Matt Gaetz, a conservative freshman congressman from Florida's Panhandle, deserves credit for going where few Republicans dare.

Gaetz has filed legislation to reschedule cannabis — the scientific and more respectable name for marijuana — from Schedule 1 status, a category reserved for drugs like heroin and LSD that have no accepted medical value.

Instead, he proposes that cannabis be given Schedule III status under the Controlled Substances Act, a category that includes anabolic steroids and certain depressants — drugs with medicinal benefits that can also be abused.

Let’s be more like Canada, eh?

Canada announced plans to legalize the recreational use of marijuana by July 2018, proving again they are the U.S.’s cool next-door neighbor.

The move to legalize the recreational use of pot fulfills one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s campaign promises. While medicinal marijuana has been legal in Canada since 2001, this would be an unprecedented move for a large, industrialized country. It’s also something the U.S. should consider.

The Liberals on Friday said NDP Leader John Horgan is putting his union friends ahead of public safety.

Speaking to media in Penticton on Thursday, Horgan confirmed his support for selling marijuana in liquor stores saying, “An option to use public liquor stores is a good one.” (Castanet, April 14, 2017). In siding with his union friends, he is rejecting the advice of the federal task force on marijuana legalization, which included his own Vancouver-Fraserview candidate George Chow, said the Liberals.

In all of the U.S. states that have legalized marijuana, there is a ban on selling marijuana and alcohol together.

“The First Time I Got High” is the name of a short story that most of us have written in our heads, but of course the ending is different for just about everyone. In an ideal world, they all have happy endings. Maybe you meet a new crawdad friend, or discover the misunderstood nature of the scorpion, or run around town using dog beds as hats (all of which are true stories according to Leafly reviews).

Officials in one Alaska city have taken steps to keep commercial marijuana out of Soldotna.

Soldotna City Council voted 4-2 Wednesday to direct city administrators to draft legislation that would ban marijuana establishments from operating within city limits, the Peninsula Clarion reported (http://bit.ly/2oH3qvt).

The council had previously placed a two-year suspension on pot businesses, which temporarily prohibited them until Jan. 1, 2018. With this vote, city administrators will start to draft legislation to ban them, present it to the Planning and Zoning Commission and have it go through the public process, Mayor Pete Sprague said.

Council members Lisa Parker and Tyson Cox voted against the measure.

While it’s not yet on calendars, April 20 has become the unofficial holiday of marijuana, particularly in the growing number of states where pot has been decriminalized for recreational use. “It has become hugely celebrated,” says Brett Konen, an editor with Seattle-based Leafly.com, which calls itself the world’s largest cannabis information source. The Trump administration has indicated it may crack down on marijuana, but the industry continues to grow for now. Konen shares cannabis culture hotspots with Larry Bleiberg for USA TODAY.

Canada is on track to become the second country in the world to legalize the consumption and sale of recreational marijuana, after Uruguay made the big leap in 2014.

On Thursday, the Liberal government introduced its Cannabis Act, which allows people aged 18 and over to purchase and consume marijuana.

Much like alcohol, many of the nuts and bolts of legislation will be left to the provinces, who will be able to raise the minimum age if they so wish, and will be required to implement a retail system.

The male marijuana plants are much maligned but they have their own special worth. Before binning your next males the moment they sex. Maybe consider their usefullness and get the most out of your males.

WHAT TO DO WITH MALE CANNABIS PLANTS

The male cannabis plant is much maligned and often misunderstood. Most growers will identify and terminate male plants on sight, which is fair and reasonable in a sinsemilla garden. However, before uprooting those males the moment their balls are showing, you may wish to consider these following few things that might pleasantly surprise you.

Colorado lawmakers have backed off plans to regulate marijuana clubs, saying the state would invite a federal crackdown by approving Amsterdam-style cannabis clubs.

The state House voted Thursday to amend a bill that would have set rules for how the private clubs could work.

It was a dramatic reversal. Bring-your-own-cannabis clubs had bipartisan support in the Legislature, and the measure had already cleared the GOP Senate.

But lawmakers bowed to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who repeatedly warned lawmakers that he would veto a club measure if it allowed indoor smoking. The governor also warned that clubs, and a separate proposal to allow cannabis delivery, might invite intervention from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Adults 18 and older will be able to legally buy and cultivate small amounts of marijuana for personal use, while selling the drug to a minor will become a serious new criminal offence under the federal Liberal government’s proposed new legal-pot regime.

A suite of legislation introduced Thursday would, once passed, establish a “strict legal framework” for the production, sale, distribution and possession of pot, and make it against the law to sell cannabis to youth or use a young person to commit a cannabis-related crime.

New penalties would range from a simple police citation to 14 years behind bars.