Legislators are also nearing final agreement on the bill to legalize and regulate sales — ask your legislators to support S. 54, then call Gov. Phil Scott and ask that he sign both bills into law!

The Vermont House of Representatives took a huge step forward today when it voted to approve S. 234, a bill that will automatically expunge all criminal records for past cannabis possession offenses. The bill also decriminalizes possession of cannabis in amounts that modestly exceed the legal limit, which will minimize the possibility that a person could risk criminal penalties for a small mistake.

Separately but concurrently, legislators have come very close to reaching final agreement on the details of S. 54, the bill to legalize and regulate cannabis sales. Please write your representatives and senators and urge them to support final passage of both bills! Then, call Gov. Phil Scott and encourage him to sign them when they reach his desk.

The Senate has already approved S. 234. Since the bill was amended by the House, it will return to the Senate for a final vote before it proceeds to the governor’s desk. You can read a summary of the bill here. VCRM director Laura Subin recently testified in support of this bill in the House Judiciary Committee (via Zoom) and did an excellent job explaining the importance of automatically expunging records!

The conference committee on S. 54 has reached a compromise on all issues except whether or not to include a local option tax in addition to state taxes. The legislators are expected to finalize the details of their agreement at their next meeting. A revised summary of the bill’s key provisions is available here.

Again, please contact your state legislators and urge them to support passage of both of these bills, then call Gov. Scott’s office and encourage him to sign them. After you do so, please share this message with your family and friends!

Learn where candidates stand on cannabis policy.

The Delaware Primary Election will take place on Tuesday, September 15. Our allies at Delaware Cannabis Advocacy Network have published their primary election voter guide detailing where candidates stand on legalizing and regulating cannabis for adults 21 and older.

The voter guide includes the voting history of incumbent candidates on cannabis bills, responses to a cannabis policy survey, and other information to help you make informed choices on Election Day.

You can look up your state legislators here. Then, be sure to check out the voter guide for Delaware House and Senate races, as well as the gubernatorial race, to see where candidates stand. If a candidate on your ballot has not yet taken a public position on cannabis legalization, we encourage you to ask them these questions yourself.

State legislative races are often close contests that can be decided by just a few votes. Don’t miss out on a chance to decide who will represent you in Dover and vote on Delaware’s cannabis policy in the 2021 session.

After you’ve had a chance to look at the voter guide, be sure to spread the word by forwarding this message, sharing the voter guide on social media, and reminding folks that the primary election is September 15!

Registered voters can vote in their party’s primary on Tuesday, September 15 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., or by absentee ballot. During the state of emergency, any voter can check #3 on the absentee voter application (“I am sick or physically disabled”) to convey that they are social distancing or quarantining. You can look up your voter registration, the status of your absentee ballot, and find your polling location here.

Please reach out to your representative to ask them to support the bill to reduce police-civilian contact over the supposed smell of cannabis.

The Virginia General Assembly has begun meeting — in unprecedented circumstances — for a special session. Lawmakers have already filed over 200 bills aimed at budgeting, criminal justice, and police reform. Several cannabis reform bills have been proposed, and the Senate has already approved two modest but important reforms:

• SB 5029, which would prevent law enforcement from using the odor of cannabis as a pretext for searching and seizing property, was passed in a 21-15 vote.
• SB 5013, which would give people issued a summons for cannabis possession the option of prepaying the civil penalty instead of having to go to court, was approved in a 29-7 vote.

Ask your state representative to support these bills, along with full legalization. The supposed smell of cannabis is perhaps the #1 pretext for police stops. Black individuals are disproportionately stopped and searched, just as they are disproportionately arrested for cannabis. These unnecessary stops are traumatic, demeaning, and can even be deadly.

Additionally, Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy (D) has introduced legislation that would legalize simple possession.

While these modest reforms are encouraging, broader reform — legalization and regulation — is still needed. By legalizing and regulating cannabis for adults, the state could further reduce cannabis-related arrests and police interactions, displace the illicit market by providing adults safe, regulated access, and create a new source of revenue and jobs.

There is increasing momentum from elected officials to legalize and regulate cannabis in Virginia, and it is important your lawmakers hear from you to keep the momentum going.

Let your lawmakers know you want them to support legalizing and regulating cannabis for adults during the special session. Please forward this message to your family and friends in Virginia, too!

Contribute to the 2020 campaign’s legal fund to help them defeat their opponents’ lawsuit.

Urge your representative to support the MORE Act on the House floor!

With the start of early voting just around the corner, the campaign to advance marijuana legalization is moving full steam ahead, and they need your help!

First, though, an exciting update! Dakota Rural Action recently announced that they have endorsed both Amendment A and Measure 26. One of their board members, former South Dakota state legislator and Holabird farmer Nick Nemec, gave a stirring endorsement that WNAX radio broadcast across the state!

Their endorsement is great news, but the campaign needs more help sharing effective messages about the benefits of legalization — and that’s where you come in!

The campaign is asking supporters to create 30-60 second "selfie videos" on their cell phones about why they support legalizing marijuana for patients and adults. There are two ways to submit your video:

• If the video file size is 25 MB or less, please email the video as an attachment to info@southdakotamarijuana.org.
• If that doesn't work, send a message to the same email address, and someone from the campaign will be in touch to help you find another way to share the video with them.

If it's a good fit for what the campaign is trying to achieve, they’ll add the video to their website and Facebook pages and maybe make you a star! And, as a reward for your trouble, they’ll even ship you a snazzy t-shirt with the campaign logo on it (even if they don’t use your video)!

Don’t be intimidated to try this — they’re not looking for perfection! They’re looking for authenticity. Just provide your honest opinion about why you believe marijuana should be legalized for adults and patients.

These videos are REALLY effective and give convincing proof that legalizing marijuana reflects the will and hopes of everyday South Dakotans! The campaign looks forward to hearing why YOU plan to vote for Amendment A and Measure 26.

Thank you!

The legislature is resuming its work on the bill to legalize and regulate cannabis sales — write your state representatives to follow up on their votes from earlier this year and remind them of S. 54’s importance to Vermont’s economic recovery!

Tomorrow, the conference committee that has been formed to work out a final version of Vermont’s cannabis regulation bill will hold its first meeting! S. 54, which already passed the House (90-54) and the Senate (23-5), has been awaiting action from this committee for several months. You can access a link to the live stream of the meeting here.

This bill was already overwhelmingly supported by Vermonters, and it should now be considered essential to Vermont’s economic recovery in the wake of COVID-19. Please contact your state representatives to follow up on the vote they cast on S. 54 earlier this year! It’s important for supporters to thank their representatives if they voted in favor, and if they voted in opposition, now is the time to reach out and attempt to win their support.

S. 54 is also responsive to the urgent need for racial justice reforms. Right now, the only legal way for adults to access cannabis is to grow it at home. But while 70% of white Vermonters own their own homes, only 20% of Black Vermonters do, and renters are typically prohibited from growing cannabis as part of their lease. S. 54 would not only ensure that all adults in Vermont can enjoy safe, legal access to cannabis, but it would also prioritize licensing for minority-owned businesses and small-scale cultivators in order to ensure that we are creating an equitable and sustainable industry.

You can read a summary of the bill’s key provisions here.

Again, please contact your representatives and urge them to make this bill a top priority. After you do so, please share this message with your family and friends!

Contact your lawmakers and ask them to support legalizing cannabis!

The Virginia Legislature convenes for a special session tomorrow to focus on budgeting, criminal justice, and police reform. There is increasing momentum from elected officials to consider cannabis legalization during the special session!

Both the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus and Attorney General Mark Herring have included cannabis legalization in their list of priorities for the special session, and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney sent a letter to Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and legislative leaders asking them to legalize cannabis during the session.

Meaningful police reform must also include ending cannabis prohibition. Let your lawmakers know you want them to legalize and regulate cannabis for adults 21 and older!

Virginia has taken big strides in cannabis policy reform this year, becoming the 27th state to decriminalize cannabis and making improvements to its medical cannabis program.

Still, legalization is needed to further reduce cannabis-related arrests, remove cannabis as a justification for police interactions, and displace the illicit market by providing adults safe, regulated access.

Polling has shown that 61 percent of Virginians support ending cannabis prohibition. Reach out to your lawmakers to ask them to support legalizing and regulating marijuana during the special session. Please forward this message to your family and friends in Virginia and encourage them to do the same.

Together, we can end prohibition in Virginia!

A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health found little effect of adult-use marijuana laws on prevalence of marijuana use among youth.

In this examination, researchers focused specifically on 504 justice system-involved adolescents in California, who, as they point out, have substantially higher marijuana use levels as compared to the general youth population. Among this population, they found marijuana use levels in the past 24 hours were similar in 2015 (before adult-use marijuana was legalized) and in 2018 (after adult-use marijuana was legalized and implemented in the state).

The authors then compared the findings of the California youth population with a group of justice system-involved adolescents in Pennsylvania, a state that has not legalized cannabis for adult use and had lower levels of marijuana use than in California at baseline. If adult-use legalization laws increased adolescent marijuana use, the gap in marijuana use prevalence across the groups in the two states would be expected to grow. However, the gap actually grew smaller because marijuana prevalence increased relatively faster among the Pennsylvania adolescents.

As a whole, the study suggests that marijuana legalization has not had much overall effect on youth marijuana use during the past two decades. Over the past 10 years, state marijuana laws have changed substantially, with 11 states and D.C. legalizing cannabis for adults. Nonetheless, youth use rates have remained quite steady, indicating that major changes in the legality of marijuana across the U.S. have not impacted adolescent use.

The abstract of the study, “Marijuana use among justice-involved youths after California statewide legalization, 2015-2018,” appears here, and an accompanying editorial, “Marijuana legalization and marijuana prevalence among adolescents,” can be found here. 

Great news! Earlier today, the Montana Secretary of State announced that CI-118 and I-190, the two initiatives supported by New Approach Montana to legalize marijuana for adults, received enough signatures to appear on the ballot this fall.
 

When the pandemic hit earlier this year, some feared it would mean the end of this campaign. But the team persevered and overcame tremendous obstacles. Voters will now have the opportunity to enact a marijuana legalization policy that will create jobs, generate revenue, and allow law enforcement to focus on real crime.

Unfortunately, due to the challenges faced during the signature drive that significantly drove up costs, the campaign is behind in its fundraising goals.

We need to make sure our friends at New Approach Montana have enough resources to compete with an onslaught of negative messaging from opponents. Will you make a contribution right now to make sure the campaign has the resources it needs to win?

You can also help by talking with friends and family about the importance of passing both initiatives, following New Approach Montana on Facebook, and signing up to volunteer!

Election Day is less than 12 weeks away, and early voting starts soon. Be part of this important effort to overturn the failed policy of marijuana prohibition in Montana.