Feb 29 2024
24 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana. Although there are activists working to legalize marijuana in all of the other 26 states, some have achieved far more progress towards accomplishing this goal than others.
With that in mind, below are the four states still on track to legalize recreational marijuana this year:
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Feb 28 2024
House Bill 2151 was advanced by the House of Representatives on February 12 in a 96 to 1 vote. Today, the Senate passed the measure unanimously 49 to 0. The legislation will soon be sent to Governor Jay Inslee for consideration.
The proposed law “Reassigns agency authority and responsibility for accreditation of cannabis testing laboratories to the Department of Agriculture (WSDA), effective July 1, 2024, and authorizes expedited rulemaking.”
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Feb 28 2024
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has signed on as a cosponsor for the SAFER Banking Act (S.2860), which would give federal protections to banks and other financial institutions (such as credit unions) that provide services to marijuana businesses that are legal under their state’s law. Senator Cantwell is the measure’s 36th sponsor.
The SAFER Banking Act was filed in September with 13 sponsors. It has since nearly tripled its total number of sponsors.
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Feb 28 2024
Delta-8 THC gummies.
On Monday the full Senate voted 31 to 1 to pass House Bill 1125, which passed the House of Representatives in January by a vote of 69 to 0. Given it was amended slightly in the Senate, the House gave the measure one final vote of concurrence today, 69 to 1, officially sending to to Governor Kristi Noem. Even if Governor Noem decides to veto the bill, it has well more than the 2/3rds support required to override a veto.
The legislation states that no person or entity may:
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Feb 28 2024
Today the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate passed identical bills to legalize recreational marijuana sales. After one final technical hurdle, expected to occur either today or tomorrow, the legislation will be sent to Governor Glenn Youngkin.
House Bill 698 passed the House today 21 to 18, while the identical Senate Bill 448 passed the Senate 51 to 47.
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Feb 28 2024
(Photo credit: Getty Images).
In a speech on the Senate floor, McConnell said that he will continue to serve in Senate but will allow “the next generation of leadership” to lead the Senate and Republican Party. McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984. He became minority leader in 2007, and first became Majority Leader in 2014. He once again became minority leader in 2021 after Democrats took back control of the Senate.
Last week McConnell said “the end of my contributions are closer than I prefer”, hinting that this announcing could be coming. McConnell is currently 82 years old.
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Feb 28 2024
The DCC says that starting March 4, the cost to become a medical marijuana patient as well as the annual renewal fee for patients will drop from $50 ($25 for caregivers), to just $0.01. Once vendor software is update, the $0.01 fee will become free.
“The DCC understands that a one cent charge is not ideal, however, at this time the Division feels it is appropriate and necessary to provide this immediate financial relief for patients and caregivers in the short term while working toward a full fee elimination as soon as the updates to the registry can be made.”
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Feb 28 2024
At a webinar hosted by Alliance for a Strong FDA, Kimberlee Trzeciak, who serves as the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Legislation, and International Affairs, says that either this year or next the agency is planning to establish “an appropriate regulatory framework for CBD.”
“In almost every neighborhood you go to, you can see stores on the corners that are marketing CBD and kratom and others,” said Trzeciak. “And one of the things that we have been thinking through here at FDA, using CBD as an example, is what does the regulatory framework for those products look like?”
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Feb 27 2024
House Bill 1350 was filed in December by State Representative Heath Howard (D) along with four cosponsors. Today, the measure was approved through the Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee 19 to 0, moving it one step closer to a full House vote.
Under the proposed law, the possession limit for medical marijuana patients would be increased from two ounces, to four ounces. The current two ounce limit was established under the state’s medical marijuana law, passed in 2013.
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Feb 27 2024
(Photo credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images).
“We changed federal marijuana policy, because nobody should have to go to jail just for smoking weed”, VP Harris said in the video, which was posted on February 9 and currently has over 435,000 views.
Now, the Cannabis Freedom Party (CFP), the “leading political action committee dedicated to cannabis reform”, has expressed “profound disappointment in Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent campaign video touting the administration’s alleged cannabis policy reform at the federal level”, according to a press release.
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