Tag Archives: MerryJane.com

For years, Rhode Island has been a medical marijuana pioneer on America’s prohibition-friendly east coast. But since the state’s first dispensary opened four years ago, a restrictive state law has capped the number of legal pot shops at three. But now, as neighboring states like Massachusetts and Maine prepare for full-scale recreational legalization, some Rhode Island lawmakers are finally ready to expand their three trick pony and double the number of state-sanctioned dispensaries.

A little over a month ago, France was in the midst of a tense political election between current President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen. Now, after only weeks in office, French cannabis users are receiving another important victory from the newly elected government.

This past week, Minister of the Interior Gérard Collomb revealed the country’s imminent plan to decriminalize possession of cannabis. The proposed rule shift would replace prosecution and imprisonment with simple fines and citations.

Since the day Donald Trump was elected president, it seems like there’s been a new controversy for every day of the week. But over the last few weeks, the highly scrutinized White House has descended deep into a giant political shitstorm centered around the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump administration and Russia. As the Donald took off for his first international trip as president this past week, suspicion from the intensifying Russian investigation has finally found its way to the Trump family.

Police officers in North Carolina got a little more than they bargained for this week, when they tracked down what they thought was a rural cannabis cultivation site, but instead uncovered a half-acre field full of poppy plants ready to be turned into opium, the base form of heroin.

According to CNN, Catawba County Sheriffs went to the rural home of 37 year-old Cody Xiong, who they suspected of growing marijuana.

If you’ve been taking trips to Home Depot for those spring cleaning projects, it might be time to start shopping at Lowe’s.

If you’ve ever gotten way too high because the delayed effects of cannabis edibles lead you to four or five magic brownies instead of the one that you needed, you’re not alone. But now, with new advancements thanks to legalization, several canna-businesses are looking to address that issue by creating “rapid delivery” edibles that take effect in only 15-20 minutes, making the experience closer to that of consuming alcohol.

Colorado edibles company 1906 introduced the first line of these “rapid delivery” edibles last year.

Weed is legal in California, but that doesn’t mean that you can buy your bud anywhere. Under state law, local municipalities have the authority to control the cannabis trade in their town or city. And yet still, just because a city bans dispensaries or grow-ops, doesn’t mean that people will actually listen. In Los Angeles County, dispensaries have been banned since 2011, but dozens of unlicensed medical pot shops are still operating, even without local sanctions.

Sherriffs in L.A.

Summonses from the Internal Revenue Service have given federal tax agents access to Colorado’s seed-to-sale cannabis tracking system, and the businesses responsible for those plants are not pleased.

According to the Denver Post, the IRS has been sifting through the state’s marijuana database in an effort to ensure that Colorado’s ganjapreneurs aren’t claiming deductions on profits made from what is still a federally scheduled narcotic.

Without the tracking data, the IRS would have to rely on canna-businesses admitting that they’re breaking federal law to deny deductions, understandably, that’s not likely to happen.

This week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a speech to an audience of federal, state, and local law-enforcement officials at the U.S. District Courthouse in Memphis, Tennessee. The Attorney General reiterated his earlier promises to renew the country's “war on crime” with tough sentencing policies, promising to use “every lawful tool” of the Justice Department to "take the most violent offenders off our streets." 



Sessions brought up the current opioid abuse epidemic and explained that the DoJ would attempt to control it by”securing our border” and cracking down on gangs and cartels.

Although more than half of the nation has recognized the cannabis plant, in some form or fashion, for its medicinal capabilities, the acting chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Chuck Rosenberg, still believes that “marijuana is not medicine.”

At a recent event in Ohio, one of the 29 states to legalize a comprehensive medicinal cannabis program, Rosenberg told the crowd that marijuana does not, in any way, have therapeutic benefits in a manner similar to prescription drugs approved by the U.S.