Next week could herald the beginning of legal marijuana for both recreational and medicinal use in Ohio. Voters will decide on the Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative during Tuesday’s general election.

The initiative, denoted as Issue 3 on the Ohio ballot, would put in place an amendment to the Ohio constitution, directly changing state law to allow for the legal production, sale, possession and use of marijuana.

“Legalization, I’ve come to understand, touches so many facets of our lives,” said Cassie Young, a graduate student studying social work and public affairs and president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy at Ohio State. “The fact that (illicit substances) are illegal today harms all of us. It criminalizes behavior that should not be criminalized.”

Two things you probably haven’t been paying a lot of attention to lately:

Election Day in Ohio. (It’s not 2016 yet.)

Former boy-band star and reality TV spouse Nick Lachey. (It’s not 2003 anymore.)

Well settle in, because you have some catching up to do. On Tuesday, Ohio goes to the polls to decide if marijuana should be legal. If they vote yes, the Cincinnati native and long-ago leading man of “Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica” will automatically become one of the top weed kingpins of the Buckeye State.

It is one of the most curious ballot initiatives in the country — a synergy of B-list celebrity and entrepreneurial democracy in a culturally conservative state that you would hardly expect to lead the charge for legal pot.

United Patients Group brings medical cannabis education to the largest gathering of epilepsy support groups ever assembled to help raise awareness and erase the stigma surrounding epilepsy

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) October 31, 2015

Developers are poised to break ground on a project that could make a tiny southern Colorado town one of the nation's largest producers of legal marijuana.

The town of Walsenburg this month formally closed a $1.33 million deal with a developer to build a 332-acre campus for cannabis growing, processing and distribution, with the marijuana to be trucked 160 miles north to consumers in metro Denver. Walsenburg is a former coal mining town that never recovered when the mines closed by the 1960s, and its population has dropped to fewer than 3,000 residents. InHuerfano County, which is home to Walsenburg, 20% of the population lives below poverty level.

Nick Lachey husband, father, singer, TV host...and potential marijuana kingpin. Yep, you read that right.

Candidates vying for the presidency diverged this week quite a bit, with Bernie Sanders on one end, supporting the descheduling of marijuana as a controlled substance, effectively ending federal cannabis prohibition and Republicans Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina

Taking advantage of a 2014 Justice Department memo giving Indian tribes a green light to participate in marijuana commerce, as well as a 2014 congressional vote allowing for industrial hemp pilot programs, Wisconsin’s Menominee Tribe earlier this year planted some 30,000 cannabis plants as part of a pilot project with the College of the Menominee Nation.

Last Friday, the DEA came and cut them all down.

NASHUA, N.H. — Criminal justice — an issue thrust into the Democratic primary fight by bipartisan legislative efforts in Washington and Black Lives Matter activists on the campaign trail — has emerged as one of the clearest divides between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in their quest for the presidency.

In short, Sanders says the racial disparities in the justice system cannot be remedied without ending the federal war on marijuana and banning the death penalty. Clinton is not ready to change federal law on marijuana and says the death penalty is an important tool in the belt of federal prosecutors.

DENVER (AP) — The only statewide ballot question in Colorado next week seems like a no-brainer: Should the state keep $66 million in marijuana taxes it has already collected to spend on schools and drug-abuse prevention?

The measure arose from an accounting error two years ago, when the taxes were first approved. And it has broad support, from Democrats, Republicans, the marijuana industry and nearly every newspaper in the state.

We see a lot of stories come through about all the great things cannabis can do. But after seeing this video on the Marijuana Doctors Facebook page, it stopped us in our tracks. I cried for about five minutes after watching how this little girl's nightmare changed her Dad's mind about medical marijuana.

He's a physician, and admittedly very anti-cannabis. Things had gotten so bad, he was ready to let his daughter die rather than live a life of suffering. Left with no other medical alternatives, he turned to marijuana as a last ditch effort. If there's one story that captures all the emotion and power behind the marijuana legalization movement, it's this. Get your tissues ready...