Marijuana News.

On Election Day, Question 7 lost 44%-56%.

Although we are all disappointed that Question 7 didn't pass, we can all be proud in knowing that we've made remarkable progress. We've gained significant ground over Question 9, the 2002 marijuana regulation initiative, which lost 39%-61%. In fact, more than four in 10 Nevada voters actually voted to end marijuana prohibition entirely.

And we could never have made this progress without all of our supporters. I want to thank our wonderful staff, everyone who volunteered, everyone who cheered us on, and especially everyone who voted for Question 7. Your efforts were not in vain, and you helped us make a huge step forward.

Thank you, once again, for all you have done.

Sincerely,
Neal

Washington, DC: Members of Congress have declined to overrule legislation passed by the D.C. City Council in May authorizing the establishment of regulated medical marijuana dispensaries in the District of Columbia.

Congressional lawmakers had up to 30 working days to reject the law. That review period officially ended earlier this week.

In June, a pair of Republican House members, Reps. Jason Chaffetz (Utah) and Jim Jordan (Ohio) introduced legislation to overturn D.C.'s medical marijuana law, stating, "Marijuana is a psychotropic drug classified under Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act as having 'high potential for abuse,' 'no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,' and a 'lack of accepted safety for use of the drug...under medical supervision.'"

Their effort failed to gain any significant support in Congress.

Under the new law, D.C. Health Department officials will oversee the creation of up to eight facilities to dispense medical cannabis to authorized patients. Medical dispensaries would be limited to growing no more than 95 plants on site at any one time.

Both non-profit and for-profit organizations will be eligible to operate the dispensaries.

Qualifying D.C. patients will be able to obtain medical cannabis at these facilities, but will not be permitted under the law to grow their own medicine.

A separate provision enacted as part of the 2011 D.C. budget calls for the retail sales of medical cannabis to be subject to the District's six percent sales tax rate. Low-income patients will be allowed to purchase medical marijuana at a greatly reduced cost under the plan.

It will likely be several months before Health officials begin accepting applications from the public to operate the City's medical marijuana production and distribution centers.

The newly enacted legislation amends Initiative 59 – a 1998 D.C. medical marijuana ballot measure that garnered 69 percent of the vote. City lawmakers had been barred from instituting the measure because of a Congressional ban prohibiting District officials from liberalizing municipal marijuana laws. Congress finally lifted the ban in 2009.

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, or Keith Stroup, NORML Legal Counsel, at (202) 483-5500. A more detailed summary of the law is available online at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3391.

Oakland, CA: Oakland city council members last week approved legislation authorizing the private, large-scale production of medical marijuana by commercial providers.

Under the measure, the city will license four production warehouses where marijuana would be grown, packaged and processed for medical use. The privately owned facilities would not be limited in size. However, the regulations will require applicants to possess a minimum of $3 million worth of insurance, hire security, and pay a $211,000 annual permit fee to the city.

Members of the city council said that they will vote this fall on similar regulations to oversee the licensing of smaller size grow operations.

Voters in neighboring Berkeley will decide on a similar municipal measure in November that seeks to license up to six area medical marijuana production facilities.

In a separate Oakland city council vote this week, members rejected a proposal to tax medical marijuana cultivators and dispensaries – instead electing to put the measure before voters this November.

For more information, please contact Dale Gieringer, California NORML Coordinator, at: (415) 563-5858.