Legalization of Marijuana

As states loosen their medical marijuana laws, medical marijuana training institutions such as Med Grow Cannabis College of Southfield, Mich., are sprouting up, educating people about how to enter the cannabis industry the legal way.  

Photo by Julie Wolfson/LAist Also file this under "Only in L.A," where medical marijuana is in abundance--around 1,000 dispensaries by unofficial count. This canister, still with some weed left in it, was spotted by a kid--what's "kush?" she asked her mother--at Beverly and La Brea over the weekend. The area is ripe with dispensaries.  

There's a new battle over medical marijuana in Colorado. The city of Centennial is being sued by medical marijuana patients after the city closed a marijuana dispensary last month. The city decided to close CannaMart, a dispensary that sold pot to people with medical approval, after passing a ban on dispensaries within city limits. Other cities, including Dillon, have also banned dispensaries.  

At most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter. But at Med Grow Cannabis College, marijuana is the curriculum: the history, the horticulture and the legal how-to's of Michigan's new medical marijuana program."This state needs jobs, and we think medical marijuana can stimulate the state economy with hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars," said Nick Tennant, the 24-year-old founder of the college, which is actually a...  

Some positive news came out of the L.A. City Council’s meeting Tuesday. No, they still haven’t passed an ordinance. However, councilmembers rejected the city attorney’s suggestion that, as nonprofit businesses, medical marijuana dispensaries should not be allowed to accept money. Such a policy could have had a crippling effect on medical marijuana in Los Angeles as most dispensaries would have been forced to close while those that defied the...  

(Wed, 25 Nov 2009) Canon City Daily Record (US CO)  

Medical marijuana laws are having an odd effect on many employers: They're dazed and confused about their obligations to workers who use pot for health reasons. Employment lawyers say employers are unsure about how far they have to go to accommodate medical marijuana users....  

Times OnlinePortland's Cannabis Cafe is not the first medical marijuana coffee shop in AmericaExaminer.comOn Friday the 13th NORML announced the opening, in Portland, of the first medical marijuana coffee shop in America. Since then this unforgivable error has ...First marijuana coffee shop opens in AmericaTelegraph.co.ukSoaking up the atmosphere at America's first 'Cannabis Café'Times Onlineall 34 news articles »  

PORTLAND – At the Cannabis Cafe, people sit around taking tokes from a “vaporizer” – a contraption with a big plastic bag that captures the potent vapors of heated marijuana. Glass jars hold donations of dried weed, and the cafe serves up ...  

We intended, with the passage of the marijuana law that the federal government not be allowed to dictate the use of any plant that needs no chemical to be active and healing.We also intended that the local government keep regulation to a minimum, using existing laws ie; zoning, safety , etc'. More than that are not necessary. It is a plant for cryin' out loud, not a meth lab. Existing law can embrace the inclusion of marijuana dispensaries as...  

LOL! Can't wait for this to come full circle. The same people who used to get arrested for selling ILLEGAL marijuana are now going to be arrested for selling UNTAXED marijuana. And probably face a stiffer punishment.(And btw TL, it's "Doobie" as in brothers.)  

Re: “State can tax medical pot,” Nov. 17 news story. The governor’s office released a statement that the state will tax medical marijuana dispensaries. The Denver Post reported that spokesman Evan Dreyer said we need to tax this industry because “what we have now is chaos.” I must point out that the program is not chaos. It [...]  

DENVER | Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. on Tuesday directed the state's medical-marijuana dispensaries to pay sales tax and obtain retail-sales licenses, bringing the once-taboo product closer to mainstream respectability. Colorado is now the second state, behind California, to tax and regulate medical-marijuana sales, a move that comes on the heels of the Obama administration's decision in October to leave enforcement of laws governing medical...  

Madeline Martinez, right, executive director of the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, talks with a patron at the Cannabis Cafe Tuesday Nov. 17, 2009, in Portland, Ore. The patrons of the Cannabis Cafe are people with Oregon medical marijuana cards. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)  

The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in October found 44% of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana -- a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2% per year, "the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years."