City Hall, cops, pols spearhead informational campaign Cops, City Hall and lawmakers are bracing for Thursday's onset of legalized "recreational" marijuana in Massachusetts, determined that if they can't dissuade tokers from lighting up they can at least provide information plus some vigilant law enforcement to try to keep people safe. Bay Staters voted last month to permit adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of weed while out in public - 10 ounces at home - while cultivating up to 12 plants per household. Selling pot remains illegal while the Legislature works on regulations to license retailers. [continues 392 words]
Imagine this: Upon taking his oath of office, President Donald Trump instructs his new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to ignore civil rights laws. How would that go over? Before you yell, "But we are a nation of laws!" you can thank President Barack Obama and his prior Attorney General Eric Holder for magnifying this issue. Basically, the Obama administration made it standard operating procedure to ignore laws they thought unfashionable or unworthy. The best example of this is marijuana. To be clear at the outset, I am neither pro-pot nor anti-pot. And, in fact, marijuana is not even the issue - rather, the Constitution is. Marijuana is just the symptom that exposes the problem. [continues 754 words]
Amid celebration at Emerald Cup fest, there is angst about regulatory future SANTA ROSA - Amid the euphoria of this weekend's famed Emerald Cup weed fest, there was this creeping buzzkill: the glacial rollout of legalization. Right when it seems like "The Great Pot Moment" is upon us, it turns out there are a lot of really tough regulatory issues to resolve first, according to government and industry experts who sketched out all the thorny challenges at the two-day conference, competition and harvest celebration at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. And implementation of commercialization could be delayed a year until 2019, said insiders. [continues 937 words]
