The effort to expand Georgia’s medical marijuana law continued Friday to receive pointed criticism, as supporters struggle to gain support from the state’s law enforcement community.

Chuck Spahos, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, testified during a brief hearing before the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee that he believes House Bill 722 would too broad and, in some spots, contradictory toward its goal of allowing Georgia manufacturers to grow and cultivate medical marijuana in-state under strict controls.

The nationwide movement to legalize the responsible use of marijuana is a badly needed change in public policy, because it will eventually eliminate all but a few of the 700,000 marijuana arrests that occur each year in this country (there will always be a few who insist on operating outside the limits set by legalization). That fact alone would justify ending prohibition. We are needlessly criminalizing millions of otherwise law-abiding marijuana smokers.

The Fourth Amendment Protections

Lib Dem is first main party leader to propose decriminalisation of drug for recreational use ahead of expert report on ‘legal cannabis market’

Tim Farron is to become the first leader of one of Britain’s main political parties to call for the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use after declaring that the war on drugs is over.

In one of the most significant moves by the Liberal Democrats since they were reduced to a shell of just eight MPs at the election, Farron will call on the government to develop a framework for the legal regulation of cannabis.

Across the world, more and more people are asking: Why is marijuana banned? Why are people still sent to prison for using or selling it?

Most of us assume it’s because someone, somewhere sat down with the scientific evidence, and figured out that cannabis is more harmful than other drugs we use all the time — like alcohol and cigarettes.

Somebody worked it all out, in our best interest.

But when I started to go through the official archives — researching my book Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs — to find out why cannabis was banned back in the 1930s, I discovered that’s not what happened.

Not at all.

There is still time for the Legislature to legalize medical marijuana for sick Floridians. Lawmakers have an opportunity to pass a bill that would allow terminally ill patients to obtain marijuana for medical use. But they should go further and broaden access to medical marijuana to a larger group of patients in a way that reflects the intent of a proposed constitutional amendment.

Medical marijuana plants grow at Rocky Mountain Miracles Friday, April 4, 2014. According to state and federal authorities, Colorado grows the most potent marijuana in the country, and possibly the world.

In an effort to provide some context to the debate about whether roads are more dangerous since the legalization of marijuana, Colorado State Patrol said in a report Thursday that the number of citations issued for impaired driving with the drug fell slightly since the agency started tracking the numbers two years ago.

In 2015, troopers handed out 4,546 citations for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, with 347 of them - or 7.6 percent - involving only marijuana. The latter number equates to seven tickets fewer than in 2014.

Quebec wants nothing to do with selling marijuana, Finance Minister Carlos Leitao said Thursday, adding Ottawa can’t force the province to help set up a distribution network if and when pot is legalized.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said his government will legalize and strictly regulate marijuana and will work with local authorities to come up with distribution methods, which could vary from province to province.

Trudeau’s comments sparked suggestions that pot could be sold out of government-run liquor stores.

Even the union representing employees of Quebec’s liquor authority had said it was favourable to the idea.

Leitao, however, said he has “no plan, no idea, no intention of commercializing (marijuana).

Assembly members in Anchorage have passed a bundle of rules that will shape the business landscape for the state’s largest commercial cannabis market in the months and years ahead.

OLYMPIA — The Washington State Department of Agriculture would license hemp farmers under a bill that’s ready for a vote by the full Senate.

After several years of frustration, hemp lobbyist Joy Beckerman said Wednesday that she thinks lawmakers and WSDA have found the right way to nurture the cannabis crop.

“This is the responsible route to take,” she said. “Our department of agriculture has gotten impressively sophisticated year by year.”