Brazil Supreme Court decriminalises possession of marijuana for personal consumption
The Supreme Court of Brazil ruled Tuesday to decriminalise possession of marijuana for personal use by a majority vote. The nation’s highest court, in its official announcement expounding on the specifics of the session, stated that the judges also reached a consensus to dedicate an amount of money from the National Anti-Drug Fund that would be [...]
Wes Moore, governor of the US eastern seaboard state of Maryland, signed an executive order Monday pardoning 175,000 convictions related to possession of cannabis and drug paraphernalia, becoming one of the first US states to issue a mass pardon on cannabis. The order is set to include more than 150,000 misdemeanor convictions for possession of [...]
Delaware jury finds Hunter Biden guilty of lying about drug use while purchasing firearm
A federal jury in Delaware on Tuesday found Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, guilty of lying about his drug use while purchasing a firearm. The younger Biden was found guilty of three felonies: making a false statement in connection with the acquisition of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. §922(a)(6) and 924(a)(2), making [...]
New York Supreme Court Judge Kevin Bryant invalidated Thursday the state’s laws regulating the marketing of recreational cannabis, clarifying a ruling that appeared to strike down all cannabis regulations as unconstitutionally vague. Judge Bryant criticized the regulatory process and chastised the New York State Office of Cannabis Management for failing to show that the regulations [...]
Explainer: US Mass Incarceration and Its Disparate Racial Impacts
The US prides itself on being a nation built on freedom, justice, and individual rights. And yet the evolution of its system of mass incarceration — a system that cannot be defined without reference to shocking racial disparities — seems to directly contradict these founding principles. The US prison population dwarfs those of nearly every other [...]
Oregon Senate passes bill to recriminalize certain drug possession crimes
The Oregon Senate passed House Bill 4002 by a vote of 21-8 Friday, which recriminalizes certain drug possession charges that Oregon voters voted to decriminalize in 2020. Under the bill, individuals charged with possession of small amounts of drugs like methamphetamine or fentanyl will face misdemeanor charges that can result in jail time. Additionally, the [...]
A series of documents from US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials published on Friday made public the agency’s recommendation that cannabis be reclassified to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, which would allow cannabis to be prescribed by medical professionals. The grounds for the rescheduling recommendation, said officials in a formal [...]
Biden pardons and reduces prison terms of non-violent drug offenders
US President Joe Biden reduced eleven non-violent drug prison terms and pardoned potentially thousands of marijuana possession offenses under federal law or in Washington, DC on Friday. Biden used his pardon power authority under Article II of the US Constitution to pardon the offenders. This power is limited to federal offenses, and the president cannot [...]
Mackenzie Damon went to college in Ohio and worked in the Ohio House for several years before coming to the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where she is currently a 1L. State legislators in Ohio are contemplating how to respond after voters on Election Day approved two proposed constitutional amendments to protect reproductive rights [...]
A coalition of cannabis companies in Massachusetts filed a suit Thursday challenging the federal prohibition on marijuana as it applies to individual states. The suit, filed in a Massachusetts district court, names US Attorney General Merrick Garland as its sole defendant. The companies contend that the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which prohibits the cultivation, manufacturing, [...]
