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Voters in Denver appear to have approved a pilot program legalizing marijuana lounges, though the vote tally remained uncomfortably close on Wednesday.

The City of Denver Cannabis Consumption Pilot Program, on the ballot as Initiated Ordinance 300, was leading by less than half a percentage point, 100,284 votes for to 96,893 votes against, according to results on Wednesday afternoon.

If this result holds and the measure passes, Denver will have finally solved the problem of where its recreational cannabis users are supposed to smoke—four years after marijuana was legalized for adults 21 and over.

Read More:http://hightimes.com/news/denver-appears-to-legalize-marijuana-social-lounges/

Last month, Kelsey Osborne of Gooding, Idaho, had her children taken away from her after she gave her daughter a smoothie with marijuana butter in an attempt to stop her severe seizures.

A month has passed and her two children are still living with their father. Kelsey is is trying to get them back.

“I didn’t ever think it would come down to this, but it did,” Osborne told KTVB. “It tore me apart.”

Her 3-year-old daughter Madyson has a history of seizures, but they became worse than ever in October.

“They would stop and come back, stop and come back with the hallucinations and everything else,” Osborne said.

Read More:http://hightimes.com/news/mom-charged-for-treating-her-daughters-seizures-with-marijuana-butter/

A little New York-California cross-fertilization of herbal consciousness took place as Martin Lee, the author of Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana, spoke in Manhattan’s East Village Thursday night about “The Future of CBD and Medicinal Cannabis.”

Lee discussed his current work with California-based Project CBD, dedicated to promoting and publicizing research into the medical uses of cannabidiol, and Emerald Pharms, his CBD-oriented dispensary in southern Mendocino County. The event was hosted by the Alchemist’s Kitchen, a new age-flavored herbal apothecary—or “botanical dispensary”—on East 1st Street. Under New York state’s medical marijuana law, the Kitchen recently launched a Bowery Cannabis Club, which specializes in CBD products.

Read More:http://hightimes.com/news/acclaimed-author-speaks-on-cbd-in-new-york-city/

Small cannabis farmers in Mendocino County, in the heart of California’s marijuana-producing “Emerald Triangle,” lost big in their attempt to write mom-and-pop cultivation into the fabric of local law on Election Day.

Marijuana is one of the chief economic drivers in rural Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties—and, for small farmers, even rivals wine in some areas of Sonoma County. In some areas, it is the main source of economic activity.

Mendocino’s so-called “Heritage Initiative,” which would have legalized cannabis cultivation nearly everywhere in the county—including on former timber land—and removed a cap on the number of cultivation permits granted, lost by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. By early Wednesday, Measure AF was losing 64 percent against to 35 percent for, according to the latest county election results.

Read More:http://hightimes.com/news/mom-and-pop-cultivation-loses-in-mendocino/

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Now that the circus known as the 2016 presidential election is finally over, and the American people have crowned Donald Trump the next Leader of the Free World, supporters of the marijuana legalization movement are left to wonder just how the new administration will handle all of this legal weed business when it comes time to take over the White House next year.

As of Tuesday’s election, voters in eight states and the District of Columbia have ended marijuana prohibition—making cannabis legal in a manner similar to alcohol.

What is the president-elect’s position on weed?

Read More:http://hightimes.com/news/will-donald-trump-sucker-punch-the-weed-industry/

Far from being the ideal companion for a long road trip, cannabis is currently one of the least-best friend for motorists—and will remain to be regardless of what happens with the recreational-marijuana legalization measures on the ballot in five states tomorrow.

Like it or not, stoned driving is a thing. Those neat studies that show stoned drivers are safer than drunk drivers are indeed neat, but for the moment, they don’t matter. (As it is, a lot of things are better than a drunk driver—which doesn’t necessarily make them great.)

Police and prohibitionists like to point to a study, conducted by our friends at the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, that revealed a big jump in the number of drivers involved in fatal crashes testing positive for marijuana in Washington state.

Read More:http://hightimes.com/news/why-marijuana-duis-are-a-problem-right-now-for-you/