Great news! For the first time ever, legalization has passed a New Hampshire Senate committee and is headed to the Senate floor! This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed HB 629 in a 3-2 vote. HB 629 already passed the House and is now headed to the full Senate.

Cannabis legalization is being considered in the Senate this week! Earlier this year, the House passed HB 629 — legislation to legalize possession and limited home cultivation of cannabis for adults 21 and older.

Last week, New Hampshire’s bill to legalize cannabis possession for adults and create a state-run monopoly narrowly passed out of the Ways & Means Committee (12-10). Now, it’s headed to the House floor again. While the committee made some amendments to the bill, it did not address our biggest concerns — HB 1598 would continue to re-criminalize edibles, and it doesn’t even include a Plan B in the likely event that state-run stores fail to get up and running.

On Thursday, March 3, the House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on HB 1598, which would  legalize cannabis for adults 21 and older and create a state-run monopoly to sell cannabis. (The full House approved the bill once, but then re-referred it to Ways and Means due to its fiscal impact.)

UPDATE: On Tuesday, an Arizona state court ordered the state to implement the dispensary provisions of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. The court also declared three medical marijuana regulations invalid and upheld other challenged regulations. The health department had said the state might wait until September or later to issue dispensary registrations. Hopefully, this means dispensaries will finally be registered by spring. Today, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) announced she will not re-file her…