REFORML.org

In 1996, when voters approved Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative, most Californians did not envision what’s playing out in Arcata. As The Bee’s Peter Hecht reported recently, this Humboldt County town has become the legal pot capital of the country.  Hundreds of medical marijuana growers supply dozens of cooperatives that dispense the [...]

CENTENNIAL – As state and local governments try to get a grip on the burgeoning medical-marijuana industry, the city of Centennial defended in court Friday its decision to close down an existing dispensary and institute a six-month moratorium on new ones. Three licensed users of medical marijuana along with the two owners [...]

GUELPH – It’s a controversial operation but quietly so. While it promotes itself and its workings via the internet, it guards its location closely.  Even when you’ve arrived at the lobby of the downtown building where it’s situated – for now at least – only a simple sign marks its presence.  White plastic letters on [...]

As Colorado policymakers grapple with how to control what has become a barely disguised effort to legalize marijuana, we think the state’s law enforcement community has come up with the best approach. Broadly speaking, it would return the medical marijuana mess to the more sane situation we had before this year’s explosion of patients and [...]

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP — A multiple sclerosis patient held up as a symbol of the medical marijuana movement in New Jersey was cleared of the most serious charge against him today, with jurors finding the man’s backyard pot plants didn’t amount to a big-time drug operation. But John Ray Wilson, 37, [...]

The Conservative government and the Liberal-dominated Senate may find this a buzz-kill but a drug expert says neither of their approaches to prosecuting pot producers makes sense. Earlier this year, MPs passed a drug bill that included a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in jail for growing as few as five pot plants.  Drug [...]

Los Angeles — California continues to stay at the nation-leading edge of legal activity concerning marijuana use. In 1996 it passed the first national initiative to make marijuana available by prescription to relieve pain, nausea, and other physical maladies. In July of this year, Oakland became – by a wide margin (80 percent to 20) [...]

Washington, D.C. finally seems to be getting the message that the war on drugs has failed. Following years of resistance if not outright hostility to reforming our nation’s drug laws, Congress has passed two major changes to U.S.drug policy as part of an end-of-year omnibus spending package that President Obama signed into law yesterday. First, [...]

WA State — A pair of legislators in the state of Washington have submitted a marijuana legalization bill much like the one introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D – San Francisco, back in February. The bill was introduced by state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, with Rep. Roger Goodman as the principal coauthor. The two Democrats [...]