Philadelphia officials announced today that they will no longer prosecute marijuana possession offenses.
Category: Courts
A judge for the Federal District Court in Manhattan will hear arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of federal cannabis prohibition.
Legal Aid of Western Missouri, an organization that provides free, comprehensive civil legal services to low-income people, can now offer free legal services to indigent defendants charged with marijuana possession.
Last week, a US District Court blocked federal prosecutors from continuing a case against a medical marijuana cultivation company as a result of the current, albeit limited, congressional protections from the Department of Justice.
State-registered medical cannabis patients may sue a private employer for discrimination if they are fired for their off-the-job marijuana use, according to a first in the nation ruling issued Monday by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. “It is our hope that courts in other jurisdictions begin to apply this same rationale to patients as well as to all adults who are using cannabis responsibly off-the-job in compliance with the laws of their states,” NORML Executive Director Erik Altieri said.
Over half of all young people entered into drug treatment for marijuana are placed there by the criminal justice system and this percentage is increasing, according to data published online in the journal Substance Use & Misuse.
Federal courts have recently rejected the actions of university and college administrators who sought to inflict suspicionless drug tests on students at a public college and to restrict the First Amendment rights of marijuana law reformers at a public university. Both decisions have important national implications.