skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Maine Effort to Legalize Pot Would Nix Ads Aimed at Minors

play audio
Play

Thursday, May 26, 2016   

AUGUSTA, Maine – It has been a long road paved with court battles and compromise, but Maine voters will get a chance to decide whether the state should legalize pot on the November ballot.

David Boyer, who manages the Maine chapter of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, says the ballot initiative survived court challenges, but had to make some concessions in regard to protecting minors. That is fine with Boyer.

"We're not going to be advertising marijuana products to children, just like we shouldn't advertise marijuana products to children,” he states. “We can learn from the tobacco industry, and the alcohol industry. And I don't think we should repeat Joe Camel."

Joe Camel was the advertising mascot for Camel cigarettes from 1987 to 1997.

The ballot initiative that goes to Maine voters in November would put some restrictions on magazines, whose primary focus is marijuana or marijuana businesses.

The proposal says marijuana products may be sold only in a retail marijuana store or behind the counter in an establishment where people under 21 years of age are present.

Boyer says this was an easy compromise to accept because it happens to be one of the primary goals of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.

"Part of the reason that we want the regulation and legalization of marijuana is to take it out of the hands of drug dealers that don’t check IDs and don’t card and put it behind the counter," he explains.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, the U.S. attorney general refused to defend similar language in Colorado regarding pot-related magazines because he said it was "blatantly unconstitutional."

Boyer says once the measure passes, towns and cities across the state could take action to remove the restriction in their areas.




get more stories like this via email

more stories
Iowa families can apply for up to $7,600 a year for private school costs. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

An ethics committee in the Republican-led Iowa House has dismissed a complaint filed by a group of community activists against a state lawmaker for hi…


play sound

Each spring, hundreds of thousands of California high school seniors have to figure out if they can afford to go to college in the fall - and two new …

Health and Wellness

play sound

A health care workforce shortage in New Hampshire is leaving Alzheimer's patients and their families with few options for treatment. Patients facing …


South Dakota ranks 49th in the country for its contribution to indigent legal defense costs, according to a 2023 report from the Indigent Legal Services Task Force. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

South Dakota is creating an Office of Indigent Legal Services after House Bill 1057 passed the Legislature with nearly unanimous support this month…

Environment

play sound

A Knoxville-based environmental group is voicing concerns over what it sees as an increasing financial strain imposed on taxpayers by nuclear weapons …

Environment

play sound

A bipartisan law set to take effect this summer prohibits foreign adversaries from buying Hoosier farmland. The signature of Gov. Eric Holcomb was …

Environment

play sound

Traffic deaths are trending higher in Minnesota this year after a decline the previous year. Groups pushing for safer roads are convinced a small …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021