Shawnee Anderson couldn’t stop crying. On the morning of Jan. 24 last year, she sat in the front seat of a red minivan parked outside her home in Napa, California, with her 11-month-old son in her lap. Roughly 20 minutes earlier, police had arrived at the one-story house, summoned by a neighbor who’d called to complain about a loud argument between Anderson and her boyfriend, Aaron Hillyer.

The couple explained that because they were low on sleep and stressed about Anderson’s first day back at work, a disagreement over who would change their child’s diaper had escalated. “This whole argument is ridiculous,” Anderson told the officers, shaking her head no when they asked if the fight had become physical.

Minister favours expungement of past convictions and is ‘open-minded’ on pill testing

British businessman Richard Branson has said the decriminalisation of drugs in Ireland would lead to a sea change in public attitudes on a similar scale as that which followed the same sex-marriage referendum.

Mr Branson, speaking at an event organised by the Citywide Drugs Crisis Campaign in Dublin at the weekend, said the abolition of criminal penalties for drugs offences would become a “non-issue” for the public once it takes place.

The Florida campaign to legalize medical marijuana received some great news this week. Below is more, via the United for Care campaign (please be aware that the donation matching is over, but you should still donate if you are able!):

We have just hit 73,713 VALIDATED PETITIONS – enough overall and in the required districts to trigger a Florida Supreme Court review of the petition.

Our work is not done, however:  We must get another 609,436 validated petitions (and Supreme Court approval, which we expect) to be placed  on the 2016 ballot.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the next phase – and we need every bit of support we can get to collect the ballots we need.

If you follow politics, or for that matter if you follow any media outlet in America, then you know that the 2016 Election is in full swing, and there are a number of candidates that are running for President of the United States. The candidate that has been receiving the most attention lately, for better or worse depending on how you feel about him, is clearly Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been a long time businessman, has been a reality TV star, and is one of the most controversial figures in America right now. Putting all of his other political views aside, how does he feel about marijuana?

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s elections chief is being sued over his investigation into the ballot petitions of a group backing a marijuana legalization effort.

A person identified as “John Doe” filed the federal lawsuit Thursday, claiming that a subpoena issued in the probe is overly broad and violates his constitutional rights. Doe, a pot issue supporter, wants the court to block the disclosure of records to the government that could contain his private political speech and his identity.

POLICE walked into a "fog" of cannabis smoke when they went to a Herefordshire flat where two men were dealing drugs, a court was told.

Joe Green, aged 23, and David Cree, 22, were living in Leominster with not a lot to do and smoking far too much cannabis, Worcester Crown Court heard.

Police went to Green's flat in Waterworks Lane on November 10 last year and saw people coming and going, Paul Whitfield, prosecuting, said. They knocked and Cree opened the door.

"They were met by a fog of cannabis smoke," Mr Whitfield said. "It was obvious what was going on."

With the race for the White House heating up, the “politics of marijuana” is looming as a possibly significant factor.

Twenty-four state ballot initiatives on marijuana legalization in 16 states have been filed already and will be voted on in November 2016, including in the “swing states” of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, and New Mexico.

WILKES-BARRE — When Les Stark of the Keystone Cannabis Coalition organized a rally in Wilkes-Barre last year, he was excited at the prospect of new state laws on medical cannabis and industrial hemp.

He’s still waiting, but the status of marijuana in Pennsylvania may be changing. Several bills are moving through the state Legislature. Stark, of Exeter Township in Berks County, is confident that when he organizes an event next year in the city, medical cannabis and farmed hemp will be legal in the state.

Legal cannabis cannabis sales in Colorado and Washington have garnered their states a combined $200 million in tax revenue since January 1st, 2014, according to the most recent data released by each state.

In Colorado, recreational and medical cannabis sales have brought in nearly $120 million in taxes and fees for the state. In Washington, legal cannabis sales have resulted in over $80 million in taxes for the state. Combined, over $200 million in taxes have been earned between the two states.

Legal recreational sales began January 1st of last year in Colorado, and began six months later in Washington.

Advocacy groups have poured millions of dollars into legalizing both recreational and medical marijuana in states across the country.

One of the most powerful and influential groups — Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project – was behind successful recreational measures in Alaska and Colorado, two of four states that now allow recreational use. MPP organizers hope to replicate those efforts in five other states during the 2016 elections, an undertaking they say will — if successful — prove significant for the effort to end marijuana prohibition.

One of them, Arizona, is a state that conservative icon Barry Goldwater called home. It frequently makes national headlines for controversial measures on immigration and gay rights.