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Chronicle AM: Guam Legalizes Pot, New Mexico Decriminalizes Pot, Andrew Yang Talks Drug Pardons, More... (4/4/19)

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #1060)

A US territory legalizes weed, a US state decriminalizes it, Florida medical marijuana battles continue, and more. 

Marijuana Policy

Federal Lawmakers Reintroduce STATES Act. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has refiled the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States Act, or STATES Act, in both the House and Senate. Presidential contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was joined by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) in filing the Senate bill, while Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and David Joyce (R-OH) sponsored the bill in the House.

Guam Legalizes Marijuana. Gov. Leon Guerrero (D) Thursday signed a marijuana legalization bill into law, making Guam the first entity to legalize marijuana this year and the second US territory to do so, after the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. The law will create a system of taxed and regulated sales, with a 15% excise tax.

New Mexico Decriminalizes Marijuana. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has signed into law a bill decriminalizing the possession of up to a half ounce of marijuana. The maximum penalty will be a $50 fine. The legislation also reduces penalties for pot paraphernalia.

Medical Marijuana

Florida House Committee Votes to Limit Strength of Smokable Marijuana. The House Health and Human Services Committee voted Wednesday to cap the amount of THC allowed in smokable marijuana flowers at 10% despite the objections of patient advocates who noted that much stronger buds are already available on the market. The move comes less than a month after the legislature removed a ban on the use of smokable marijuana.

Florida Judge Rules Patients Have No Right to Grow Their Own. The 1st District Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a Tampa patient does not have the legal right to grow his own medicine. The decision overturns a lower court ruling that held the patient could grow plants to be juiced as part of his treatment for cancer.

Drug Policy

Democratic Presidential Contender Andrew Yang Calls for Legalized Marijuana, Commutations for Non-Violent Drug Offenders.  Presidential contender Andrew Yang said Wednesday he would issue mass commutations for imprisoned non-violent drug offenders on 4/20. "I would legalize marijuana and I would pardon everyone who's in jail for a non-violent, drug-related offense," Yang said. "I would pardon them all on April 20, 2021, and I would high-five them on their way out of jail."

(This article was prepared by StoptheDrugWar.org's 501(c)(4) lobbying nonprofit, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also pays the cost of maintaining this website. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

treedesigner (not verified)

"Incremental slowdown': NM "reduces penbalties for paraphernalia".  Better than nothing, but consider this follow-up: exempt a one-hitter (serving size limited to 25 mg sifted cammabis flowerbud flakes, tobacco leaf, basil, cham0mile or any herb) from the definition of "paraphernalia" IF the possessor carries a flexible extension drawtube with it!

1.  The word "paraphernalia" is trick propaganda utilizing sound-similarity to hidden fear-words, "PARANOIA", "INFERNAL", "ALIEN" (what, didn't you notice that before?) designed to protect against successful reform of the "smoking" process (namely the drawtube makes it possible to enact the Easy-Learn, Heat-not-Burn Vapetoke Technique* out at reading distance from the eyes and face, so herb users will VAPE instead of SMOKE, get more vitamin instead of monoxide.

__________________________________________

*Hold flametip and inch below,

suck smooooooth, slow,

don't start any glow

till after 9-19

seconds or so.

2.  Once the flexdrawtube one-hitter (you can add the drawtube onto tyhe butt (smoking) end of any true narrow-chamber 25-mg serving-size one-hitter you bought at a store at a fraction of what vaporizers cost) takes over the cannabis user market, displacing the fallaciously-named hot burning overdose monoxide "Joint", no one need fear any more that children would abuse cannabis or any herb, or move on to trick-flavoured overdoses of killer tobacco.

3.  Dain, you'll like this: the hidden-words secret/$iggerette meaning of "tobacco" is: "TO-FWCK-YOU"!  (Or "to-back-go", which is dangerous because you have no eyes in the back of your head.)  Re: your R/D dispute with "kickback" on another thread, the word "back" is one of the top-rated BAD+LUCK words in the language!  "REACH-FORTH" sounds better, agreed?

4.  Yes, once progressive-minded cannabis users are converted, 1.2 billion $iggerette addicts worldwide will shift from 700-mg HBOM $igs to flexdrawtube one-heaters, eliminating 6,000,000 wrongful premature deaths a year and trillions of dollars per decade medical expenses.

So stick with it NM, take another step soon to flexdrawtube one-heater legalization!

Sat, 04/06/2019 - 6:23pm Permalink
Dain Bramage (not verified)

In reply to by treedesigner (not verified)

Treedesigner,

People pick their own monikers, presumably for the impression it makes.  Kickback knows that "kickback" means corruption; I guess he thinks that makes him slick, or something.

Republicans spend a lot of time and effort trying to make "good" words sound "bad",  like saying "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" so that it sounds more like "rat"...  This is their childish, petty nature; for Republicans, all communication is propaganda -- marketing -- thus, none of it is sincere, since the point of propaganda is to manipulate the recipient of the marketing campaign.

So yeah, that's why I'm all like "Screw you sick-fuck Republican jagoff lying motherfuckers!  Kiss my ass!!"

Keeping it real...  It's the only thing I know of that wipes that shit-eating grin off their faces...  Because, let's cut the crap, eh?

Sun, 04/07/2019 - 4:00am Permalink

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