Chronicle AM: GOP Govs Seek Fed Permission to Drug Test Food Stamp Recipients, MedMJ Moves, More... (4/14/16)

Republican governors seek federal permission to drug test food stamp recipients, a Tennessee marijuana reform bill dies, a pair of New York medical marijuana improvement bills advance, so does the long-awaited Pennsylvania medical marijuana bill, and more.

Medical marijuana is keeping statehouses busy. (wikimedia.org)

Tennessee Decriminalization Referendum Bill Dies. A bill that would have let state voters weigh-in on whether the state should decriminalize pot possession is dead. The bill, which would have authorized a non-binding referendum, was killed in the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday.

Medical Marijuana

New York Medical Marijuana Fix Bills Advance. The Assembly Health Committee Monday approved two bills aimed at improving the state's medical marijuana system. The bills, authored by Assemblyman Dick Gottfried (D-Manhattan), chair of the committee and one of the architects of the state's medical marijuana law, would double the number of companies allowed to grow and distribute medical marijuana from four to eight and would end the requirement that they be vertically integrated. The bills now head for an Assembly floor vote.

Ohio Legislature Crafts Medical Marijuana Plan. Faced with two separate medical marijuana initiative campaigns, legislators are working to craft their own medical marijuana proposal.  The bill, which is set to be announced this week, would create a medical marijuana commission to create rules within a year to regulate medical marijuana in the state. Patients with a doctor's recommendation could access raw marijuana, edibles, patches, and oils, but would not be allowed to grow their own.

Pennsylvania Senate Passes Medical Marijuana Bill. For the second time in less than a year, the Senate has approved Senate Bill 3, which would create a medical marijuana system in the state. The House sat on the bill for months after original Senate passage, then approved an amended version of the bill. The Senate then passed that bill, but only after amending the amendments to bring it make closer to the version originally passed by the Senate. Now, it's up to the House to agree to those changes and send the bill to Gov. Tom Wolf (D).

Utah Patient Advocates Give Up on 2016 Initiative. A group calling itself Truce that had called for a medical marijuana initiative this year after the legislature killed medical marijuana bills earlier this year has given up on 2016. The group says it would have had an extremely difficult time of gathering the 102,000 valid voter signatures required to get on the ballot. The group says it is now concentrating on getting a good bill through the legislature next year.

Asset Forfeiture

Poll: Nearly Nine Out of 10 Mississippians Want to End Civil Asset Forfeiture. A poll from the Mississippi Center for Public Policy has 88% opposed to allowing police to seize and permanently forfeit property taken from people not convicted of a crime. The poll comes as House Bill 1410, which would have increased asset forfeiture transparency, was passed by the House, but gutted by the Senate, which turned it into a study bill. The House is asking for a conference committee to hash out the differences.

Drug Testing

A Dozen GOP Governors Ask Congress to Let Them Drug Test Food Stamp Recipients. The governors have sent a letter to Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), head of the House Agriculture Committee , which administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP—food stamps), urging him to change federal law to allow states to test program recipients. In a statement accompanying the governors' letter, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker characterized the drug testing proposal as a "common-sense reform" that will make it easier "for recipients with substance abuse to move from government dependence to true independence," but in the states that have actually done welfare drug testing, less than 1% of recipients have tested positive for drugs.

International

Poll: Iceland Far From Supporting Marijuana Legalization. Fewer than 25% of Icelanders support legalizing marijuana, according to a new MMR poll. Some 76.8% said they opposed legalization. The good news is that opposition figure is declining; five years ago, 87.3% were opposed. Older age groups were the least likely to support legalization, while young people were most likely to.