COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Lawmakers could potentially place another hurdle in the path to legalizing marijuana in Ohio.

The Ohio Senate Rules Committee is considering a bill that would send an amendment to voters this November.

That amendment, if passed, would ban any future amendments granting business monopolies and enshrining property rights for individuals in the Ohio Constitution.

Senate President Keith Faber said amendments like a proposed marijuana legalization amendment or the previously passed casino amendment are bad business.

“It stifles competition, it stifles the free market, and it puts private property rights inside the state constitution, our governing document,” he said. “It’s a bad public policy.”

The U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding same-sex marriage raises some interesting questions about another taboo that is losing its might almost as rapidly. Almost half the states have already enacted legislation making it legal to use marijuana either for medical or recreational purposes. That total is likely to rise next year when seven more states vote on initiatives that would make marijuana use legal. Is there a tipping point approaching where Congress will be forced to act?

Police, prosecutors will discuss enforcement plans for July 1 event

The city's top law enforcements officials put the new First Church of Cannabis on notice Friday: Anyone who smokes marijuana at the inaugural service next week will face criminal charges.

The warning from Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Rick Hite "changes nothing," said Bill Levin, the church's founder, who pledged to move forward with plans for a service at noon Wednesday where marijuana will be smoked.

"They haven't raised the stakes," Levin said. "These have been the stakes the whole time."

On the UN's International Day Against Drug Abuse, activists in 150 cities worldwide are saying prohibition is the problem, not the solution.

On Wednesday, Minnesota steps into the strange new world of the marijuana business.

Never mind that the federal government says marijuana is as dangerous as heroin, putting both in the Schedule 1 category of controlled substances. Starting Wednesday, pot pills will go on sale as medical marijuana.

“I must say this is really very odd. We are talking about a Schedule 1 drug,” said Beth Hundley of Golden Valley, who will be buying the marijuana for her epileptic 3-year-old daughter.

The little pills contain more uncertainty than any medicine has before it.

They can’t be made by big companies, which won’t touch an illegal drug — so Minnesota has licensed two home-grown startups to do it.

GOP presidential candidates dislike legal marijuana — but some support Colorado's right to have the law (Slideshow) - Denver Business Journal

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks at an impromptu media conference on June 27,… more

Republican presidential candidates speaking in Denver this weekend uniformly criticized the state’s legalization of recreational marijuana — but also said for the most part that they would not attempt to overturn what they considered to be an issue of states’ rights.

The Costa Rican government has outlined details for implementing a pending bill to research and regulate marijuana for medical uses.

The bill was introduced by ruling Citizen Action Party legislator Marvin Atencio last year to tax marijuana products and regulate the use of medical marijuana through registration cards for patients provided by the Ministry of Health.

The first registered medical marijuana patient in Minnesota toddled across sunlit grass and into his mother’s arms.

Three-year-old Wyatt sputtered happily as Jessica Hauser swung him up, up into the air to settle on her hip.

Then Wyatt’s eyelids fluttered and his head thumped against her shoulder as he sagged in her arms. Another seizure. One of hundreds that rip through his developing brain daily, endangering his life, unchecked by all the epilepsy treatments the family has tried.

Wyatt suffered seven seizures in the time it took his parents to explain why they’ve already booked an appointment to buy cannabis oil for their son this Wednesday, the first day it will be legal.

“No seizures. Doesn’t that sound good?” Jessica crooned to her youngest.

SACRAMENTO — Regardless of one’s take on the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision on Friday forbidding states from banning same-sex marriage, it’s clear the ruling didn’t come in a vacuum. Analysts said the court “created” a new civil right, but public attitudes have shifted dramatically in recent years. The court simply gave its blessing to a cultural change that already has taken place.

We see another long-in-the-making social change on the issue of marijuana. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found 55 percent of likely California voters in favor of legalizing weed for recreational uses. Support for such an idea was barely perceptible decades ago.

The nation’s largest marijuana policy organization, the Marijuana Policy Project, has launched a voter guide to the 2016 presidential race, detailing the candidates’ positions on marijuana policy and assigning them grades based on where they stand.

The voter guide can be viewed online at http://mpp.org/president.

“Most Americans recognize that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and they think it should be made legal for adults,” said MPP Communications Director Mason Tvert. “Voters should know which candidates support rolling back prohibition and which ones are fighting to maintain it. People are becoming increasingly wary of the federal government’s role in our nation’s marijuana policies.”