News

While the fight to drag California out of the clutches of prohibition has been ugly and borderline slanderous, a recent editorial by Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom suggests the “Adult Use of Marijuana Act” (AUMA) is the smartest approach to ending the travesty of the drug war in the Golden State.

In a seeming attempt to lure in that percentage of California voters still on the fence about launching a recreational marijuana market, Newsom said that the current law has allowed too many people to be locked up for drug offenses, while the resources spent on treatment and prevention have been next to none.

“Given the high cost and ineffectiveness of the status quo, you don’t have to be ‘pro-marijuana’ to be ‘anti-prohibition,’” he wrote for the Modesto Bee.

Read More:http://www.hightimes.com/read/lt-gov-newsom-wants-californians-support-marijuana-initiative-will-it-lose-stoner-vote

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- U.S. authorities on Wednesday seized a cross-border tunnel that ran the length of four football fields from a restaurant in Mexicali, Mexico, to a newly built house in Calexico, California, following an investigation that netted more than a ton of marijuana and resulted in four arrests.

The tunnel was the 12th completed secret passage that U.S. authorities have discovered along California's border with Mexico since 2006. They have found more than 75 along the entire U.S.-Mexico border in the last five years, mostly in California and Arizona and many of them incomplete.

Drug traffickers allegedly purchased the Calexico property in April for $240,000 and finished building a three-bedroom house on the parcel for $86,000 by December. Prosecutors say the first tunnel shipment occurred Feb. 28, leading to the seizure of 1,350 pounds of marijuana in West Covina, near Los Angeles.

Read More:http://www.hightimes.com/read/cross-border-tunnel-extends-length-4-football-fields

Yesterday we witnessed the release of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, a highly anticipated movie depicting an unstoppable force and the proverbial immovable object. But what many people might overlook is that we've been witnessing a real-life battle for years beyond the confines of the movie theater between a seemingly unstoppable force known as marijuana, and the federal government which has maintained its position as the immovable object.

The real-life unstoppable force and immovable object
Marijuana has grown by veritable leaps and bounds since it was first approved by Proposition 215 in California all the way back in 1996. Today we can count 23 states as having legalized the drug for medical purposes. Additionally, since 2012 four states (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska) have legalized the sale of recreational marijuana. The result, at least for some recreation-legal states, has been explosive growth.

Read More:http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/26/marijuana-could-have-a-surprising-economic-impact.aspx

Los Angeles may have devised an unusual idea to curb the homelessness rates in the Skid Rows of old Hollywood. City officials are reportedly mulling over a plan in a series of budget talks that would utilize a portion of the tax revenue generated from the local medical marijuana industry to build more affordable housing units for local residents.

Earlier last month, the local government approved an impressive $2 billion budget plan intended get the homeless population off the streets through the implementation of a new housing project. However, according to KPCC, the challenge for administrators has been in determining exactly how the city is going to finance such an extensive construction campaign.

Read More:http://www.hightimes.com/read/los-angeles-considering-using-marijuana-taxes-help-homeless

A new survey released today by the the Associated Press and the University of Chicago finds that a record-high percentage of Americans -- 61 percent -- say they support marijuana legalization.

The survey uses the same question wording ("Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal, or not?") on marijuana as previous Gallup surveys, which had shown a previous high of 58 percent support for legalization last October.

Read More:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/25/support-for-marijuana-legalization-has-hit-an-all-time-high/

For a second year running, the U.S. Border Partrol reported drastically reduced cannabis seizures along the Mexican border—and even the mainstream media can't help making the connection to the growing trend toward legalization and tolerance in the United States. In reporting the findings,the Washington Post used the headline, "Legal marijuana is finally doing what the drug war couldn't." 

Last year, border agents confiscated some 1.5 million pounds—down from a peak of nearly 4 million in 2009. Increased domestic production in California, Colorado and Washington have driven prices down, especially at the bulk level.

"Two or three years ago, a kilogram [2.2 pounds] of marijuana was worth $60 to $90," a Mexican cannabis farmer recently told NPR. "But now they're paying us $30 to $40 a kilo. It's a big difference. If the U.S. continues to legalize pot, they'll run us into the ground.

Read More:http://www.hightimes.com/read/cannabis-interceptions-mexican-border-down-again