He calls marijuana a gateway drug to harder substances, saying “it’s a big jump between someone having a beer and smoking marijuana.” And his fellow Republicans who control the state Legislature maintain there is not enough support among their ranks for changing the law.

But that doesn’t mean the issue is not up for public debate in the Badger state. Rep. Melissa Sargent proposed bills in the state assembly during the last two sessions that would legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational use.

WASHINGTON — Sometime in the next few weeks, aides expect President Obama to issue orders freeing dozens of federal prisoners locked up on nonviolent drug offenses. With the stroke of his pen, he will probably commute more sentences at one time than any president has in nearly half a century.

Oliver Letwin MP is, according to The Independent, “probably the most powerful person in the government after the Prime Minister and Chancellor”.

In questioning the value of medicinal marijuana, Carly Fiorina said “we don’t understand how it interacts with other drugs.” In fact, there is information about marijuana’s interactions with other medications, although major clinical trials using marijuana have been limited by its legal status.

Fiorina spoke with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who asked her about the legal status of marijuana in Colorado (it also has been legalized in Washington). She said she believes in states’ rights but that legalizing marijuana is a “bad idea” (at the 30:20 mark):

An example to follow for France? Since Wednesday, the recreational use of cannabis is legal in Oregon (State northwestern United States), voters approved the referendum in Novembre. Anyone over 21 years can consume in a private place and hold 8 ounces (227 grams) and four plants at home, or walk with 28 grams.

But not buy: the first sales establishments for recreational use should emerge end of 2016 (300 already exists for therapeutic sale).

CASCADE, Colorado -- Matt Stys funnels a mound of finely ground God’s Gift, a sativa strain of marijuana, into his multicolored glass bowl and takes a hit. “It allows the images and all the things in your head to lose focus and drift away for a while,” says Stys as wisps of smoke curl from his mouth. For Stys, the images of being a noncommissioned officer running an entry control point in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 can fade away with the smoke: recollections of struggling to differentiate potential combatants from Iraqi citizens, of watching the wounded and dead flowing through his security checkpoint. Other demons in his head can waft away too, like the memories of spending his teenage years in foster care, and the moral ache of questioning the war in which he fought.

Oregonians who plan to smoke, cultivate or carry cannabis under the state's new recreational marijuana law should make sure they do it in the roughly 47 percent of Oregon where it's strictly legal.

Fifty-three percent of the state is managed by such government entities as the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service, where federal laws list marijuana in the same category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

Friday, June 5 was the deadline for medical marijuana grower-dispensary hopefuls in New York State to file their applications with the State Department of Health. Early that morning, Kurt Van de Wetering and his team at THC Health Inc. hand-delivered their application, which filled two, 5-inch-thick binders with well over 1,000 pages. THC Health was one of 43 applicants (according to Buffalo Business First) vying for just five licenses being awarded by the state. Now they wait.

The business of selling marijuana legally — for medical and recreational purposes — is expanding. But so are concerns that African-Americans are being shut out of this new industry.