults 65 and older. The topics covered in the issue included regulatory and clinical issues regarding marijuana use, potential benefits and dangers of use among the elderly, and the current state of research into the topic.

    Pros & Cons Of Marijuana Use For The Elderly

    As Gleckman noted, the Gerentological Society reached two conclusions in the issue: the pros and cons of marijuana for any age group remain unclear, and physicians, patients and researchers alike have been stymied by federal guidelines regarding marijuana use and research.

    Specific problems with researching marijuana and seniors, according to Gleckman, included one of the recurring issues with drug research, which is a tendency to ignore older adults as subjects. Understanding how specific drugs impact older individuals, who often respond differently to medication and substances—and in the case of marijuana, to recreational and medical variables—than younger adults, would be a key component in developing research for seniors. 

    Providing seniors with closely regulated marijuana for testing, and understanding that some medications given to that demographic may have negative interactions with marijuana, or may alter test results, would also provide more substantive data than what is currently available, as Gleckman concluded.

    “We are, it seems, running a giant, poorly-controlled national experiment in the use of marijuana,” he wrote. “It has important implications for seniors who face real-world choices without really knowing the costs and benefits of marijuana on their health and well-being.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • State Marijuana Legalization Might Not Include Smoking, New York Governor Hints

    State Marijuana Legalization Might Not Include Smoking, New York Governor Hints

    “There are ways to get THC without smoking marijuana, and we don’t encourage smoking period.”

    Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York may have hinted that the state’s cannabis legalization bill may include a ban on smoking the substance, allowing only other methods of use such as edibles.

    This suggestion was noticed by Marijuana Moment after Cuomo was interviewed on MSNBC Sunday and was asked if the recent cases of lung injury and deaths possibly connected to vaping products had made him reconsider his stance on the issue.

    “No,” said Cuomo. “On marijuana, we’re not in favor of smoking marijuana. There are ways to get THC without smoking marijuana, and we don’t encourage smoking period.”

    Legalizing THC Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Legalizing Weed

    Cuomo may have simply been defending his stance on cannabis legalization by pointing out that people don’t have to smoke it in order to enjoy it as MSNBC anchor Kendis Gibson pushed him on the vaping issue. However, multiple cannabis-focused news outlets have interpreted his answers as possibly suggesting that all or some forms of smoking could be banned in a future legalization bill.

    “You can legalize marijuana and sell THC in compounds that do not require you to smoke the marijuana, and we do not support smoking of marijuana,” Cuomo continued. “There are compounds that have the THC, which is a compound in marijuana, that you don’t smoke.”

    It is possible that a marijuana legalization bill could include an exception for smokables, especially as general bans on vaping products for both tobacco and cannabis have already been proposed.

    The Trump administration is currently finalizing a national ban on flavored e-cigarettes that many experts have pointed to as the reason for the recent spikes in teen vaping rates. 

    Democrats are backing the proposed ban, with many of them saying that the legislation is long overdue. Meanwhile, multiple states, including New York, are drafting their own vaping bans.

    There is also direct precedent for such a ban in New York cannabis law. In 2014, medical marijuana legislation signed into law by Cuomo included a ban on smokable forms of the substance. Cuomo insisted on this provision himself, though his views on cannabis have clearly evolved over the years.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Failed Drug Test Prompts Woman To Warn About CBD Product Use

    Failed Drug Test Prompts Woman To Warn About CBD Product Use

    “I wanted to make sure that other people could learn [about THC content in CBD] and not have to go through what our family has.”

    After taking hemp protein and CBD oil for their calming effect, an Oregon resident was shocked to learn that her prospective new job had been rescinded after a mandatory drug test revealed trace amounts of THC.

    Suzan Chandler doesn’t blame her employer for taking back the job offer, but told an Oregon news outlet that individuals who buy CBD products may not know that certain ones contain THC.

    The designation of which products contain the cannabinoid THC, which produces a euphoric response in users, and which do not, may not be immediately known to consumers like Chandler, who urged buyers to ask questions about and read labels on their CBD purchases.

    According to the Portland-based Fox affiliate KPTV, Chandler, a nurse practitioner, was up for a new job at a local urgent care, and passed all of the preliminary requirements before taking a urine drug test to complete the process. Though her CBD intake was limited to the aforementioned products and no marijuana use, she was surprised to discover that she had tested positive for THC, which resulted in the loss of the job offer.

    “I never used a product knowingly with THC,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”

    The loss of the job offer had what Chandler described as a “significant” impact on her family’s financial status.

    “Our family, all of a sudden, doesn’t have my income,” she said. “I decided that I wanted to make sure that other people could learn [about THC content in CBD] and not have to go through what our family has.”

    Broad Spectrum CBD vs. Full Spectrum CBD

    To explain how THC can be found in CBD products, KPTV spoke with Renee Barnes, co-owner of CBD-lish, which makes and sells CBD products in Portland. She told the news outlet that customers need to be aware of whether the item they’re buying contains either full spectrum or broad spectrum CBD.

    Full spectrum CBD contains all compounds that naturally occur in cannabis, including essential oils and cannabinoids, including THC. Federal law only allows 0.3% THC in CBD products; any product containing a higher percentage is considered marijuana and a Schedule I drug, which is illegal under federal law. 

    Broad spectrum CBD also contains compounds found within the plant, but THC is completely absent from products with that designation. Medium.com describes it as a combination of full spectrum CBD and CBD isolate, which is often extracted from hemp and contains no compounds.

    If You Are Being Drug Tested, Play it Safe

    Barnes told KPTV that using a full spectrum CBD product doesn’t guarantee that one would fail a drug test, but she advises being safe in regard to such products if drug testing is a regular element of a job.

    “We’ve had firemen, we’ve had policemen, we’ve had people doing jobs that are very, you know, essential that they don’t [test positive for THC], and you know, we’ll talk to them about it,” she said.

    Chandler bears no ill will towards the company that turned her down.

    “We get drug screened for a reason, and those are good reasons,” she explained to KPTV. And she said that she still stands by the merits of CBD for health, but doesn’t plan to use any products in the foreseeable future.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Beto O’Rourke: Ex-Marijuana Offenders Deserve “Drug War Justice Grants”

    Beto O’Rourke: Ex-Marijuana Offenders Deserve “Drug War Justice Grants”

    The Democratic presidential candidate believes we need to give back to those who were incarcerated under defunct marijuana laws.

    Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke says that the federal government owes Drug War Justice Grants to those who have been jailed for non-violent marijuana offenses to help them get their lives back.

    The proposed policy is part of O’Rourke’s larger platform that includes the legalization of marijuana. He promises that if he were elected President of the United States, he would grant clemency to all persons in the criminal justice system for possession of marijuana as well as expunge their criminal records related to those charges. Going one step further, he also wants to cross marijuana charges off the list of reasons someone could be deported or denied citizenship.

    While it might be easy to assume that O’Rourke is simply trying to gain a foothold in the Democratic presidential primaries by jumping on the legalization bandwagon—nearly all the Democratic challengers have advocated legalizing marijuana—the drug war has actually been an issue he’s long held dear.

    Back in 2009 as an El Paso city council member, he pushed for a resolution to advocate that the federal government undertake “open, honest, national dialogue on ending the prohibition of narcotics,” believing that marijuana legalization could help alleviate the stresses from drug trafficking at the border. In 2011, he co-wrote a book called Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico.

    The proposed Drug War Justice Grant would be funded entirely by taxes taken on legal marijuana, according to O’Rourke’s campaign. The grants would be doled out based on how much time each individual convicted person has spent in prison.

    Going a step further, the candidate would also spend the taxes on treatment and re-entry programs as well as social programs for communities that have been disproportionately affected by marijuana arrests. Additionally, he proposes using federal criminal justice funds to allow state and local governments to waive licensing fees for marijuana businesses for low-income people who were formerly convicted of marijuana crimes.

    “We need to not only end the prohibition on marijuana, but also repair the damage done to the communities of color disproportionately locked up in our criminal justice system or locked out of opportunity because of the War on Drugs,” said O’Rourke in a prepared statement.

    “These inequalities have compounded for decades, as predominantly white communities have been given the vast majority of lucrative business opportunities, while communities of color still face over-policing and criminalization. It’s our responsibility to begin to remedy the injustices of the past and help the people and communities most impacted by this misguided war.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ohio Man Calls Police, Demands Return of "Prestige Weed"

    Ohio Man Calls Police, Demands Return of "Prestige Weed"

    Officers tried, with little success, to explain to the caller that weed is still illegal in Ohio.

    An Ohio man called 911 to demand the return of a small amount of marijuana that he alleged was stolen from his home by police officers.

    The Sharonville Police Department posted a recording of the call on its Facebook page, in which an unidentified man harangued a sergeant at the dispatch about the loss of four grams of his “prestige weed” – which he claimed was legally his to possess after what he described as the passage of a state law which allowed 100 grams for recreational use in Ohio.

    When informed that the law – which was, in reality, an ordinance passed in Cincinnati, Ohio – actually decriminalized possession of up 100 grams within city limits, the caller grew irate and charged the sergeant with looking into its loss.

    The Sharonville PD post concluded by noting that recreational marijuana was “still ILLEGAL… per our STATE LAW.”

    “The mother f—ers took it!”

    The New York Post broke down the remarkable exchange in its coverage, which opened with the caller claiming that two police officers had come to the hotel where he was staying in Sharonville at approximately 2:30 in the morning, and according to his wife – whom he identified as “Marilyn Manson” – made off with his marijuana without leaving a ticket for possession.

    “It was only, like, four grams, but it was, like, you know, prestige weed,” said the caller. “And the motherf—ers took it.”

    The caller then asserted that the marijuana was legally his to possess, and cited an alleged state law that allowed for the possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana for recreational use in the Buckeye State.

    Dispatch Sergeant Mark Dudleson attempted to inform the caller that he was incorrect (“Where did you get that information from?”), to which the caller said that since he was in Hamilton County – one of two counties in which Sharonville is located – he was well within state rights.

    When Sgt. Dudleson attempted to again correct the caller’s assumption, he was met with an angry response.

    “What do you mean it’s not, dude?” the caller said. “I know I’m right here, dude. Don’t try to f—ing talk to me like I’m dumb.” He then demanded to know if any officers had turned in confiscated marijuana, adding that he was willing to “take [the case] as far as you want to go.”

    When pressed for information by Sgt. Dudleson on the alleged incident, such as the name of the hotel where the theft was reported to have taken place, the caller took an abrupt about-face. “I can tell this is a losing situation,” he said, before reiterating the particulars of the supposed theft and then wishing the sergeant a good evening.

    Cincinnati Marijuana Ordinance

    In June 2019, the Cincinnati City council passed an ordinance that decriminalized possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana with no age limit, but only within the city limits.

    As WCPO coverage noted, the ordinance only affected areas within the city of Cincinnati; townships or municipalities outside of Cincinnati – such as Sharonville – would apply their own marijuana-related laws to persons found with that amount.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Thousands Of Marijuana Convictions Automatically Expunged In New York

    Thousands Of Marijuana Convictions Automatically Expunged In New York

    Around 24,000 New Yorkers will have their records cleared by a new marijuana decriminalization law.

    Tens of thousands of people in New York state will have their low-level marijuana offenses expunged under a marijuana decriminalization law that took effect on Wednesday (Aug. 27).

    The law was the consolation prize for marijuana reformers after the state failed to pass cannabis legalization this year. Under the new law, possessing less than 2 ounces of marijuana is a violation punishable by a fine of $200 or less. Prior to this, it was a misdemeanor offense. 

    How It Works

    As part of the new law, New Yorkers will automatically have low-level marijuana offenses expunged from their records, although the process could take up to a year, according to The New York Times.  

    The State Division of Criminal Justice Services estimated that about 24,000 people across New York will have their records cleared because of the new law, but the Drug Policy Alliance says that the number is likely to be much higher, since nearly 900,000 New Yorkers have been arrested for low-level marijuana offenses since 1990. 

    Racial Disparity

    The automatic expunging of records has been praised by many people who point out that marijuana prosecutions disproportionately affect people of color. 

    “For too long communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by laws governing marijuana and have suffered the lifelong consequences of an unfair marijuana conviction,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.

    Having a clean record “gives people a new lease on life, removing the suffocating stain of stigma that prevents so many from reaching their highest potential,” said Khalil A. Cumberbatch, a social justice reform advocate who was pardoned by Cuomo in 2014 and now works as the chief strategist at New Yorkers United for Justice.

    One of the bill’s co-sponsors, state senator Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn, said that clearing records and decriminalizing marijuana is an important first step to correcting the damages done by the war on drugs. 

    “I represent Brownsville; that was ground zero for a lot of this,” he said. “[This] is just the beginning of the state recognizing the errors of that war.”

    Even those who are not in favor of marijuana legalization applauded the measure. Kevin Sabet, director of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, an advocacy group that opposes legalization, said that marijuana use should be seen in a similar fashion to speeding. 

    “It’s something discouraged, but it’s not something that is going to destroy your life if you’re caught doing it,” he said. 

    He continued, “We don’t want people in prison for marijuana use, but the criminal sanctions on marijuana is not a reason to commercialize and normalize marijuana.”

    View the original article at thefix.com