On Sunday, New Jersey governor Chris Christie set out his stall firmly against legalised cannabis on CBS’s Face The Nation, vowing to clamp down using federal law on states such as Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska that have legalised the drug.

Nearly a quarter-million dollars worth of marijuana was seized during a grow house bust in Tampa, deputies said.According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, deputies searched a home in the 15900 block of Timberwood Drive on Monday evening and confirmed it had been used to grow marijuana.Deputies seized 237 pounds of marijuana, which is valued at $240,000, and a 2007 Suzuki SUV, the report said.Ramon Soto Machado, 60, was arrested on charges of owning, leasing or renting for the purpose of trafficking, possession of a listed chemical with intent, trafficking in marijuana, manufacture of marijuana, grand theft and possession of drug paraphernalia. Machado was booked into the Orient Road Jail.

When pot is this good, people don't give up. And Florida is not giving up on medical-grade marijuana anytime soon.

In fact, in coming weeks the second political push to legalize medical marijuana in the Sunshine State via a constitutional amendment will be underway.

Last year, 58 percent of state voters approved such an amendment. However, the legislation needed 60 percent voter-approval to pass. So close, yet so far.

Now leaders of United for Care, the grassroots organization backed by a powerful Orlando attorney, John Morgan, expect to hit the ground sometime in June to build support.

Get ready for John Morgan's Traveling Marijuana Medicine Show 2.0.

United For Care, which last year put a failed constitutional amendment proposal on the November election ballot, expects to begin its main petition push in a matter of weeks to get a new proposal to voters in November 2016.

The organization, chaired by Orlando lawyer Morgan, already has a few volunteers pushing petitions. Yet it has raised little money so far for what would have to be a multimillion-dollar effort to get the issue on the ballot.

Still, it has resources from the failed 2014 campaign, including thousands of now-experienced, impassioned volunteers, ballot language that already has passed legal muster and Morgan's checkbook.

ISIS couldn’t have invented a more disabling weapon.

Sunday–Last Day of May
Rancho Mirage. It is so unbelievably hot here it’s well, it’s unbelievable. That’s how hot it is. 106 degrees with no breeze at all.

I am not at all sure why we are even here, but the son of a close relative is visiting and he had expressed an interest in playing golf. We have a super course here at the Club at Morningside and we might have played a few holes but it’s far too hot now. It is heat stroke, sunstroke weather. Cruel.

With summer just around the corner, many legislative sessions are nearing an end, but that doesn't mean the end for cannabis progress! This week brings surprising and heartwarming news from down on the bayou in Louisiana, while California’s discussing legalization, New York is gearing up to select growers for their medical program, and India just held their first ever medical cannabis conference.

U.S. Updates

CALIFORNIA

By Kyle Munzenrieder.

Almost a year ago, Gov. Rick Scott signed the Charlotte’s Web bill into law, legalizing a non-euphoric strain of marijuana for medical use in Florida. Though, so far Floridians who need that medical treatment have not been able to receive it. The law has been held up by legal challenges and bureaucratic rigamarole, but supporters and potential suppliers think that Charlotte's Web may finally roll out in Florida in late 2015 under the best case scenario, but more likely sometime in early 2016. 

A groundswell of support among everyday Americans has led to the passage of medical marijuana legislation in 23 states; however, Florida dragged its feet in approving medical marijuana legislation last year.

Although 57% of Floridians voted in favor of passing the medical marijuana measure, the total vote fell shy of the 60% required to make changes to the state's constitution.

Revised recreational marijuana bill SB 1176, died in Regulated Industries Committee on May 1, 2015.

The bill was the second attempt by Miami-Dade Senator Dwight Bullard to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. His first attempt, SB 1562, was filed last February 28. That bill also died in Regulated Industries Committee (May 2, 2014)

The difference between the original bill and revised bill was the revision “strengthened the efforts to direct revenue from the excise tax on marijuana to educational and health-related issues” according to Bullard.

In simpler terms, the new bill stated that some of the profit made by the tax on recreational marijuana would go to the Department of Health and Department of Education.

Cornelis Jan Slomp, the Dutchman who became the biggest seller of illegal drugs on the so-called Deep Web marketplace Silk Road, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Slomp sold MDMA, ecstasy, cocaine, benzodiazepine, amphetamine, LSD, and marijuana in vast quantities on Silk Road, working from his home in Holland and using the account name SuperTrips.

What made Slomp such a big target wasn't the range of drugs he sold (lots of sellers offer a variety of items on the Deep Web, a section of the internet hidden from most web browsers), but the sheer amount he was able to sell.