Tagged: marijuana

Law enforcement officers opposed to a proposal that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana will be at the Vermont statehouse Thursday asking legislators to reject the measure.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is speaking out against the Commonwealth’s persecution of those who share marijuana, despite a ballot measure in 2008 that decriminalized the drug. WAMC’s Berkshire Bureau Chief Lucas Willard reports…

Lawmakers in Rhode Island and Maine are promising to push legislation to legalize marijuana in their states after voters in Colorado and Washington removed legal penalties for pot use.

Rhode Island state Rep. Edith Ajello and Maine state Rep. Diane Russell say public support for marijuana legalization is growing. They say regulated sales of marijuana would eliminate the criminal black market while raising badly needed revenue for governments.

Similar proposals are expected in Vermont and Massachusetts.

Last week, the states of Colorado and Washington became the first two states to legalize the possession and use of marijuana for recreational use.

In our region, Massachusetts voters widely supported a referendum legalizing the prescription of marijuana for medicinal use.

For more on what these developments mean for the future of marijuana policy in New York State and across the country, WAMC’s Patrick Donges spoke with Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project.

This week local judo fighter Nick Delpopolo became the first Olympic athlete to be disqualified from competing after an in-competition drug test. It wasn’t steroids or human growth hormone that got him kicked off the American squad, it was a positive test for marijuana, which was added to the International Olympic Committee’s banned substances list following a positive test in 1998.