BERKELEY, CA — One of California’s oldest medical marijuana dispensaries, Berkeley Patients Group, was served with a lawsuit last week in an attempt to seize the property in which it operates and to ultimately shut the facility down.
In the forfeiture complaint, which is similar to one filed against Oakland’s Harborside Health Center last July, READ MORE
BOSTON, MA — The Massachusetts Public Health Council voted Wednesday to approve the final regulations issued by the Department of Public Health (DPH) for the implementation of the state’s first medical marijuana program.
Wednesday’s approved regulations are the work of weeks of deliberation, during which DPH sought input from medical marijuana patients and other stakeholders, which allowed the patient community to successfully voice its concerns.
Patient advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) in coalition with Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance (MPAA) and the ACLU have been working with DPH to offer guidance and recommendations regarding the proposed regulations.
“We applaud the Massachusetts Department of Public Health for continuing to work expeditiously to implement the state medical marijuana law,” said ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer. “We are pleased that many of the issues patients expressed concern about were improved from the draft regulations.”
The approved final regulations establish the framework for the Massachusetts medical marijuana program, or Question 3, which was ushered in last November by 63 percent of the state’s voters.
The law allows qualifying patients with serio. . . . . READ MORE
DENVER, CO — On the final day of their legislative session, the Colorado legislature made history Wednesday by passing the first bills nationwide to establish a regulated marijuana market for adults. The legislature was charged with doing so when voters approved the marijuana legalization Amendment 64 last November.
In addition to passing and sending to the governor a bill to regulate the recreational cannabis market in Colorado, the legislature also passed a bill to establish what will become the first tax ever collected on commercial sales of marijuana purchased for recreational use in the United States.
Two other bills were passed by the legislature this week relating to marijuana: one that would establish a driving impairment standard, and another which treats marijuana magazines, such as High Times and Nuggs, as pornography, requiring them to be kept behind the counter at retail stores.
The marijuana regulation bills, READ MORE
DENVER, CO — On the final day of their legislative session, the Colorado legislature made history Wednesday by passing the first bills nationwide to establish a regulated marijuana market for adults. The legislature was charged with doing so when voters approved the marijuana legalization Amendment 64 last November.
In addition to passing and sending to the governor a bill to regulate the recreational cannabis market in Colorado, the legislature also passed a bill to establish what will become the first tax ever collected on commercial sales of marijuana purchased for recreational use in the United States.
Two other bills were passed by the legislature this week relating to marijuana: one that would establish a driving impairment standard, and another which treats marijuana magazines, such as High Times and Nuggs, as pornography, requiring them to be kept behind the counter at retail stores.
The marijuana regulation bills, READ MORE
SACRAMENTO, CA — In a ruling that will leave California’s patchwork approach to medical marijuana dispensary regulation in place, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday that local governments can ban dispensaries from operating within their jurisdictions. For patients, that means access to medical marijuana at dispensaries will depend on the political currents in their city or county.
The decision likely means that cities and counties that had been holding off on banning dispensaries will now take steps to do so. It will also increase pressure on the state legislature to come up with a means of statewide medical marijuana regulation, something it is working on right now.
The case was City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center, Inc., in which Inland Empire sued the city after Riverside using its zoning power to declare that dispensaries were nuisances and ordered them shut down. Inland Empire went to court to block the city from forcing it to close.
The decision was eagerly—and anxiously—awaite. . . . . READ MORE