Dallas Votes to Decriminalize Pot Possession, Afghan Opium Production Rising Again, More… (11/7/24)

Dallas wasn’t the one Texas locality to vote to decriminalize this week, Kentucky localities vote to permit medical marijuana companies, and extra.

Marijuana Coverage

Dallas Votes to Decriminalize Pot Possession. By a margin of practically two-to-one, voters in Dallas permitted a measure that might forestall police from arresting or ticketing folks caught with 4 ounces of marijuana or much less. Proposition R handed with 65 p.c of the vote. 

The measure additionally bars police from utilizing the odor of weed as a possible trigger for searches or seizures and blocks metropolis funds from getting used to check marijuana-related substances to see in the event that they meet the authorized definition of marijuana. 

Dallas had been the biggest American metropolis that had not decriminalized marijuana. Not anymore. 

Central Texas Cities Vote to Decriminalize Pot Possession. The small central Texas cities of Bastrop and Lockhart have joined Dallas in voting to decriminalize pot possession on Election Day. Native measures to do exactly that handed with 69 p.c of the vote in Bastrop and 67 p.c in Lockhart.

The propositions ban native legislation enforcement from citing or arresting folks for possessing lower than 4 ounces of marijuana, in most cases. Additionally they prohibit police from utilizing the odor of pot as possible trigger for a search or seizure and forbid utilizing metropolis funds to check whether or not a substance qualifies as marijuana, besides in restricted instances.

These cities now be part of Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin, Denton, and Harker Heights as cities with decriminalization ordinances. It is all a part of a marketing campaign by a gaggle referred to as Floor Recreation Texas, which seeks to move such ordinances in cities and cities statewide in order that pro-marijuana reform can “trickle up” in a state the place there isn’t any statewide initiative course of. 

“I feel it’s essential once we can’t train that statewide message, that we go away these little receipts, that that is what we would like, that is common sense coverage,” stated the group’s govt director, Catina Voellinger.

Medical Marijuana

Kentucky Cities and Counties Vote to Enable Medical Marijuana Companies. With the launch of the state’s medical marijuana program looming in January, the query of whether or not to permit medical marijuana companies to function domestically was on the poll in 53 cities and 53 counties throughout the state on Tuesday. Each certainly one of them voted to permit such companies to function. 

State legislation permits communities to “opt-out” of permitting medical marijuana companies, however these election outcomes present little curiosity in doing so. Even when that they had opted out, registered medical marijuana sufferers would nonetheless be allowed to make use of their drugs. 

“They’re not voting on whether or not folks can really possess medical hashish or use it inside their jurisdiction,” Sam Flynn, govt director of Kentucky’s Workplace of Medical Hashish, stated on Monday. “People who have medical hashish playing cards will have the ability to use their medical hashish anyplace within the state with clearly sure restrictions on the place and what kinds of medical hashish they will use.”

Localities may nonetheless vote to decide out subsequent yr, but when they do, medical marijuana companies with 2024 licenses can be grandfathered in and exempt from any ban. 

Worldwide

Afghan Opium Manufacturing on Rise Once more After Taliban Ban. The UN Workplace on Medication and Crime (UNODC) reported Tuesday that opium manufacturing is on the rise in Afghanistan two years after the Taliban banned it. Opium poppy manufacturing was up 19 p.c this yr after falling by 95 p.c in 2023. The Taliban issued its ban edict in 2022. 

UNODC estimated the quantity of land below poppy cultivation at 32,000 acres, with manufacturing shifting from its conventional heartland in southwestern Helmand and Kandahar provinces to northeastern Badakshan province. 

“Regardless of the rise in 2024, opium poppy cultivation stays far beneath 2022, when an estimated 232,000 hectares [580,000 acres] had been cultivated,” UNODC stated in a press release.

The ban has pushed up the farm gate value of opium, which helps drive up manufacturing in a rustic the place the peasantry is hard-pressed to make a dwelling. A kilogram of dry opium was going for $730 earlier this yr, up from $100 earlier than the ban.