James Call - page 56

Editor’s note: This article is cross-posted on PoliticsOfPot.com.  The Sarasota Herald-Tribune has a new web page and a veteran business reporter dedicated to pot. An editor explained the move is in response to a “sea change” in state policy concerning the regulation of marijuana. The Herald-Tribune’s Medical Marijuana site is designed to follow the implementation of a medicinal marijuana law signed last month by Gov. Rick Scott and the campaign for a November ballot initiative that would further loosen state…

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Editor’s note: This article is cross-posted on PoliticsOfPot.com. The war of words in the medicinal marijuana campaign is getting personal. Amendment 2, on the November ballot, would allow doctors to use marijuana to treat pain and debilitating illnesses. If 60 percent of voters approve then the constitutional amendment would greatly reduce state regulation of cannabis. Vote No on 2 launched Tuesday a scathing attack on a group supporting the medicinal marijuana initiative. The news released lambasted a blue ribbon commission put…

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Florida’s largest teacher union went to court Wednesday to block an education bill signed into law last month by Gov. Rick Scott. SB 850 expands a school voucher program and creates a new private school scholarship program for children with special needs, a provision being implemented this month. The attorney for the Florida Education Association said he launched a “procedural attack” on how the law came to be and seeks to have it nullified. He argued lawmakers ignored a constitutional…

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Participants are lining up for a new battle over marijuana.  State regulators are working on a set of rules for a medicinal marijuana industry authorized by the Charlotte’s Web bill signed into law last month by Gov. Rick Scott. Investors are lining up lobbyists to win a piece of what industry experts expect to be a Florida market worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Florida Medical Growers, LLC, an Apopka entity that filed with the state Division of Corporations in…

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Amendment 2 opponents say plans by supporters to create a blue ribbon commission proves the opposition claim that the measure is riddled with loopholes and will increased marijuana use by minors. On Friday, Vote No on 2 called the commission a “shill group.” “They have taken this extraordinary step of forming a special interest group to masquerade as some kind of official commission that would allegedly fix Amendment 2’s flaws,” said Sarah Bascom, spokesperson for the Vote No on 2…

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Editor’s note: The following is cross-posted from Politics of Pot.com. Growing and selling marijuana or a cannabis extract is a bit more complicated than cultivating tomatoes even if the Florida Legislature did pass a medicinal marijuana bill and voters do approve a more expansive constitutional amendment in November. When the marijuana industry emerges from the underground it will sprout a host of rules governing its use. The state wants to track marijuana sales and collect taxes while the federal government,…

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Gwen Graham, the Democratic candidate in Florida’s 2nd Congressional District, Thursday pledged not to accept Congressional perks like health care subsidies and use of the House gym if elected in November. “This do nothing Congress has been more concerned with protecting the perks that they receive just by getting elected then they are in ending squabbles and getting things done,” said Graham, who is challenging two-term Republican Rep. Steve Southerland  of Panama City. The second Congressional District takes in all…

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