By David Klepper, The Star’s Topeka Correspondent
Source: Kansas City Star

Topeka -- The peaceful plains of Kansas wouldn’t seem to be fertile ground for medical marijuana. After all, Kansas was the first to embrace Prohibition, and one of the last to end it. Even today, you can’t find full-strength beer on a grocery store shelf.

Yet in the same week that state lawmakers voted to make Kansas the first state to outlaw a synthetic form of pot, a Wichita legislator introduced a bill to legalize marijuana with a doctor’s prescription.

By John Ingold
Source: Summit Daily News

Denver -- State lawmakers today unveiled a bill that would make major changes to Colorado's medical-marijuana industry, allowing retail-style dispensaries to remain open, but forcing them to re-organize as licensed, non-profit "health centers."

The bill would also place an 18-month moratorium on new commercial dispensaries. The bill also would require dispensaries to grow the majority of the marijuana they sell, thus eliminating freelance growers.

By Kelly Brewington and Meredith Cohn
Source: Baltimore Sun

Baltimore, M.D. -- Even as a proposal to legalize medical marijuana emerges in Maryland, a backlash over the burgeoning industry has developed in other states - and is likely to influence legislation here.

Last week, the Los Angeles City Council tried to rein in the growth of marijuana dispensaries, limiting the number to 70 and imposing tight restrictions on where and how they can operate. And in Colorado, towns are trying to shutter some of the hundreds of dispensaries that have popped up.

By Christian Thurstone
Source: Denver Post

Denver -- Colorado's public policies regarding the use of medical marijuana are a complete mess — and as the medical director of a busy adolescent substance abuse treatment program in Denver, I get to contend with this mess every day.

Take, for example, the 19-year-old whom I have treated for severe addiction for several months. He recently showed up in my clinic with a medical marijuana license. How did he get it? Easy, he said. He paid $300 for a brief visit with another doctor to discuss his "depression." The doctor took a cursory medical history that certainly didn't involve contacting me.

By Korie Wilkins and Bill Laitner, Staff Writers
Source: Detroit Free Press

Michigan -- Christopher Frizzo of Royal Oak said marijuana helps him battle symptoms of his multiple sclerosis. But during a routine traffic stop Jan. 11, police took his medical marijuana and refused to return it, said Frizzo, 47.

Although he was approved by the state to use medical marijuana, he didn't register for a state-approved caregiver to be his supplier, Frizzo admitted. His state registration card is stamped "No Caregiver."

By Barry Massey, Associated Press Writer
Source: Associated Press

Santa Fe, NM -- A proposal to tax medical marijuana in New Mexico ran into strong opposition on Friday and a House committee shelved the measure. House Bill 186 would impose a 25 percent tax on the value of marijuana grown for medical purposes.

A 2007 law allows people with certain medical conditions to get relief by using marijuana. About 1,000 patients are registered with the state.

By Colleen Slevin, Associated Press Writer
Source: Associated Press

Denver -- A bill aimed at preventing recreational pot users from skirting the law to obtain medical marijuana won initial backing in the Senate on Friday. The measure, Senate Bill 109, bars doctors from writing recommendations inside dispensaries that sell medical marijuana.

It requires that doctors review a person's medical history and give them a full exam before recommending that they become a legal user of medical marijuana. Those between 18 and 21 would have to get the approval of two doctors, which is already required for patients under 18.

By Dave Perry
Source: Aurora Sentinel

Colorado -- Here’s the dope, Aurora: Mary Jane is coming, and it looks like she’s going to stay. While Denver and much of the rest of the metro area has been inflamed by the medical-marijuana controversy, Aurora officials have decided to take a look-and-see attitude about the whole thing.

Not any more. Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates this week waved the red flag in front of apathetic city officials, making it clear that like it or not, the medical marijuana controversy is going to boil over at the state Capitol and spread right into our very own medical-marijuana-free community.

By Michael Polson, In These Times
Source: AlterNet

USA -- In the warm, luminescent glow of the dust encrusted light fixture, the carpeted and dank hallway disappears into unvacuumed recesses. Darren grabs an unobtrusive handle along the wall's flimsy wood paneling, pulls, and a crack of light pierces the gloom. Pushing aside a black screen of Hefty bags intended to block light and trap heat, he reveals his miniature grow closet. A heavy, supple branch tumbles out. It brushes my hand, leaving a telltale streak of sticky, stinky moistness. The resin goes away with a bit of water. The smell stays.

By John Ingold, The Denver Post
Source: Denver Post

Colorado -- A bill that would tighten regulations for patients seeking medical marijuana and the doctors approving it for them passed its first test at the state Capitol today. "This is the beginning of the end of the wild west" for Colorado's medical-marijuana industry, bill sponsor Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, said.

The 6-1 thumbs-up from the Senate Health and Human Services Committee came with the support of law enforcement groups eager for the state to crack down on what they say are abuses in the state's medical-marijuana system.

By Colleen Slevin, Associated Press Writer
Source: Associated Press

Denver -- Colorado lawmakers have an unlikely ally in their first attempt to curb the state's booming medical marijuana industry: owners of the some of the shops that sell pot.

Many dispensary owners say they're on board with regulations if they give them uniform guidelines and avert a more severe crackdown like one approved this week in Los Angeles. Hundreds of Los Angeles pot shops face closure after the City Council voted Tuesday to cap the number of dispensaries in the city at 70.

By Sam Jewler
Source: Time Magazine

Washington, D.C. -- It has been years in the making, derailed by Congress three times in about as many years, but medicinal marijuana could soon be heading to the nation's capital.

In 1998, voters in Washington put themselves near the forefront of the budding medical-marijuana movement when they voted nearly 7 to 3 for doctor-prescribed dope — a greater majority than those in any of the other eight statewide ballot initiatives that have passed around the country.

By Kelly Brewington
Source: Baltimore Sun

Baltimore, M.D. -- Hoping to make Maryland the 15th state in the nation to legalize medical marijuana, legislators introduced a pair of bills Tuesday in the General Assembly that would let doctors approve access to marijuana for their patients and sanction dispensaries, and even pharmacies, to distribute the drug.

The legislation would allow the use of marijuana by patients who have a "debilitating medical condition," such as seizures, severe chronic pain or severe nausea as a result of cancer treatment. They would have to register with the state and obtain marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries and pharmacies that might be interested in supplying it.

[b]Opinion
Source: New York Magazine

New York -- Now that New Jersey has legalized medical marijuana, will New York follow suit? Manhattan Assemblyman Richard Gottfried thinks so. Gottfried sponsors legislation to legalize medical marijuana nearly every year and each time it fails. He's hoping that changes this year now national momentum finally seems to be behind legalization. Gottfried's bill, which is similar to another in the state Senate, would allow the use of marijuana to treat illnesses like cancer, arthritis or H.I.V.

By Jennifer Steinhauer
Source: New York Times

California -- The Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance on Tuesday that shutters roughly 80 percent of the nearly 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries in the city and makes the use of marijuana in the remaining outlets illegal.

The vote amounts to a major setback for backers of medical marijuana and a victory for community groups that have long complained about the proliferation of the dispensaries near residential neighborhoods, schools and parks. Los Angeles has more of the outlets than any other city in the states that allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

By Jessica Fender, The Denver Post
Source: Denver Post

Colorado -- A medical marijuana bill months in the making could see more changes Tuesday when state lawmakers for the first time take up the complicated task of regulating the quickly growing industry.

In Senate Bill 109, sponsor Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, focuses on more closely linking doctors and their pot-seeking patients by breaking links between doctors and dispensaries, requiring doctors recommending marijuana to have licenses in good standing and requiring a bonafide doctor-patient relationship.

By John Romero
Source: KDVR Denver

BOULDER, Colo. - In a college town like Boulder, fake ID's are nothing new. But this is: people using fake documents to get medical marijuana.

At the Dr. Reefer dispensary, they were already on the look out for fake forms when two guys came in this morning with suspicious documents. Two doctor's recommendation forms that are used by medical marijuana patients until they get their official ID cards from the state.

By Michael Roberts
Source: Westword

Boulder, Colorado -- ​Pierre Werner, aka Dr. Reefer, is one tough hombre. "I'm a convicted felon, so I can't have any guns," he says. "The only weapons I have are my fists."

And Werner used them early yesterday morning, when two men broke into the Boulder building, at 1121 Broadway, where his medical marijuana dispensary is located. He wound up capturing one man, Robert Michael Grant, 23, described by the Boulder Police Department as a transient; Grant was booked for investigation of first-degree burglary. The second man got away, but Werner has a recommendation for him: "Man up and turn yourself in, because Boulder's finest are hunting you down."

By Stephen Webster, Raw Story
Source: AlterNet

New Jersey -- By a vote of 48 to 14 in the state's assembly on Monday, New Jersey became the 14th state in the union to make legal accommodations for the use of medical marijuana. However, California this is not.

The bill, which was supported by both outgoing Gov. John Corzine and Governor-elect Chris Christie, will likely become law this week. It restricts doctors from prescribing marijuana for anything less than a terminal illness or debilitating condition, such as cancer, AIDS or multiple sclerosis.

By John Ingold, The Denver Post
Source: Denver Post

Colorado -- Denver's City Council approved a broad set of regulations for the city's booming medical-marijuana industry Monday night over the objections of dozens of cannabis advocates who say the rules clamp down too hard on their businesses.

The regulations require the licensing of medical-marijuana dispensaries, impose 1,000-foot buffers between the shops and schools or child-care facilities, bar on-site marijuana consumption, mandate certain security procedures and prohibit felons from opening a dispensary.

By Michael Roberts in Colorado Crimes
Source: The Westword

​Pierre Werner, aka Dr. Reefer, is one tough hombre. "I'm a convicted felon, so I can't have any guns," he says. "The only weapons I have are my fists."

A 23-year-old Denver transient is facing burglary charges after Boulder police say the owner of a local medical-marijuana dispensary scuffled with two intruders and detained one during an early morning break-in Sunday.

Police responded to 1121 Broadway, which houses Dr.Reefer.com, a 2-month-old dispensary, at about 4:50 a.m. and found one suspect, Robert Michael Grant, and the owner of the dispensary, 38-year-old Pierre Werner, fighting.

Click Here to See the Video of Pierre Explaining How He Stopped the Intuders

By Kurt Bresswein
Source: Express-Times

New Jersey -- Coming down to the wire, both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature are scheduled to vote Monday on legalizing medical marijuana.

The Assembly on Thursday amended its bill to reflect months of negotiations over its version and that of the Senate. An Assembly committee last June tightened the Senate version approved last February, removing such provisions as allowing patients to grow marijuana at home.

By The Associated Press
Source: Summit Daily News

Denver -- A state lawmaker wants Colorado regulators to consider licensing medical marijuana caregivers. Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, has been working on a bill that would require medical marijuana dispensaries and growers to be licensed and submit to criminal background checks. Now he says he wants the individuals who supply the marijuana to also be licensed.

Romer plans to submit a request to the Department of Regulatory Affairs on Friday asking for their opinion. By law, the agency has two months to make a decision. If it agrees with Romer, caregiver licenses could be included in the medical marijuana regulation bill he plans to introduce during the new legislative session, which begins Wednesday.

By Bill Johnson, The Denver Post
Source: Denver Post

Colorado -- The hand-wringing by lawmakers and others over medical marijuana just tickles me, or floors me. I still cannot tell. You would think they were handing out AK-47s in the state's proliferating number of dispensaries. The Denver City Council now wants to keep them 1,000 feet away from schools.

What is that about? So, at 1,001 feet from a school, they can sell medical pot by the truckload? Please.

Editorial
Source: Denver Post

Colorado -- Efforts by Denver's City Council to impose some order on medical marijuana dispensaries through zoning regulations are understandable.

While we've advocated for the state legislature to regulate the growing industry in some way, the longer the council waits, the more difficult it will be to get a handle on the dispensaries popping up everywhere.

By Burt Constable, Daily Herald Columnist
Source: Daily Herald

Illinois -- Activists in Illinois have been fighting for years, even decades, to add marijuana to the arsenal of drugs available to help sick people. Considering that optimism for medical marijuana has been high every year since Richard Nixon was president, supporters need short-term memory loss just to give them the strength to continue banging their heads against the wall.

"It's like the 'Groundhog Day' movie," says Dan Linn, the 27-year-old Lake County native who serves as executive director of the Illinois chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML). "Every legislative session the bill gets introduced and doesn't do anything."

By John Hoeffel
Source: Los Angeles Times

California -- Prosecutors in Los Angeles insist that collectives cannot sell medical marijuana at their stores and can provide it only to members who actively cultivate it together. Dispensary operators, on the other hand, argue that it is absurd to expect them to run Soviet-style collective farms and to rule out cash payments for pot.

When the Los Angeles City Council finishes its marijuana ordinance, which may finally happen this month, it is likely to inflame this increasingly contentious debate over how the drug can be distributed.

Editorial
Source: Livingston Daily Press

Michigan -- It has been more than a year since Michigan voters determined that people, whose doctors conclude that marijuana would be beneficial in the treatment of some malady, can use pot medicinally without fear of arrest and prosecution.

It wasn't a close vote, either. Sixty-three percent of the electorate voted to approve Proposal 1 on the November 2008 ballot. If it was a politician, that kind of margin would have been considered a landslide victory. Elected officials have claimed to have "a clear mandate" on much thinner polling results than that. Cops still don't like it.

By Valerie Richardson
Source: Washington Times

Denver -- When Colorado voters passed an amendment in 2000 allowing medical marijuana use, it was not clear that they were giving the go-ahead to launch hundreds of over-the-counter pot shops across the state.

Yet that's the reality. Retail marijuana dispensaries now can be found in nearly every community in Colorado, with many popping up seemingly overnight after the Obama administration's Justice Department announced in February that it would no longer raid dispensaries in states that have legalized medical marijuana as long as they abide by state law.