WeedLife News Network

A federal appeals court is expected to issue a ruling soon that could pave the way to end or overturn at least six federal marijuana criminal prosecutions and convictions in California and Washington, and limit future prosecutions of medical marijuana users and dispensaries in eight Western states that allow them.

The agency gave no clue whether it will remove pot from its Schedule 1 category of dangerous drugs.

The Garden City mother who has become a face of the medicinal marijuana legalization movement in Kansas is suing the state and some of the agencies involved in questioning and removing her 11-year-old son from her home last spring after he spoke up about her cannabis use at school.

Illegal marijuana production has fallen drastically in recent years in Washington State, although law enforcement says public lands here remain a hotbed for cartel activity.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up a lawsuit filed by two of Colorado's neighboring states over its legalization of marijuana.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Marijuana legalization advocates praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to consider a lawsuit initiated by Oklahoma and Nebraska challenging Colorado’s recreational and medical marijuana laws.

New Orleans police will have even more leeway to issue citations for simple marijuana possession after the City Council voted 7-0 Thursday (March 17) to enact new standards aimed at reducing the number of arrests for low-level drug crime.

Legal marijuana may be doing at least one thing that a decades-long drug war couldn't: taking a bite out of Mexican drug cartels' profits.

With less than five months to go before medical marijuana dispensaries can open in Hawaii, business owners could be facing unique obstacles in a state of islands separated by federal waters.

PHOENIX - The fight over legalizing recreational pot in Arizona is heating up. A retired DEA agent with 18 years of experience tells ABC15 he believes it should be legalized, taxed and regulated.

NEW ORLEANS — Getting caught with marijuana in Orleans Parish could hold less penalties than getting a parking or speeding ticket.

New Yorkers may be toking more brazenly than ever before, but the NYPD says marijuana arrests are the lowest they've been in almost two decades.

Last month, the federal government sided with Colorado in a lawsuit filed with the U.S. Supreme Court by Oklahoma and Nebraska, which claim that Colorado's marijuana laws should be dismantled due to residual harm being caused across state lines. Kansas hasn't joined the suit, but its attorney general, Derek Schmidt, appears to be gathering evidence that would bolster the case being made by these states.

For a brief time Tuesday, the D.C. Council embraced a new, much more relaxed version of marijuana legalization, voting to allow pot smoking at rooftop bars, sidewalk patios and most any other place a city resident declared to be a private pot club. That lasted just about 30 minutes.

In all of the states least likely to legalize pot, possession is a felony under certain circumstances. Perhaps due to strict penalties, estimated usage rates are below average in these states.

Christmas came early for cannabis research scientists. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) decided to ease some of the regulatory requirements that had been imposed on those who were conducting FDA-approved clinical trials on cannabidiol (CBD).

Newspapers in half the states are breaking the law if they mail publications containing ads for marijuana products — even though the states have legalized pot, the U.S. Postal Service said last week.

Pittsburgh City Council is ending its 2015 legislative session on a high note, having voted Monday morning to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana within city limits.

Nothing kills a buzz like the sight of federal agents seizing tens of thousands of marijuana plants from a tribe's reservation.

"Many cannabis consumers are being forced by cops, courts and corrections officers to undergo drug treatment that they themselves don’t feel they actually need," wrote legalization advocate Tom Angell last week.