Although the issue of marijuana legalization can seem straightforward in many ways — either you want medical and recreational to be bought, sold and consumed legally or you don’t — a current initiative in Ohio that would amend the state’s constitution to allow legal pot is meeting resistance from some of the people who are usually in favor of the stuff.

NPR’s All Things Considered talked to folks in Yellow Springs, OH, a college town that I knew during my time living in nearby Dayton as a happy, hippie kind of place, where peace signs and tie-dye abound. 

By Jeremy Daw

Combat veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress are hardly doing anyone harm by choosing a less toxic, safer alternative to alcohol to help soothe the stress of readjusting to civilian life, but never mind: clinical psychologist and Iraq veteran Bret A. Moore wants our vets to continue to just say no to using cannabis to treat PTSD.

In normal circumstances, this would be handled at the state level.

But since the Florida Legislature is ruled by self-serving, ideological blowhards, it is being left up to individual municipalities to have grown-up discussions about marijuana.

And in recent months, two of the state's largest metropolitan areas have decided to all but decriminalize minor marijuana possession offenses.

The Miami-Dade County Commission was the first to approve a measure that gives police the option to issue $100 civil citations — sort of like a traffic ticket — instead of charging someone with a criminal misdemeanor for possessing up to 20 grams of pot.

STEVENS POINT — When Ben Kollock first felt a swollen lymph node in his neck in the winter of 2014, he thought he had a routine cold that would pass after a few days of suffering through a runny nose and stuffy head.

But after a visit to the doctor to check it out, Kollock in February learned it was a symptom of something much worse: the then-26-year-old had leukemia, a cancer that attacks the body’s bone marrow and lymphatic system. Doctors detected the disease early, before it had a chance to spread across his body.

Not only did the early detection likely save his life, but it also set him on a course of local activism that resulted in a change of city policy regarding marijuana possession.

Two separate advocacy groups pushing for the legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts have begun collecting voter signatures aimed at a statewide ballot measure next year, reported The Republican, a news outlet based in Springfield, Massachusetts, Thursday. The groups have significant differences in thought regarding the regulation and taxation of legal weed, and both aim to have their proposals featured on the November 2016 ballot.

Just eight years old, Graciela could become Mexico's first authorized consumer of medical marijuana to alleviate the hundreds of epileptic seizures that strike her small frame every day.

A judge last month gave her desperate parents permission to get a cannabis oil despite the government's opposition in a country engulfed in a bloody drug war.

Her parents have tried a slew of treatments, including brain surgery, to ease their daughter's pain, but nothing has worked and her condition has worsened.

They now hope that cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabis compound, can finally help her -- if they can get it.

Many of us who try to stay current with legalization efforts around the country were amazed this past week when ResponsibleOhio, the group that recently qualified a full legalization initiative for the November 2015 Ohio ballot, managed to offend almost everyone, regardless of their views on marijuana legalization, with their ham-fisted attempt to be cute.

No matter who ends up at the podium giving speeches in preparation for the United States'2016 presidential election, one topic that cannot be ignored, especially during this electoral debate, is cannabis.

Despite a petition calling for the Government to legalise cannabis, and a study showing the drug is less deadly than alcohol, the Home Office is issuing "no comment" on the matter.

Last week, the parliamentary petition reached more than 200,000 signatures, meaning it would be considered for debate in the House of Commons.

At that time, the Home Office issued a crushing response claiming that "substantial scientific evidence shows cannabis is a harmful drug that can damage human health".

Alaska’s forthcoming cannabis regulations might stop homegrown bud businesses from seeing a dime from the hot-ticket marijuana investment scene developing in the Lower 48.

Outside investment raises both industry and regulatory hackles in the Alaska cannabis scene, either as the surefire road to a federal crackdown or the harbinger of boutique-killing Big Marijuana, depending on who is asked.

Due to federal law, Alaska banks and credit unions refuse to handle cannabis-related accounts or loans. Cannabis businesses without their own startup capital have few options for funding beyond bootstrapping or borrowing from private lenders.