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Globalnews.ca
Senate Indigenous committee came close to indefinitely postponing cannabis legalization
Globalnews.ca
The Trudeau government has averted a potential confrontation with Indigenous senators that could have delayed the legalization of recreational marijuana. The 11 members of the Senate's Aboriginal peoples' committee had planned Wednesday to support a ...
Feds avert delay of pot legalization with promises to Indigenous senatorsCTV News
Feds avert possible delay of marijuana bill with promises to Aboriginal senators680 News

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The Guardian
One group is dreading marijuana legalization: the Marijuana party
The Guardian
New rules being rushed out across the country mean that once legalisation is in place, some will find it easier to obtain and use marijuana than others, he said. In Nova Scotia, landlords were recently granted permission to ban cannabis use and ...

Boing Boing
Marijuana: Warren/Gardner legalization bill would let each state 'determine for itself'
Boing Boing
Warren's press advisory says the bill "extends these protections to Washington D.C., U.S. territories, and federally recognized tribes, and contains common-sense guardrails to ensure that states, territories, and tribes regulating marijuana do so safely.".
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans press conference on marijuana billMassLive.com

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Globalnews.ca
Edmonton opts to avoid aggressive restrictive cannabis prohibition
Globalnews.ca
READ MORE: Edmonton report outlines no-go zones for recreational marijuana use. “That's a risk, if we're too restrictive from the get-go,” said Ryan Pleckaitis, from the city's community standards and neighbourhoods department. “These are experiences ...
City committee recommends allowing smoking of cannabis on ...CBC.ca
Where not to toke: Council committee recommends relaxed rules on cannabis consumptionEdmonton Journal
'A step forward': Cannabis and tobacco use to alignCTV News

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Leafly
California Has Set the Cannabis Curve—Again
Leafly
Wander into the city block-sized cannabis Coachella in California's Wine Country last weekend, and you would have experienced a Matrix-like reality shift. 'Wait, where is the 215 area?' you think. 'You know, the place where they corral the pot smokers ...

Calgary Herald
Rules allowing cannabis at festivals move forward; some councillors say there's too much regulation
Calgary Herald
Rules permitting marijuana use at festivals and events were approved by a council committee Wednesday, despite protest votes from some councillors who say the city is in danger of overregulating Calgarians' ability to consume the drug. Committee ...
Calgary to allow 'cannabis festival tents'Globalnews.ca
'Cannabis gardens' should be allowed at Calgary events, says city committeeCBC.ca
Cannabis use to be allowed at Calgary festivals - 660 NEWS660 News

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Toronto Star
Senate Aboriginal People's committee withdraws support for deferring marijuana bill
Toronto Star
Indigenous people are torn, he said, between the allure of getting in on the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry and the spectre of legalized pot casting “a long and threatening shadow on an element of Canadian society already ravaged by unmitigated ...

Globalnews.ca
Canadian students who use marijuana end up with poor health ...
Globalnews.ca
Students who try marijuana at an early age and use it often are more likely to have co-occurring problems, poor health outcomes, and less occupational and ...
Ten-year study of youth cannabis use reveals 'troubling' results, says Nova Scotia researcherToronto Star
Effects of cannabis use on youth: can we predict the future?UVic News

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A voter initiative is on the June 26 ballot and the polls are looking good.

One of the reddest of red states is set to go green later this month. Voters in Oklahoma will go to the polls on June 26 to decide whether to support the Question 778 medical marijuana initiative, and all indications are that it will win.

The state’s Sooner Poll showed support for the initiative at 57.5 percent last month. That’s down slightly from January when the same poll had support at 61 percent, but still enough to pull off a victory at the polls later this month, especially given the limited organized opposition to it so far.

One opposition group, Oklahomans Against 788, has a Facebook page, but according to state campaign finance reports, has only collected a paltry $755—and from only two donors. The two political action committees supporting the initiative, Oklahomans for Health and Yes on 778, on the other hand, have raised more than $31,000 and have more than $9,000 in the bank for media buys this month. (Oklahoma isn’t a huge media market.)

Newly emerging opposition from conservative religious figures is probably too late to make a difference, but a group calling itself Oklahoma Faith Leaders, whose head is a former consultant to Oklahoma Republican U.S. Senator James Lankford, enlisted Lankford to issue a press release last week warning that the initiative would be “harmful to the social fabric of Oklahoma.”

Lankford went on to blame outside agitators with hidden agendas: “This state question is being sold to Oklahomans as a compassionate medical marijuana bill by outside groups that actually want access to recreational marijuana,” Lankford added. “Most of us have seen first-hand the damage done to families and our communities from recreational marijuana use.”

It’s unclear just what “damage done” Lankford was referring to, but the initiative does not legalize recreational marijuana, and if any “outside groups” are involved, it is certainly not evident from the campaign finance reports.

Instead of sending Oklahoma on the path to perdition, passing the initiative would bring the state up to speed with most of the rest of the country. Currently, 30 states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana, while another 15 states have laws allowing the use of CBD cannabis oil for medicinal purposes.

The Oklahoma initiative is a full-fledged medical marijuana measure, which would allow patients to grow their own medicine; create a system of licensed dispensaries, cultivation, and processing facilities; set taxes at a relatively low 7 percent; and bar localities from using zoning laws to block dispensaries (although they wouldn’t be allowed within 1,000 feet of a school).

It’s the culmination of a long, arduous effort to legalize medical marijuana in the Sooner state. For years, the Republican-dominated state legislature has refused to move on the issue, instead grudgingly approving only clinical trials of CBD cannabis oil for minors suffering from epilepsy in 2015. The following year the legislature removed the age cap and expanded the trials to include other diseases and conditions. But it has refused to go any further, including this year, when a much more limited medical marijuana bill, Senate Bill 1120, died in March for lack of support.

The initiative itself has faced a similarly arduous path. Originally aimed at the November 2016 ballot, the measure successfully gathered the required signatures in the summer of 2016, and they were verified in September 2016. But the date of signature submission, a rewrite of the ballot title required by state officials, and the court battle that followed meant the measure didn’t make the 2016 ballot. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in favor of Oklahomans for Health in March 2017, and Gov. Mary Fallin (R) nine months later proclaimed that the initiative would appear on the June 2018 primary election ballot.

That’s the first time since 2005 that an Oklahoma governor selected a date different from the general election for an initiative. Now, despite it being an off-year primary election, Oklahomans will finally have a chance to join the ranks of the medical marijuana states. But they’re going to have to actually go out and vote to make it happen.

 

 Related Stories

• New Federal Bill Would Protect States’ Experiments With Legal Marijuana
• Colorado House OKs Bill to Let School Nurses Administer Medical Marijuana
• The Canadian Parliament Has Spoken — Country Will Become Second in the World to Legalize Marijuana

BBC News
Debunking weed: could cannabis be a silver bullet?
BBC News
We now know that the CBD element of cannabis has a host of therapeutic applications. The irony is that our predecessors have been using medicinal marijuana for at least 3,000 years. Body of Evidence is a video series from BBC Future unravelling medical ...

Globalnews.ca
World Cannabis Congress to meet in Saint John, looking for 'creative ways' to brand legalized marijuana
Globalnews.ca
Marijuana industry titans will gather in New Brunswick next week to discuss how to market cannabis in a competitive legal marketplace, and other issues raised by the dawn of government-run weed. The World Cannabis Congress will host 450 industry ...
All eyes on Canada as first G7 nation prepares to make marijuana legalThe Guardian
Canada Is Set To Legalize Recreational Marijuana This WeekNarcity
Cannabis Act headed to final Senate vote tomorrowNews1130
The Independent -TheStranger.com
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