The group supporting the measure says the bill would allow the possession of up to three ounces of marijuana for about a dozen conditions. A 3.75 percent state excise tax on retail marijuana sales would be imposed on top of the state's 6.25 percent sales tax.

Road trip!

With a marijuana legalization measure likely headed to the ballot next fall, the state Senate’s Special Committee on Marijuana is planning a visit to Colorado in January to grapple with what may lay ahead.

Senator Jason M. Lewis, a Winchester Democrat who chairs the committee, says the panel will be meeting with state officials, law enforcement, and industry players, among others.

The delegation, he said, will not be sampling the product: “I don’t think that will be required.”

The committee will take a close look at how Colorado, one of four states that has legalized the drug, handles some tricky public policy questions: regulating home grows, responding to “drugged driving,” and curbing youth consumption.

FREETOWN, Mass. —

Admittedly, it's not much to look at now. But one company says an empty lot in Freetown could become the leading facility in the world for pot.

"It's what we want as a town," said Planning Board Chairman Keven Desmarais.

The plan is a massive one: about 1 million square feet to grow and process medical marijuana at a state-of the-art facility indoors.

The company, AmeriCann Inc., won't actually sell any of the cannabis. But instead will lease the facility to licensed growers. The weed would only be used in Massachusetts, where voters overwhelmingly approved it for medical use in 2012.

Beginning in 2012, four states and the District of Columbia have voted to legalize marijuana. By this time next year, that number could well double, and then some. National polls consistently show majorities in favor of legalization, with a recent Gallup poll showing 58% support—tied for the highest level in the poll’s history.

That doesn’t mean legalization is inevitable in any given state, as the case of Ohio demonstrated earlier this month. There an initiative led by non-movement investors who sought monopolistic control of commercial pot cultivation got trounced despite spending millions of dollars.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, Massachusetts could consider completely decriminalizing cannabis in 2016. Bill H.1561, which Rep. Dave Rogers and Sen. Patricia Jehlen co-introduced in March, would reorganize the laws in Massachusetts to regulate marijuana more like alcohol. But for the time being, Massachusetts has only decriminalized cannabis for medicinal purposes.

FREETOWN — The Annual Town Meeting rolled out the red carpet for marijuana growing operations in 2013 when it rezoned a section of the business park off of South Main Street.

The Freetown action also included adult entertainment venues.

As town Planning Technician Lauren Moreau told The Standard-Times, the action lets the town satisfy the law while keeping these activities in an acceptable area.

Now the Colorado company AmeriCann's formal proposal with the Planning Board would build what will eventually be a huge — almost a million square feet huge — marijuana growing operation called the "Massachusetts Medical Cannabis Center.”

I was speaking this week with a new CEO of a new public company that is just being spun off from their parent company. Imagine all the important tasks on his plate involving investors and customers. And yet he told me his top priority is getting his employees engaged in the mission of their new company and helping them see how their industrial products are really becoming technology products and playing an important role in the lives of their customers.

He’s not alone. Gallup tells us that 87% of global employees are disengaged, so it should be the top priority for every CEO.

Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., opened up to a Gawker reporter about his marijuana use during an interview Monday. It took place ahead of the release of the Showtime documentary on Frank titled "Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank."

Frank was a member of the House of Representatives from 1983 to 2013, serving as the chairman of the Financial Services Committee. Frank has long been outspokenly liberal on a range of issues from gay marriage -- he came out as gay in the 1980s -- to marijuana use. 

Unless you live in the South, recreational weed is coming to a state near you

1. California made history in 1996, when it became the first state to legalize medical marijuana; next November, it will vote to allow recreational weed, and polls indicate the amendment will likely pass. "Then we will have reached the tipping point," says Angell, of the Marijuana Majority. "And with California having so many members in Congress, it will give a huge boost to our efforts to change federal law."

Norton Arbelaez has met some unusual people in his six years working in the medical marijuana industry, but one patient who gingerly walked into New England Treatment Access in Northampton, the latest marijuana dispensary to open in Massachusetts, took him by surprise.

The patient was seeking relief from gnawing foot pain, a pain the man said had plagued him for 70 years.

“I was really blown away when this older gentleman walked in and he described to me his experience in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II,” said Arbelaez, New England Treatment’s consultant for standards and practices. “His feet froze during that battle [in the winter of 1944], and he said he found a lot of relief from medical cannabis products.”