Personal Marijuana Use

He's back! San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has reintroduced his groundbreaking marijuana legalization and regulation bill. Last session, it became the first legalization bill anywhere in the US to win a legislative committee vote. Maybe this time it will go further. If not, voters may take matters into their own hands in November.

In 2008, an effort to decriminalize marijuana was turned back in the New Hampshire legislature. Now, they're at it again, and a bill has already passed a key House committee and is headed for the floor.

It's a marijuana news trifecta in Rhode Island this week: A decrim bill is introduced, the Senate Commission on Marijuana Prohibition holds its final hearing, and the Health Department holds what is likely its final hearing on regulating for the state's embryonic "compassion center" program for pot patients.

Kenneth How rolled up to a Massachusetts sobriety checkpoint sitting in the passenger seat and smoking a joint. Shortly later, he was dead. The medical examiner has called his death a homicide. Now, his family has filed a federal lawsuit alleging police beat him to death.

Whee! It sure looks like marijuana legalization is going to be on the ballot in California this year. Richard Lee and his Tax and Regulate Cannabis 2010 initiative just handed in 700,000 signatures. They need 434,000 valid ones.

The South Pacific breezes could grow balmier, the mai-tais yummier, and tourists' dispositions sunnier, if a leading Tahiti political figure gets his way.

The statehouses are humming and marijuana-related bills are coming fast and furious. Here's a glance at a few introduced in recent days.

The Washington state marijuana decrim and legalization bills were killed in committee this week. That means it will be up to the voters to legalize pot in November through an initiative -- if organizers can come up with enough signatures in time.

Given rising gang problems surrounding the hash trade in Copenhagen, Danes can be forgiven for yearning for the good old days of Pusher Street, where hash was slung relatively peacefully. Now, the Copenhagen city council wants to experiment with cannabis stores, but that seems unlikely to fly with the Conservative national government.

Seven years ago, Seattle residents voted to make marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority. Now, the newly elected city prosecutor agrees with them. He says he will not prosecute simple pot possession cases.