The Cannabis News is a segment performed by Rick Thompson on the Planet Green Trees Radio Show every week. During the July 28 broadcast, these are the stories he covered.
Listen to the entire broadcast on The Planet Green Trees Radio Show website HERE.
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Marijuana prohibition is losing ground among Republican voters.
The times, they are a changing.
More Americans than ever before favor legalizing marijuana for recreational use, and that’s partially due to changing attitudes among Republican voters.
According to the latest polling numbers from YouGov, Americans’ support for legalization rose from 52 percent in December to 55 percent in July. Most of that change can be attributed to rising support among Republican voters.
Republicans now narrowly support marijuana legalization for the first time, with 45 percent of likely voters in favor and 42 percent opposed. Those numbers were much different in 2014, when just 28 percent of Republican voters favored legalization and 60 percent opposed such a move, per YouGov data.
Independent voters’ support for legalization registers even higher than Republicans, with 55 percent now in favor and 33 percent opposed.
Democrats maintain the strongest support for marijuana legalization, with 63 percent in favor and just 25 percent opposed.
SOURCE: http://extract.suntimes.com/news/10/153/21727/yougov-poll-republican-voters-now-support-legal-marijuana
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The Italian Parliament is gathering today to discuss a proposal for marijuana legalization. If passed, the bill on the table — similar to the proposal Colorado voters passed in 2012 — would allow the cultivation, possession and use of marijuana. Italian citizens over the age of eighteen would be allowed to grow as many as five plants for personal use, have up to fifteen grams of marijuana in their homes and possess a maximum of five grams in public. It would also authorize “cannabis clubs,” where up to fifty people could gather and smoke together.
Cannabis would be taxed at a rate of 5 percent; the government would issue licenses allowing the cultivation of marijuana for the purpose of selling it to recreational customers. The tax would be used to fund Italy’s effort to crack down on illegal drug trafficking.
SOURCE: http://www.westword.com/news/italys-parliament-votes-on-colorado-style-marijuana-legalization-8131530
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Two large “joints” passed through downtown Philadelphia Monday as marijuana advocates marched toward the Democratic National Convention’s headquarters to call for the full legalization of the leafy drug.
Members of DCMJ and the Philadelphia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws helped to carry the 51-foot-long inflatable objects shaped like marijuana cigarettes during the “Jaywalk,” a nearly four-mile jaunt down Broad Street from City Hall to the Wells Fargo Center, where the convention is about to get underway.
According to a video posted to Twitter of marchers parading the joints through the city streets, “Hillary, deschedule cannabis now” was written on the side of one of the props.
The second one read, “Berned by the DNC,” a video posted by the Washington Post showed.
A Facebook event page states that the groups are demanding “all members of the Democratic Party endorse the full legalization of cannabis.”
SOURCE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/25/marijuana-activists-march-foot-long-inflatable-joints-toward-dnc/rlOPY4KKbWjunM9iBZNp6K/story.html
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Report: 69% of Cannabis Consumers are Men
Newly released data from Cannabis Market Intelligence Platform Headset has found that nearly 69% of marijuana consumers are men, while just 31.1% are women, Forbes reported Monday.
The same data set also found that the largest percentage of recreational consumers, 20.39%, are between the ages of 25 and 29. Cannabis consumers between the ages of 21 to 34 make up 51.8% of purchases.
Interested in age? The average marijuana buyer is 37.6 years old, the average woman customer is 38.2 years old, and the average man is 37.4 years old. Seniors don’t account for much of the market: those 65 and older make up less than 5% of the customer base.
Most customers spend between $25 and $50 per trip to a cannabis shop, and $33 is the average spend, according to Headset’s data. The average customer throws down $645 a year on marijuana.
Another interesting tidbit: While flower is still the overwhelming favorite product, men tend to buy more concentrates than women, and women go more for pre-rolls, edibles, tinctures, beverages and topicals than men do.
SOURCE: http://mjbizdaily.com/report-69-of-cannabis-consumers-are-men/
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Many Oregon Localities to Vote Again on Rec
Oregon already has a recreational marijuana industry, but that’s only true in about half of the physical state. Most of eastern Oregon, and a good bit of the western half, chose to ban rec businesses after the 2014 election, but the topic will be back on the ballot this year in several dozen local communities.
That will give the rec industry in Oregon yet another chance to expand even more, and give a lot of existing medical dispensaries the chance to serve customers that they’re currently not allowed to sell to, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
So far, 46 cities and six counties have put rec on the general election ballot, according to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s website.
An additional 40 cities and 13 counties have enacted straight-out bans, where more than 55% of voters opposed rec legalization in 2014, and so local officials were allowed to pass ordinances prohibiting rec businesses without a separate vote of the people.
SOURCE: http://mjbizdaily.com/many-oregon-localities-to-vote-again-on-rec/