A bill to legalize medical marijuana in Ukraine that was supposed to be taken up for a final vote this week is being effectively blocked, with members of one party filing hundreds of so-called “spam” amendments to procedurally delay passage.

Ukraine’s unicameral legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, was scheduled to consider the reform measure on Wednesday. It advanced through committee last month, with the support of President Volodymyr Zelensky, and it was expected to easily pass in a final reading—but MP Olga Stefanyshina says opponents are using a time-consuming legislative tactic to keep it from enactment.

“The bill on medical cannabis is blocked in the Council,” she said in a Facebook post on Wednesday, according to a translation.

Despite “hours of negotiations” to pass and implement the reform so that “patients could get medication and pain relief as early as next year,” members of the Motherland party are forcing consideration of 226 new amendments that are meant to “exhaust” the process and “deprive the law of votes,” she wrote.

“It’s over 400 minutes of the Rada’s working time, and in fact, 2 days of a completely senseless spectacle: when amendments put on a vote just to prolong the time and prevent

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An Ohio Democratic lawmaker wants to see people who’ve been criminalized over marijuana, as well as those with industry experience, involved in any efforts to amend the state’s voter-approved legalization law, arguing that it shouldn’t be left up to “anti-cannabis” legislators alone to revise the statute.

Ohio Senate and House GOP leaders have already previewed plans to pass a package of changes to the law before possession and cultivation becomes legal next month, with a focus on potential revisions affecting tax revenue distribution, public consumption and law enforcement, for example.

But Rep. Juanita Brent (D) says it’s important that people who have been directly impacted by prohibition and who may participate in the legal marketplace have seats at the table as leadership moves ahead with possible amendments.

“If you’ve been criminalized by cannabis, the best thing you can do is come back into the field,” Brent told The Statehouse News Bureau.

“Ohioans have to remember that the people who are trying to be the loudest at the Statehouse are people who were anti-cannabis,” she said. “We cannot have anti-cannabis people leading on what’s going to happen with cannabis. We need people who are involved. We need people who have been

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With Lubbock city leaders set to consider a citizen-initiated proposed ordinance to decriminalize cannabis on Tuesday, a Texas advocacy group has released a report looking at the impacts of similar marijuana reform efforts passed by voters in five different jurisdictions during the 2022 election. It found that the measures will keep hundreds of people out of jail, even as they have led to blowback from law enforcement in some cities.

The report, from Ground Game Texas, looks at local decriminalization reforms adopted in Killeen, San Marcos, Denton, Harker Heights and Elgin. Julie Oliver, executive director for the group, said she hopes the report “inspires more grassroots organizing in communities across the state.”

“Ground Game has worked with local community organizations in these five cities to engage voters, adopt popular policies, advance meaningful criminal justice reform, and save millions of dollars in public resources,” she said in a statement released with the report on Wednesday. “Through the issue of marijuana reform, we’re helping Texans realize that their voice matters, that their vote matters, and that they can shape their own destiny through civic engagement.”

The measures have generally decriminalized marijuana possession at the local level, but in some cases they’ve also

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