Cops cannot search and arrest people just because they smell weed, Maryland's highest court ruled unanimously. Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera wrote, "The odour of marijuana, without more, does not provide law enforcement officers with the requisite probable cause to arrest and perform a warrantless search of that person incident to the arrest."

From Growcola:

This ruling builds on a previous one made last summer by the same court, which barred police officers from arresting and searching a person based on an observation of an amount of cannabis less than 10 grams, which is below the criminal threshold according to decriminalization policy made in 2014.

San Francisco-based Juul and other e-cigarette companies were given a swift kick in the stones today by the Golden Gate City as San Francisco became the first city in the United States to ban the sale of electronic cigarettes within its borders. Read the rest

After police have proven unable to dissuade drug dealers from congregating in Berlin's Görlitzer Park, the manager of the park spray painted pink lines around designated areas for them to hang out and hawk their wares. The hope is that the dealers will no longer intimidate visitors throughout the park. From The Guardian:

“This method has purely practical reasoning behind it,” (park manager Cengiz) Demirci told local radio station RBB. “It’s not that we’re legalising the selling of drugs.”

Demirci said a much more effective solution would be if authorities gave the dealers work permits. The majority of them are asylum seekers who are not allowed to work while waiting for their claims to be processed. He added: “If they did that then 90% of them would stop what they’re doing immediately.”

Police chiefs criticised the move. “What is needed to ensure that the park is drug and crime free, is a constant police presence and judicial resolve,” Benjamin Jendro from the Berlin branch of the police trade union GdP told Bild...

The sharpest remarks came from Germany’s national anti-drugs tsar, Marlene Mortler, of the conservative Christian Social Union, who told the Funke Mediengruppe: “If this is true then it marks the capitulation of our constitutional state. We should not be issuing the dealers with a licence to deal.”

Los Angeles International Airport announced its policy regarding pot - you can carry it and fly with it. If the TSA finds your stash, they might turn you over to the local fuzz, but since marijuana is legal in California, they won't bust you.

LAX Marijuana Policy

While federal law prohibits the possession of marijuana (inclusive of federal airspace,) California’s passage of proposition 64, effective January 1, 2018, allows for individuals 21 years of age or older to possess up to 28.5 grams of marijuana and 8 grams of concentrated marijuana for personal consumption. In accordance with Proposition 64, the Los Angeles Airport Police Department will allow passengers to travel through LAX with up to 28.5 grams of marijuana and 8 grams of concentrated marijuana. However, passengers should be aware that marijuana laws vary state by state and they are encouraged to check the laws of the states in which they plan to travel.

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The Canadian Parliament has passed Bill C-45, which legalizes the possession and cultivation of cannabis for anyone over 18 (19 in some provinces). Canada is the first G7 country to legalize weed, and the second country in the world to do so. The Marijuana Policy Project has more details.

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Texas has some of the most draconian marijuana laws in the United States. Possession of small amounts can result in 6 months in jail and a $2,000 fine. And of the 60,000 people who get arrested on marijuana charges there, 98 percent are popped for simple possession. Reason says "penalties extend beyond the immediate criminal sanctions, too."

"Criminal penalties for drug possession, even marijuana, come with a lifetime of collateral consequences. That's hindered access to education, employment, housing, your driver's license is suspended for 6 months," says [Heather Fazio, a spokesperson for Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy]. "With those of us in Texas supportive of our Second Amendment protected rights, our license to carry in Texas is suspended for five years."

That could change, now that the Republican Party of Texas is supporting the decriminalization of marijuana. The proposed penalty would be a civil fine of $100 or less.

From Reason:

The change complements efforts being made on the local level in Texas. In December 2017, the city of Dallas dispensed with arresting people on misdemeanor marijuana charges. Kim Ogg, district attorney for Harris County (which includes the city of Houston) has gone even further. As of March 2017, her office is declining to prosecute most marijuana offenses and instead diverting people into "cognitive decision-making classes."

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The latest Gallup poll reveals that more Americans than ever support the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. This is bad news for the private prison industry, which poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Trump's campaign fund in the hope that weed foe Attorney General Jeff Sessions will lock up millions of mild-mannered dope smokers. He'll try anyway, but he'll have a fight on his hands.

From Gallup News:

Gallup first asked national adults about their views on the topic in 1969, when 12% supported legalization. Support had more than doubled by the end of the next decade but changed little throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By 2001, however, about a third of Americans favored legalizing marijuana, and support has steadily increased since. A majority of Americans have consistently supported legalizing marijuana since 2013.

The trajectory of Americans' views on marijuana is similar to that of their views on same-sex marriage over the past couple of decades. On both issues, about a quarter supported legalization in the late 1990s, and today 64% favor each. Over the past several years, Gallup has found that Americans have become more liberal on a variety of social issues.

From WTF Just Happened Today?:

Business is booming for a private prison company after it contributed to Trump's campaign and moved its company meetings, dinner receptions, and golf outings to Trump National Doral. GEO Group, through a company subsidiary, gave $225,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC and an additional $250,000 to Trump's inaugural committee.

The lawyers of Hutson and Harris wrote and performed a song that explains how eating or throwing away your pot in front of a cop turns a misdemeanor possession charge into a felony offense of evidence tampering. Read the rest

Accoording to Hutson & Harris, Attorneys in Texas, if you make 1.5 pounds of brownies with a bit of pot in them, the law considers it to be as much of a crime as having 1.5 pounds of heroin. You could go to jail for life.

Marijuana edibles are extremely (legally) dangerous in Texas. We did a separate video that explains the problem with more math, but people seem to like songs better, so here's this. There's some humor, but we believe it's a serious message that needs to be shared.

Flash Forward: RSS | iTunes | Twitter | Facebook | Web | Patreon | Reddit

In this episode we discuss the history of drug laws, why some drugs are legal and others aren’t, and what would happen if we just let everybody lose to do whatever they want.

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