States, Communities Struggling With Medical Marijuana Regulations

Whether it's the LAPD attempting to close 400 of the city's marijuana dispensaries or Montana adding nearly 20 percent more card-carrying medical marijuana users just last month, states and municipalities are struggling this summer with legislating about medical pot.

Some 15 states have passed laws that legalize medical marijuana in some form. For most of them, dispensing the drug remained a small and tentative program until October of last year. That was when the Obama administration decided to take a hands-off approach to state operations.

"It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana," Attorney General Eric Holder said then, adding all bets were off with trafficking across state "behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal."

The stance assumed the various state laws were ready to actually regulate the industry. But attitudes and rules vary greatly state-by-state and county-by-county in Patchwork Nation. What has ensued is a flood of new patients and dispensaries, the corresponding complaints against them, a few hurry-up efforts to modify the laws and, in a few isolated cases, violence against marijuana stores.

Read more at the PBS NewsHour...

In Montana, GOP Looks to Regroup After Primary Infighting

As we get further from last week's primaries and the rush of analysis on races in Nevada, Arkansas and California, there's more to say about what's happening politically at the state level. In Montana, there was only one statewide race for a sole U.S. House seat. The lion's share of candidates ran for state House and Senate seats, sheriff and judgeships.

In this year of anti-incumbent fervor, more minor races wound up contested, especially on the Republican side of the ticket. Many political commentators in the state chalked these new candidates up to the tea party movement, and some of the more contentious contests did pit more moderate Republican incumbents against harder conservatives.

In the end, though, it seems Tuesday's primary confirmed a basic truth of politics: People dislike all incumbents except their own. In Montana, only one incumbent lost a seat in the state Legislature, and that first-termer lost to a term-limited state senator who decided to switch houses in Helena. So, where, to paraphrase Bob Dole, is all the voter outrage?

For a while, it looked like it was out there and centered right in the middle of the Republican Party.

Read more at the PBS NewsHour...