Marijuana Legalization

The move to legalize marijuana for medical and recreational use has been shifting to conservative states like Oklahoma, North Dakota and Utah — a reflection of the country’s changing attitude toward the drug, which federal law classifies as an illegal narcotic.

Vermont’s top law enforcement official moved to crack down on an emerging practice of “gifting” adult-use marijuana, saying the practice is illegal.

Some Vermont businesses have taken advantage of what they think is a loophole in the state’s new recreational law to deliver “free” marijuana.

Business owners told the Burlington Free Press they make their money through delivery fees ranging from $40 for an eighth of an ounce to $280 for a full ounce.

With Massachusetts' adult-use cannabis regulations freshly in effect, and legal sales expected to start in a matter of weeks, the state must now grapple with how to ensure that legal pot benefits its population as a whole, and not just already well-to-do residents. Social equity programs are on the rise throughout states with legal marijuana, aiming to help individuals and entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds and communities of color — widely victimized by the War on Drugs — find opportunities for professional success in the cannabis industry.

Few things compel New Yorkers to cross the Hudson River into the Garden State. They might come to visit the Jersey Shore or catch a Giants game.

Marijuana advocates think New Yorkers would also come for weed, filling PATH trains and tunnels to legally buy marijuana. But that's only if New Jersey beats its neighbor to market.

Jersey City doesn't have the power to decriminalize weed, despite city officials' attempts to roll up a new policy earlier this week, according to a memo from the New Jersey Attorney General's Office.

Friday's memo from Attorney General Gurbir Grewal to the city's new prosecutor, Jake Hudnut, contained some crushing news for local cannabis activists and users. According to Grewal's letter, Jersey City does not have the legal authority to decriminalize marijuana or refuse to criminally prosecute all marijuana-related offenses.

The argument that marijuana legalization will help poor black and Latino people has been made vociferously in New York and New Jersey, where national groups that back legalization, such as the Drug Policy Alliance, have teamed up with clergy and civil rights groups.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo took a step closer to voicing full-throated support for legal marijuana on Friday, embracing elements of a state Health Department report that favored legalization.

Mr. Cuomo, addressing reporters after an unrelated speech in Brooklyn, said New York would no longer have the option of trying to simply prevent the flow of the drug into the state now that its neighbors in Massachusetts and New Jersey are moving forward with plans to legalize the drug.

The state of New York is weighing whether it should legalize marijuana — and a new report comes down hard in favor of the move, Bloomberg reports.

Remember when Jeff Sessions tried to turn the tide against cannabis legalization? Even within his own Justice Department, the bumbling effort by the US attorney general appears to have fallen flat.

On Tuesday, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts—the latest state to launch a regulated retail cannabis market, though stores have yet to open—signaled that he plans to let the state’s legalization rollout move forward.

Vermont has officially become the ninth state to legalize marijuana for recreational use. The new law took effect over the weekend and gives residents certain rights with respect to the cannabis plant. However, it doesn’t as far as enlisting a taxed and regulated scheme like other legal states. This means there are no retail dispensaries like in Colorado and California, according to a recent report from the Burlington Free Press.