Anchorage Assembly Chair Dick Traini is proposing to treat marijuana smoke like tobacco smoke when it comes to public facilities, workplaces and schools.

A measure that Traini plans to introduce next week at the Assembly meeting would incorporate marijuana and marijuana products into the city’s secondhand smoking law. That means smoking marijuana would not be allowed in public places, workplaces, child care centers, outdoor arenas, stadiums and amphitheaters and municipal facilities, including schools.

People also would not be allowed to smoke within 5 feet of the entrance to a place licensed to serve alcohol, or within 50 feet of a hospital or medical clinic entrance.

Did you know that the majority of police officers don’t get into the force to bust people for ten bags? While it might occasionally seem like that – especially if you had little else to do growing up bar smoking weed in lay-bys and cultivating your collection of stop-and-search forms – plenty of cops are tired of fighting the War on Drugs, a battle they know full well they’re never going to win.

In 2002, a group of American police who were fed up of making menial street arrests for petty drug offences set up LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), an organisation that aims to bring together law enforcement and criminal justice workers who support a system of regulation and control of drugs that currently remain illegal.

The public can now weigh in on Alaska’s first round of proposed marijuana regulations.

Local-option law and marijuana definitions are the focus of the first wave of regulations, unveiled at the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s meeting in April.

The proposed definitions include basics like what constitutes a “marijuana plant” and “edible marijuana product,” but also what it means to "possess" a plant or help someone grow marijuana.

Legalize marijuana in Michigan and the taxes could help repair roads, educate children and pay for public safety.

Those are some of the reasons Grand Rapids State Representative Brandon Dillon says the time has come to not just "decriminalize" marijuana, but make it legal, available and taxable as it is in a few states like Colorado.

"I think even people who are somewhat uncomfortable with the notion of legalization understand that what we are doing right now is not working," explains Representative Dillon. Continuing to direct precious resources to prosecute people for marijuana offenses is not in anyone's best interests."

In the state’s first checkup on recreational-marijuana stores, four of 22 stores sold marijuana to underage buyers, according to the Liquor Control Board.

The state last week announced it would use 18- to 20-year-old buyers as part of a compliance-check program launching this month.

If asked for identification, the buyers were directed either to say they did not have ID or present a real state-issued identification. People must be 21 and older to legally buy marijuana.

Brian Smith, a spokesman for the Liquor Control Board (LCB), said the agency had spent the past year educating retailers on best practices to not sell to minors.

“We recognize this is a new industry. Any news of this will spike compliance — that’s how compliance checks work,” Smith said.

Bernie Sanders has not thrown his support in favor of fully legalized marijuana just yet, but dropped a lot of hints during a question and answer session on Reddit.

Sanders did say that he supports the decriminalization of recreational marijuana in his home state of Vermont. He also gave insight into the priority of arresting people for use of the drug while he was mayor of Burlington, VA.

“When I was mayor of Burlington, in a city with a large population, I can tell you very few people were arrested for smoking marijuana. Our police had more important things to do.”

A proposed bill currently in the Illinois Senate would amend the state’s Cannabis Control Act, reducing penalties for small amounts of cannabis. And the act just might be the change Illinois needs to address racial disparities in arrests and incarceration.

In Illinois, black people make up 15 percent of the population, but account for approximately 58 percent of the state’s marijuana possession arrests, according to a June 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union. The report also noted that black people are over 7.5 times more likely to be arrested than white people for marijuana possession.

As the May 18 front-page article “Legal pot in the District is a boon for illegal dealers” reported, D.C. voters’ determination to legalize marijuana possession through Initiative 71 is having significant unintended consequences. Because residents can legally use and possess marijuana but can’t legally buy it, the illegal drug trade has increased and the city is missing out on the tax revenue it would receive if the sales were regulated.

The idea of legalizing cannabis is gaining momentum in Germany. It's getting surprising support from parts of the political spectrum that have historically been hostile to the idea. Yet the measure, if adopted, could make it harder for Germans to get marijuana.

Next month will mark 44 years since the war on drugs was declared by President Richard Nixon. It has been a categoric failure on every level, but for too long this was ignored. Now, slowly but surely, the taboo is finally breaking.

An important part of any trip in the US is making time to help break the taboo about drug policy with the support of community members. On a recent trip to Nevada, we hosted a screening ofBreaking the Taboo and panel discussion with experts and practitioners. But it was audience members who lost their children to preventable drug overdose whose voices put compelling names, faces and stories to the devastating effects of inhumane drug policy.