Michigan voters approved a measure to fully legalize marijuana on Tuesday, making it the first state in the Midwest to allow retail cannabis sales for adults 21 and older.

With 50 percent of precincts reporting, the initiative, Proposal 1, has passed, ABC News has projected.

“This is yet another historic election for the movement to end marijuana prohibition,” Marijuana Policy Project executive director Steve Hawkins said in a statement to Marijuana Moment. “Voters have once again sent a message loud and clear that it is time to legalize and regulate marijuana.”

“The victory in Michigan highlights just how widespread support is for marijuana policy reform.”

Under the new law, adults will be allowed to possess, buy and consume marijuana, and each individual can cultivate up to 12 plants for personal use. Adults may possess up to 10 ounces of cannabis at their residence.

Retail purchases will be subject to a 10 percent excise tax. That tax revenue will then be distributed to local governments, K-12 education and infrastructure projects.

Last month, the non-partisan Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency projected that the state would collect about $730 million in tax revenue in the five years after the legal system is implemented.

Proposal 1 also legalizes the cultivation and sale of industrial hemp in Michigan.

The main political action committee backing the measure was the Coalition To Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which received significant financial support from national groups including Marijuana Policy Project, Drug Policy Alliance and New Approach.

Anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana dumped more than $1 million into the opposition committee, Healthy and Productive Michigan, through its political action committee. Other opponents to the measure included the Detroit NAACP chapter and the Michigan Sheriffs Association.

Even in the final days before the election, big dollars flowed into committees on both sides. But ultimately, voters chose to usher in a new era of legalization in the Great Lake State.

This story was originally published on MarijuanaMoment.net

New studies on marijuana are churned out nearly every day, with most of them focusing on novel findings about the plant’s therapeutic potential and the implications of legalization.

But cannabis itself isn’t new. Far from it. And a study published this month in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology documents the fascinating evolution of humanity’s relationship with marijuana over the course of thousands of years of history.

Researchers compiled a trove of documents from around the world and examined earlier studies in order to “provide a critical and comprehensive evaluation, from the ancient times to our days, of the ethnological, botanical, chemical and pharmacological aspects of [cannabis], with a vision for promoting further pharmaceutical research to explore its complete potential as a therapeutic agent.”

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This story originally appeared on MarijuanaMoment.net.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) placed a marijuana-derived drug in Schedule V of the Controlled Substances Act on Thursday.

The medication, Epidiolex, contains purified cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. It was approved as a treatment option for severe forms of epilepsy by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June.

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This story originally appeared on MarijuanaMoment.net.

The number two U.S. House Democrat supports making medical marijuana available and says ending criminalization more broadly “probably makes sense,” but acknowledges that party leaders have not yet discussed moving cannabis-related legislation to passage next year should they win control of Congress in November.

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This story was originally published on MarijuanaMoment.net.

With a governor’s signature on Friday, the latest place to legalize marijuana in the U.S. isn’t a state. It’s the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)—a tiny Pacific territory with a population of just over 50,000.

Under the new law signed by Gov. Ralph Torres (R), adults over 21 years of age will be able to legally possess up to one ounce of marijuana, as well as infused products and extracts. Regulators will issue licenses for cannabis producers, testing facilities, processors, retailers, wholesalers and lounges. Home cultivation of a small number of plants will be allowed.

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