[caption id="attachment_7881" align="alignright" width="183"] Representative Denny Heck (D-WA)[/caption]

The House of Representatives approved an amendment Wednesday that will facilitate marijuana businesses in working with banking institutions, International Business Times reports. The Heck Amendment, named after its sponsor Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA), was approved by a vote of 231-192. The amendment effectively blocks the SEC and Treasury Department from penalizing banks who lend money to legitimate marijuana businesses in areas where they can legally do business. The Heck Amendment was supported by both parties and represents growing bipartisan support of marijuana businesses, especially after the recent vote by Congress to defund the DEA’s ability to interfere with medical marijuana patients and businesses that are in compliance with state law. If the Heck Amendment is implemented, it will be a major victory in the effort to allow legitimate businesses to control the marijuana market.

In the past, many financial institutions have shied away from assisting marijuana businesses for fear that the federal government will go after them for it, forcing most to operate on a cash-only system. Because of this, they are required to transport thousands of dollars physically, making them targets for robberies and other crimes. Wednesday’s vote is the first step towards allowing legitimate marijuana businesses to utilize alternative forms of payment, such as credit cards and bank accounts, like all other businesses.

[caption id="attachment_7873" align="alignright" width="150"] Chief John Dixon III[/caption]

The president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) expressed on Tuesday that he believes marijuana laws are total failures, reports mlive.com. John Dixon III is a police chief from Petersburg, VA and spoke at the annual NOBLE conference, saying that law enforcement is too concerned with arresting people for minor marijuana offenses that can irreparably harm those who are charged. He said, “We, as law-enforcement professionals, we need to really take a look at how we can decriminalize marijuana, especially user amounts. We are locking people up for a dime bag, for a joint. They’re put in the criminal-justice system which pretty much ruins the rest of their lives.” Dixon went on to discuss how he believes that medical professionals should be in charge of dealing with drug use and addiction, commenting, “Why do I have to lock you up for that? What benefit am I giving you, then? We have to get out of the business. That should be the focus of the medical field.”

The ACLU and others have noted that marijuana laws are disproportionately enforced against minorities across the country, despite similar use rates across racial demographics.

Dixon is far from the only law enforcement officer expressing his displeasure with prohibition. Major Neil Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), attended the seminar on Tuesday and insisted that law enforcement officers push to decriminalize marijuana by giving voice to the problems marijuana laws pose as seen by those who deal with them in the field every day.

[caption id="attachment_7868" align="alignright" width="200"] Gov. Jay Nixon[/caption]

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signed a limited medical marijuana bill into law yesterday. HB 2238 allows some patients with intractable epilepsy access to products containing marijuana extracts. Those extracts must be limited primarily to a non-psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant called cannabidiol, or CBD.

Many believe high-CBD marijuana extracts are effective in helping alleviate severe seizure conditions — reducing both the frequency and intensity of seizures. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of patients who can benefit from medical marijuana have this condition, so the vast majority of seriously ill patients in Missouri will be left out of the state program. MPP has a short analysis of the law available here.

Several other states have passed laws that are similarly limited. For the most part, laws passed in other states are not workable due to limitations imposed under federal law. By contrast, Missouri’s carefully crafted law is unique in that it may actually lead to a functioning program. This will be great news for those few seriously ill seizure patients who will be able to participate.

A bill that would establish regulations and protections for a wide range of medical marijuana businesses in California continues to make progress in the legislature. Sen. Lou Correa’s bill SB 1262 recently emerged from the Assembly Public Safety Committee, and will next be considered in the Appropriations Committee in August.

Sen. Correa’s bill has been heavily amended no less than five times since it was introduced in February. Many of the changes in the past few months have been big improvements, but some provisions remain troubling. For instance, the current version of the bill requires costly business license fees, saddles local governments with primary responsibility to enforce the law, and gives wide latitude to law enforcement officials to prohibit businesses.

We have been told it is too early to know if these requirements will change as negotiations among many different groups continue at a rapid pace. The only thing that is certain is that the bill remains very much a work in progress. For a list of MPP’s concerns with the current draft of the bill, click here.

Ohio has recently seen increased support for allowing adults to choose to consume marijuana, according to Cincinnati.com. Public opinion nationally is at an all time high, with 54% in support of making marijuana legal, and this has prompted many officials, including law enforcement, to reconsider the issue. Chris Lindsey, legislative analyst for MPP, attributes the changing attitudes to Americans viewing marijuana as less dangerous, saying they “realize [marijuana] is a much safer alternative to alcohol. It doesn’t lead to violence and harmful effects.” In addition to this, many view the “war on marijuana” to be futile, including a number of law enforcement officers.

Roger Moore, the Chief of Police in Chillicothe, Ohio, believes that marijuana is like alcohol and should be treated similarly. He believes that in light of the opiate epidemic that many places across America are facing, marijuana offenses are minor at best. Moore says, "I believe it's just like alcohol. Just because you drink beer doesn't mean you drink hard liquor ... Those that do marijuana, they do marijuana. There's plenty of people who don't smoke marijuana who do heroin, ecstasy and cocaine. (Marijuana enforcement) is not what my priority is in Chillicothe, it's heroin."

In Ohio, possession of 99 grams or less is a non-criminal citation, and residents can possess up to seven ounces of marijuana before facing any felony charges. Despite these relatively lenient penalties, prosecuting adults for marijuana in Ohio continues to saddle citizens with unnecessary criminal records at enormous costs in law enforcement time and resources.

Until now, Chicago has been unable to take advantage of Illinois’s medical marijuana law. However, the Chicago Sun Times reports that the Chicago Joint Committee on Administrative Rules will meet tomorrow to discuss how they would implement the medical marijuana pilot program. If there are no objections in the committee, the process of registering patients, as well as dispensaries and cultivation centers, can begin. Should the committee do this, people with debilitating medical conditions would be able to apply for a registry identification card in September. The medical marijuana distributed would have to be grown in state by law and should be available to patients within four to six months of the start of cultivation.

MPP estimates that at least 10,000 people could qualify as patients in Chicago. Chris Lindsey, one of MPP’s legislative analysts, believes that Illinois will move faster than other states with their medical marijuana program. Lindsey said, “A lot of people now know about medical marijuana. They’ve heard about this in Illinois.” If the committee moves forward without delay, medical marijuana would most likely be available in Chicago by 2015.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled Wednesday that police officers cannot search vehicles based solely upon the smell of unburnt marijuana, Boston.com reports. The court had previously decided that warrantless searches of pedestrians or cars for the smell of burned marijuana were illegal in 2011. They believed that allowing unwarranted searches based on the smell of marijuana would be inconsistent with the 2008 law that decriminalized marijuana in Massachusetts. The ruling on Wednesday was based on the fact that the human nose cannot discern the presence of a criminal amount of marijuana as opposed to a non-criminal amount. Possession of less than an ounce is not a crime in Massachusetts and, as the police cannot reliably distinguish criminal amounts of marijuana by smell, searches would not be legal. The justices wrote, “We are not confident, at least on this record, that a human nose can discern reliably the presence of a criminal amount of marijuana, as distinct from an amount subject only to a civil fine.”

The court said this decision was consistent with the will of the people who want the police to focus on more serious crimes. The court rejected the argument from law enforcement that they can search vehicles based on the smell of marijuana because possession of marijuana is still a criminal offense under federal law. Justice Barbara Lenk said, “The fact that such conduct is technically subject to a Federal prohibition does not provide an independent justification for a warrantless search.”

Will Humble, the top health official in Arizona, has authorized the use of medical marijuana in cases of PTSD on the orders of a state judge, reports AZ Central. Starting January 1, 2015, sufferers of PTSD will be able to use medical marijuana for the palliative, but not as the primary, treatment of the disorder. When announcing the decision, Humble said:

"Today I issued a Director's Decision that will authorize the use of marijuana ... for patients that are currently undergoing conventional treatment for a diagnosis of PTSD. Physician certifications would be valid only for the palliative care of PTSD symptoms (not treatment). Certifying physicians will be required to attest that they have reviewed evidence documenting that the patient is currently undergoing conventional treatment for PTSD before signing the medical marijuana certification."

With this decision, Arizona becomes the tenth state to allow PTSD sufferers to use medical marijuana as a treatment. This comes on the heels of Dr. Sue Sisley, a major medical marijuana researcher, being fired from the University of Arizona in what is thought to be political retaliation for her public advocacy efforts. Dr. Sisley was among the foremost researchers in medical marijuana specifically for PTSD. Most recently, she was granted approval for a study to observe the effects of medical marijuana on veterans. The future of that study is now uncertain.

On Tuesday, the Montgomery County Council unanimously adopted a resolution de-prioritizing certain marijuana offenses and urging the state to decriminalize possession of marijuana paraphernalia. This is just the latest step towards humane and sensible marijuana policies in Maryland.

The county’s resolution comes on the heels of Gov. Martin O’Malley signing into law SB 364, which will impose civil fines — not criminal penalties — on possession of less than ten grams of marijuana. The law, which goes into effect October 1, did not include paraphernalia. Montgomery County’s resolution urges the state to fix that by making “adult paraphernalia possession a civil offense, no more serious than adult possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana.” It also states that simple possession of marijuana and paraphernalia should be the lowest law enforcement  priority in the county. Read the full text here.

While we support the effort to include paraphernalia in Maryland’s decriminalization law, the state should go beyond that reform and follow the leads of Colorado and Washington. Colorado opened its first legal adult use marijuana stores in January, and the first adult use stores in Washington State just went live today. It’s time for Maryland to end its costly and destructive criminalization of marijuana and replace it with sensible regulations and taxation.

If you are a Maryland resident, please let your legislators know that you support adopting a system of taxation and regulation of marijuana.