Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin said on Thursday he would seek to legalize marijuana through the legislative process, instead of through the ballot box, for the first time in the United States.

In his State of the State address, the Democratic governor said more than 80,000 Vermonters reported using marijuana last year, contributing to a black market. He said legislators needed to proceed step by step to regulate marijuana.

"That's why I will work with you to craft the right bill that thoughtfully and carefully eliminates the era of prohibition that is currently failing us so miserably," he said, according to a copy of the address on his website.

As the Liberal government gets to work on its campaign pledge to legalize marijuana, the former police chief of Toronto will be taking a lead role.

Last month, Bill Blair was named as one of two parliamentary secretaries to the minister of justice. Sources tell CBC News he's been assigned to handle the pot file. 

Blair's new role fits with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's attempts to frame the issue during the election campaign.

The Conservatives tried to use Trudeau's legalization stance to paint him as a lightweight or even dangerous, with last-minute ads in Punjabi and Chinese newspapers suggesting Trudeau supported selling marijuana to children.

In contrast, Trudeau pitched marijuana legalization as a way of protecting children and stopping criminals.

Just before the new year, one of the Colorado RICO lawsuits filed with such fanfare in February of 2015 was quietly and voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs. While this might seem like good news for the cannabis industry, it is actually anything but.

The use of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in lawsuits against marijuana businesses poses a significant threat not just to those licensed marijuana businesses sued, but to anyone who does business with them, from bankers to accountants, from lawyers to builders.

The National Narcotics Agency (BNN) has stepped up its campaign to encourage marijuana farmers to give up their work and start growing more sustainable crops.

BNN said that it would continue to expand its campaign to other places in the country. 

“We started the program in Aceh in 2015 and will continue by taking the program to other areas in Indonesia,” BNN spokesperson Slamet Pribadi told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Pribadi said that the campaign in Aceh had begun to show success as farmers had started to grow regular crops and plants. 

The mother of a child with epilepsy pressed Ben Carson to voice his stance on medical marijuana in Panora Wednesday.

During a Q and A, the former-brain-surgeon-turned-Republican-presidential-candidate offered a couple of sentences stating that he approves of cannabis for medical use. Then he focused his attention on staunch opposition to drugs like marijuana and heroin for recreational use, emphasizing that he would seal the border with Mexico to prevent drug trafficking into the United States.

"Medical marijuana has proven its benefit and it should be rescheduled, there’s no question about that," Carson said. He added, “There’s a big difference between what she’s talking about and legalizing marijuana. I don’t want to do that.”

Will Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise to legalize pot go up in smoke, or will he turn into an activist and try to convince other countries to liberalize their drug laws, as well? That’s the choice he faces, if he doesn’t want Canada to run afoul of its international obligations.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has left his role as the head of a marijuana company and will run for president as a libertarian.

Johnson announced his campaign Wednesday on the Fox Business Network.

"I want to take this opportunity to announce my candidacy for president," Johnson said. "I am hoping to get the Libertarian nomination for president in 2016 and in fact offer that alternative."

"I think the biggest problem facing this country is the $20 trillion debt that we will have when Obama leaves office," he said. "Government is too big, it’s unwieldy, it’s out of control, we need to get control."

For the first time in history, the cultivation of medical marijuana is considered to be allowed and regulated within city limits. A new state law is prompting San Diego about this and may permit its full operation months from now.

According to Los Angeles Times, Deputy City Atty. Shannon Thomas issued a memo last week describing methods that the city can regulate marijuana cultivation. This includes making zoning regulations that specify the drug or the simple permission of growing marijuana in all areas that are considered as agricultural zones.

The D.C. Council’s surprise see-saw on loosening marijuana laws Tuesday — and promise to revisit the issue within a month — has set up a vexing period of high-stakes negotiations that could put the council on a collision course with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and with a Republican-controlled Congress that wishes D.C. voters never legalized weed in the first place.

• Christopher Mark Heath was stopped in his car after driving from California
• He was found to have 247 pounds of marijuana in the car worth $2million 
• Heath, 37, is a drugs task force police officer working in Yuba County 
• He and two alleged accomplices are now facing drug dealing charges

A drugs task force officer has been arrested after being caught in a £2million marijuana bust.

Christopher Mark Heath, 37, was stopped alongside two other alleged drug traffickers after police found 247 pounds of marijuana in their car along with $11,000 in cash.