Marijuana Week in Review: The Good & The Bad

As the year comes to an end, we at AllBud.com want to look back at what a remarkable year 2014 has been for us as a new business launching and the cannabis industry. There’s so much that happened in 2014, with just a few most noteworthy included the passages of several new positive medical and recreational laws, to the opening of the Connecticut Medical Marijuana Program and Washington Recreational Marijuana Program. In fact, this week alone has been full of marijuana news, mostly good, but some bad, so here’s a quick recap of the week.

The Good From the Week of December 15th, 2014

• Congress approves amendment to forbid the federal use of funds for preventing states to legalize medical marijuana or operate their medical marijuana program.
• Illinois is set to announce the approved Illinois dispensary license applicants within a few days.
• Indiana Senator, Karen Tailan announced her plan to introduce a bill to create a medical marijuana registry and allow qualified patients to use marijuana. This is a more defined bill that she hopes will gain more traction than her past bills that failed.
• The 2014 Monitoring the Future study noted that marijuana use amongst teenagers is down, including in states where legalized medical marijuana programs are active. Even alcohol, and cigarettes are down, while e-cigarette consumption is up.
• Colorado Board of Health approved $8.4 million of grants for various studies on medical marijuana including research on childhood epilepsy, PTSD, Parkinson’s, IBS, brain tumors and more.
• An attempt to ban commercial marijuana in Anchorage, Alaska as part of the state’s future recreational program, failed to pass with a vote of 9-2.

The Bad From the Week of December 15th, 2014

• Colorado is sued by its neighbors, Nebraska and Oklahoma over marijuana legalization in Federal Court. Nebraska and Oklahoma is asking the Federal Government to strike down Colorado’s legalization.

All in all, there were many more positives for the cannabis industry this week than negative steps back. Although the Colorado lawsuit is a major downer, legal analysts and the state’s attorney general lean towards the lawsuit being meritless. So it’s a pretty great ending to the pre-Christmas week. Happy Holidays cannabis users!