The Justice Ministry recommended to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked that the use of marijuana not be prosecuted criminally, but fined or punished by administrative sanctions, instead.

A 120-page legal opinion reviewing concerns raised by decriminalizing marijuana was first reported by the Walla website. The document notes concerns that the number of users could rise, particularly among minors; that road accidents might increase; that decriminalization of soft drugs could be a gateway to the use of more serious drugs and that leniency could make it more difficult to collect evidence against drug dealers.

View original article on Benzinga.

As per current legislation, people in Canada are allowed to possess, consume or grow cannabis for medicinal purposes — given certain conditions issued by Health Canada are met. However, recreational use of marijuana is still prohibited (and punishable) by law.

The cannabis-friendly “vacation” of yesteryear was largely spent on the living room couch, far away from prying eyes and prosecution.  

With online services like Bud And Breakfast, which allow you to browse and book 420-friendly accommodations in an Airbnb-like format, today’s cannabis-friendly vacation can be spent in luxe locales across the U.S. and far beyond. And since the Nov. 8 presidential election, when the total number of states with recreational cannabis legislation leapt from four to eight, that scope has only continued to widen.

“Is marijuana addictive? Yes, in the sense that most of the really pleasant things in life are worth endlessly repeating.” ― Richard Neville

Nothing is truly hidden from anyone. All one has to do is seek it out earnestly enough. Such is the case with weed. It’s only a matter of looking and you don’t even have to look that hard, in order to find it. Yes, it’s supposed to be illegal. But, the measures and the nature of the illegalities of Cannabis in our country are, interestingly, quite relative.  

The bill is designed to crackdown on marijuana sales on Craigslist and other websites.

The Colorado state Senate gave initial approval Monday to a measure designed to crack down on advertisements online for illicit marijuana sales.

The bill — Senate Bill 15 — would create a new criminal offense for a person to advertise the sale of marijuana without a retail license. As a level 2 drug misdemeanor, a person convicted would face up to one year in jail and a fine as high as $750.

Sen. Irene Aguilar, a Denver Democrat and the bill sponsor, told lawmakers that more than 690 ads for marijuana in Denver were found on Craigslist, a popular online classified advertising website.

Three years ago, the first of three marijuana amnesty boxes was installed at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport. The idea behind the boxes was to give fliers a way to dispose of legal cannabis before they boarded a plane bound for a destination where the substance might be against the law, and Pitkin County Undersheriff Ron Ryan considers the containers to be a success, even though weed isn't the only aromatic thing sometimes left in them.

Other examples? "Dirty diapers," Ryan says. "Garbage. And left-over Starbucks. That's one of the worst, because a lot of the drinks from there are milk-based. If they're left inside for a week, the smell becomes pretty horrendous."

With the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, the United States got a new president. And with that new president comes a long list of new appointees across various federal agencies and departments. While President Trump's cabinet selection process has played out publicly, a variety of folks from former president Barack Obama's administration have quietly stayed on.

One of the most prominent people that's staying on is the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, Chuck Rosenberg, who was appointed by former attorney general Loretta Lynch in May 2015.

Recreational marijuana sales in Oregon produced $60.2 million in state tax ­revenue in 2016, the first year of state-taxed pot sales.

For much of the year, ­marijuana sellers collected a 25 percent sales tax. 

To produce the $60.2 million in tax revenue reported by the state Department of Revenue on Friday, total retail sales of marijuana and ­pot-laced products last year would have had to equal about $241 million. 

Marijuana tax revenues ­exceeded projections, said Mazen ­Malik, senior economist for the Oregon Legislative Revenue Office. He had estimated ­marijuana sales would ­produce $44 million during the year, $16 million less than what came in.

At a school career day event recently, a few students approached San Joaquin Delta College horticulture instructor Michael Toscano and asked him, in so many words: "Can you teach me how to grow marijuana?"

They were serious, he said. With the passage of Proposition 64 last November legalizing recreational marijuana use, a brand-new industry will emerge in the years to come with legitimate jobs for those willing to learn.

Which is why Toscano is now unofficially marketing some of the classes he teaches at Delta as learning opportunities for those who want a future in the pot business.

After relaxation of rules on possession, campaigners await judgment on punishment for cultivation.

Until recently, anyone caught with cannabis twice in 12 months in Georgia faced up to 14 years behind bars. Today you can carry enough for more than 200 joints, after the constitutional court in effect decriminalised possession of the drug.

The landmark ruling follows the case of 27-year-old Beka Tsikarishvili, who was arrested in 2013 with 65 grams of cannabis, which he said was for his own use. Facing a long sentence, he argued imprisonment was unlawful because it infringed his human dignity.