News

Due-Process Laws Are Forcing Regulators to Approve Fewer Applications to Sell. Colorado's medical-marijuana regulators have rejected business applications at an increasing rate as they near the end of a 3-year-old backlog, according to figures provided by the state.

Proposal Would Let Child Patients Obtain Edible Marijuana From Other States. As news cameras clicked, the parents of a 2-year-old girl with severe epilepsy arrived at South Jersey's first medical marijuana dispensary to buy her an ounce when it opened six weeks ago.

MONTEVIDEO (AFP) - Uruguay's Senate has approved a ground-breaking law that legalises marijuana, becoming the first nation to oversee the production and sale of the drug.

OLYMPIA (AP) - Marijuana business license applications keep rolling in in Washington. The state Liquor Control Board says it has received 1,696 applications from people seeking permission to grow, process or sell cannabis under the new recreational marijuana law.

Opinions

Old habits die hard. Take the War on Drugs. Please. Yes, its momentum has sagged a bit now, what with the Pew Research Center finding that a majority of Americans believe marijuana should be legal. But don't hold your breath waiting for new national laws.

It's a policy that would be a hammer blow to criminal gangs. It would stop criminalising non-violent people, drastically undermine racist policing, improve people's health and it would save lives.

Old habits die hard. Take the War on Drugs. Please. Yes, its momentum has sagged a bit now, what with the Pew Research Center finding that a majority of Americans believe marijuana should be legal. But don't hold your breath waiting for new national laws.

Arkansas would be the first state in the South . . . . WHO KNEW the election concerning "medical" marijuana two years ago would be so close? And in Arkansas, too. What a small, wonderfully idiosyncratic state. The same state that re-elected a Republican, Winthrop Rockefeller, as governor in 1968 also voted for a feisty little demagogue playing the race card in presidential politics that strange year- George Wallace. For good measure, Arkansas re-elected a Democrat-J. William Fulbright-as U.S. senator. Can we split our votes or what?

Letters

Cracks in the foundation of America's worst public policy ever, the disastrous war on drugs, is evident with the action taken by Uruguay Tuesday to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes, not just medical purposes. This action follows the lead of Colorado and the state of Washington in the U.S.A. But the importance of Uruguay's action lies in the fact that this South American country is the first nation to openly and bravely disregard the 1961 U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that outlaws marijuana in Schedules I and IV.

Local officer fired for smoking pot - Dec. 10 While I realize police officers are paid to uphold the law not to break it, our prohibition of marijuana is a particularly bad law.

Re. Dec. 6 story, "Family wants epilepsy included in cannabis law": How is it OK for a child with epilepsy to have access to powerful, highly addictive medications along with other pharmaceuticals but not have legal access to what God says is good on the first page of the Bible? Cannabis (marijuana) has been documented for over 5,000 years medically without a single death. That's safety on a biblical scale. A sane argument to cage sick citizens or remove children from parents whose children use cannabis doesn't exist.

As a cannabis activist who helped re-legalize cannabis (marijuana) for sick citizens over a decade ago, I welcome citizens from other states who move here ("Coming to Colorado," CannaBiz, Dec. 4)to have legal access to the relatively safe God-given plant.

Re: "Marijuana in Denver; Committee considers whether city is ready for Jan. 1," Dec. 10 news story.

In response to the legalization of medical marijuana, who is anyone to question how someone would react to the medicinal effects of medical marijuana? Who are people to question how someone would react to any drug for that manner? It really aggravates me to hear how people think they know how someone would react to anything that is prescribed by a medical professional. You all have your right to your opinion, but do not try to lecture people about how they would feel after taking any medication that helps them. Stay out of other people's medical concerns -- period.

As it appears Sensible B.C. didn't get enough signatures to get on the next ballot, I'm writing to encourage citizens in British Columbia and all Canadians to continue hope and the good fight (Sensible B.C. hits target in West Kootenay, Trail Times Dec. 6, 2013) to end discrimination towards humans who use the God-given plant cannabis (marijuana).