Hemp History
Arizona: Adult Use Marijuana Measure Cleared For November Ballot
Arizona voters will decide this November on a statewide ballot measure to legalize and regulate the adult use and retail sale of cannabis. The Secretary of State’s office has confirmed that initiative proponents, The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol, submitted a sufficient number of signatures from registered voters to qualify the measure for the … Continue reading
Proponents of Marijuana Club Initiative Exceed Expectations
Jordan Person, executive director of the Denver Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) submitted roughly 8,000 signatures this week to Denver’s Election Division with the hope of qualifying the Responsible Use Initiative for this November’s ballot. Relying on the hard work and dedication of more than twenty grassroots activists, … Continue reading
Federal Court of Appeals Upholds Ban on Prosecuting State-Compliant Medical Marijuana Businesses
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, covering nine western states, earlier this week ruled unanimously that the Department of Justice is barred by federal law from prosecuting medical marijuana businesses if those businesses are operating in compliance with state law. This decision came in an appeal in which … Continue reading
Poll: Two-Thirds Of Californians Support Legalizing Retail Sales Of Marijuana To Adults
More than two in three California voters support the establishment of a state-regulated retail market for the sale of marijuana to adults, according to polling data compiled by the Institute of Government Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Sixty-four percent of respondents agree, “Marijuana should be legal for adults to purchase and use recreationally, … Continue reading
Illinois: Governor Signs Marijuana Decriminalization Measure
Republican Governor Bruce Rauner signed legislation today amending the state’s marijuana possession penalties. Senate Bill 2228 reduces the penalties for the possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor (formerly punishable by up to six months in jail and a $ 1,500 fine) to a civil fine of no more than … Continue reading
A Pathway Towards Marijuana Legalization: The Significance of the Democratic Platform
Among all the speeches and balloons and revelry of the recently completed Democratic National Convention — a convention that has already made history by nominating a woman for president – was a far less obvious, but important change in the Democratic Party platform. For the first time since marijuana was made illegal on the federal … Continue reading
Why We Should Demand That Congress Reschedule Marijuana
Like most Americans who follow the debate over marijuana legalization in this country, I was disappointed that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration this week once again determined that marijuana has no medical use and left it in Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act. Disappointed, but not surprised. NORML first petitioned the DEA to … Continue reading
Study: Frequent Marijuana Consumers Not More Likely To Access Health Care Services
Marijuana consumers do not access health care services at rates that are higher than non-users, according to data published online ahead of print in the European Journal of Internal Medicine. Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin assessed the relationship between marijuana use and health care utilization in a nationally representative sample of 174,159,864 US … Continue reading
A New Era For NORML
My name is Randy Quast and I am NORML’s new Acting Executive Director. Let me be the first to welcome you to a new era at NORML. I’m from Minnesota. My background is in business. I worked my way up in trucking, starting with my family’s small 10-employee trucking company in the 1980s. I worked … Continue reading
DEA Reaffirms ‘Flat Earth’ Position With Regard To Scheduling Marijuana
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration has rejected a pair of administrative petitions that sought to initiate rulemaking proceedings to reschedule marijuana under federal law. Although the DEA’s ruling continues to classify marijuana in the same category as heroin, the agency also announced in a separate decision that it is adopting policy changes designed to … Continue reading