Voters could relax marijuana penalties [View All]

[struggle4progress]

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
By John Gramlich, Stateline.org Staff Writer

Ballot questions next month will give voters in California, Massachusetts and Michigan a chance to revisit their states’ policies on marijuana. If approved, the measures are likely to exacerbate tensions between states and the federal government over the drug.

In California and Massachusetts, voters will decide Nov. 4 whether to join 10 other states that have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a national advocacy group working to legalize the drug. Instead of facing arrest and time behind bars, those caught with up to an ounce of marijuana would be subject to civil fines of $100 or less — similar to those paid for traffic violations.

In Michigan, voters could make the state the first in the Great Lakes region to authorize “medical marijuana.” Proposal 1 on the state’s ballot would allow residents to cultivate marijuana plants and use the drug — with a doctor’s recommendation — to treat pain from cancer, HIV and other diseases. California authorized medical marijuana in 1996 and 11 states have followed, including New Mexico and Rhode Island last year ...

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