News

BOSTON - A handful of the marijuana businesses granted provisional licenses have informed the Cannabis Control Commission they are ready to be inspected, one of the final steps before retail sales of marijuana, approved by voters almost two years ago, can begin.

SARASOTA -- The perky melody behind Hollywood Undead's "Bullet" conflicts sharply with the despair in its refrain: "A stomach full of pills didn't work again/I'll put a bullet in my head and I'm gone, gone gone ... "In the days preceding Alan Younger's death, his widow, Amber, says she could hear it playing all the time on his earbuds.

Prosecutors in New Jersey cannot unilaterally decriminalize marijuana possession in their jurisdictions, the state attorney general announced Wednesday, but they are being encouraged to use their discretion with people charged with low-level cannabis crimes.

A decade after first appearing in the United States, fake weed is seen as a growing health danger.

Opinions

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions' decision to withdraw an Obama-era directive discouraging the enforcement of federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized pot shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with Sessions' views on drug laws.

JERSEY CITY - Every city in America knows that it's a bad idea to prosecute low-level, nonviolent marijuana offenses. It wastes scarce municipal resources and does nothing to enhance public safety. What's more, even though whites and blacks use marijuana at similar rates, blacks are more harshly punished for it.

The federal government should follow the growing movement in the states and repeal the ban on marijuana for both medical and recreational use.

Jersey City's mayor is planting himself at the forefront of a national movement to stop destroying people's lives for having a little marijuana.

Letters

To the editor: Your June 28 editorial, "Marijuana-impaired drivers a growing danger," lacks a rational basis for crying wolf. In fact, marijuana consumption's negligible impact on driving ability pales next to alcohol and distraction by smartphone use.

According to Messrs. Kennedy and Sabet, cannabis legalization is "a failed experiment." But in Washington state, which like Colorado legalized in 2012, support has increased from 56% to an astounding 78%. Some failure!

It makes sense to make marijuana readily available as a less harmful alternative to truly harmful drugs such as opiates. Why would a drug pusher carry marijuana in his inventory when you can buy it over the counter? Messrs. Kennedy and Sabet are behind the times.

The authors suffer from the same confirmation bias and first-order thinking that begot the demonstrably unsuccessful war on drugs and has sustained it, to tragic effect, for nearly 50 years. Despite enormous expense and countless American lives lost to street violence and incarceration, access to and abuse of marijuana and other drugs remains as prevalent as ever. Why, then, do intelligent people refuse to accept that the goals of the antidrug crusade haven't been, and cannot be, achieved by prohibition?

The costs and benefits of cannabis and cannabis policies are difficult to calculate, but cannabis legalization will remove many impediments to research.

Beer sales worked at Fresno State games, so how about pot at campus poetry readings? I was pleased to read that the (Fresno State) athletic department benefited financially from beer sales at their games. We all know beer and sports go nicely together. Perhaps the other departments at Fresno State should take their cues from this, but instead of serving beer, sell cannabis. It's legal (semi) now and probably just as profitable.

Jason Kenney stated recently that the best way to combat drug addition in general, and the opioid crisis in particular, is by controlling supply. This demonstrates that he is little more than a cynical, career politician. He will say whatever he thinks will resonate with his base in the hope of becoming the next premier.