Nevada state lawmakers approved a bill Monday that will establish a state-regulated system of dispensaries to provide medical marijuana to licensed patients. It will now be transmitted to Gov. Brian Sandoval for his signature, and he has said he is open to dispensary legislation.

MPP’s Karen O’Keefe, who testified in support of the bill, was featured in a story by Reno’s Fox affiliate station:

“Nevadans with serious illnesses who are using medical marijuana under the supervision of their doctors should have a safe and legal way to obtain it,” said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project. “We applaud the Nevada Legislature for taking action to protect patients and promote a safer and healthier state for their constituents.

“We are hopeful that Gov. Sandoval will join legislators and the voters of Nevada in supporting a system of state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries that is long overdue,” O’Keefe said. “Regulating medical marijuana works.”

SB 374 establishes rules and regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries, infused product manufacturers, cultivation facilities, and testing facilities. In addition to standard sales taxes, medical marijuana will be subject to excise taxes of 2% on wholesale sales and 2% on retail sales, of which 75% will be directed to education and 25% will be directed toward implementing and enforcing the regulations.

Currently, patients must grow their own marijuana or have it grown for them by a physician-approved caregiver despite the constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1998 and 2000 requiring the legislature to set up a medical marijuana program that includes appropriate methods of supplying medical marijuana to qualified patients. In 2012, Clark County District Judge Donald Mosley called the state’s current system “absurd,” “ridiculous,” and unconstitutional. Apparently the legislature agreed. Let’s hope the governor will, too.

Governor John Hickenlooper signed the first bills in history to establish a regulated marijuana market for adults and initiate the development of a regulatory framework for the cultivation, distribution, and processing of industrial hemp. The four measures were approved by the General Assembly earlier this month in accordance with Amendment 64, a ballot measure approved by 55% of Colorado voters last November.
The Huffington Post reports:

“We applaud Gov. Hickenlooper for the initiative he has taken to ensure the world’s first legal marijuana market for adults will entail a robust and comprehensive regulatory system” said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, who served as an official proponent of Amendment 64 and co-director of the campaign in Colorado…

Tvert added: “Colorado is demonstrating to the rest of the nation that it is possible to adopt a marijuana policy that reflects the public’s increasing support for making marijuana legal for adults.”

The Colorado Dept. of Revenue now has until July 1 to develop the specific regulations necessary for implementation, and voters will need to sign off on the proposed tax levels in the upcoming November election. If all continues to go smoothly, state-regulated marijuana retail stores will begin opening their doors to adults 21 and older in January 2014.

We often make the case that some law enforcement officials want to maintain marijuana prohibition because enforcing it provides them with job security and bigger budgets. This Texas Monthly article quotes a former Texas judge making that case for us while discussing his support for a bill that would reduce penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana.

Bryan-College Station Judge John Delaney reported that probation officers in Brazos County had told him that passage of the bill, with its removal of incarceration and therefore of probation, would devastate their offices. Why? Because almost half of the county’s misdemeanor probationers have been convicted of possession of less than two ounces of marijuana. “We live off our under-two-ounce misdemeanor guys. They pay the rent.” [MPP emphasis added]

Recently, MPP posted a billboard in Portland (OR) to coincide with Alcohol Awareness Month and upcoming beer and wine festivals, touting the relative safety of marijuana compared to alcohol. Unfortunately, someone apparently didn’t like that and tore it down within the first 48 hours!

We aren’t going to let that get in the way of our our public education efforts, though, and we conveyed that with the replacement billboard we unveiled today. It appears like the original, but with a very large red rip through the middle and  reads: “Our original billboard was vandalized, but… The truth cannot be destroyed.” It’s already getting attention in the media.

Help us get this truth out to the public by sharing the image of the billboards on Facebook and Twitter.

Last week, the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) slapped former middleweight champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. with a $900,000 fine and nine-month suspension. Why? Not for using a performance-enhancing drug or throwing a match, but simply because he tested positive for marijuana. Such an excessive punishment should not go unanswered, and fortunately Chavez is planning to appeal the decision. We need to get behind him and take this opportunity to send a message to the sporting world that it’s time to revisit their marijuana policies.

Take action now and call on the NSAC to grant Chavez’s forthcoming appeal, drop the penalties, and change their policy regarding marijuana so this does not happen to athletes in the future. 

The NSAC would never punish a fighter so severely for using alcohol, yet marijuana is an objectively less harmful product. It is less toxic, less addictive, and it does not contribute to assaults and other violent crimes like alcohol does. The commission’s harsh marijuana penalties do nothing to promote the health and safety of athletes. If anything, they put them in danger by steering them toward using alcohol and away from making the safer choice to use marijuana instead.

Send a message to the head of the NSAC today and tell him the commission should drop the penalties against Chavez and change their policy regarding marijuana. Let him know it is time to stop driving athletes to drink!

Things are looking good for a medical marijuana bill introduced in the New Hampshire legislature.

The Concord Monitor reports:

In advance of a hearing this week on a bill to legalize medical marijuana, a UNH-WMUR poll shows that 79 percent of New Hampshire adults support allowing doctors to recommend marijuana for patients suffering from serious illnesses. [emphasis added]

This year’s bill, H.B. 573, is similar to a medical marijuana measure that passed last year with bipartisan support. Unfortunately, it was vetoed by then-governor John Lynch. The recent election of Gov. Maggie Hassan, however, bodes well for the future of the latest bill. According to a report from the Associated Press earlier this month:

Four years ago when she was a state senator, Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan voted to override one of the vetoes, which legalized the use of marijuana with a doctor’s prescription. She still supports tightly controlled, medicinal use of marijuana, spokesman Marc Goldberg said.

…

A bill will reach Hassan, House Democratic Leader Steve Shurtleff of Concord believes.