It has been a relatively quiet week in the Maryland Legislature, but there were a few headlines coming out of Annapolis. On the marijuana front, a decriminalization bill co-sponsored by Senators Zirkin and Kittleman passed the Judicial Proceedings Committee by a vote of 8-3. Senate Bill 364 is now headed…
The bail review process in Maryland could be headed for some major changes as the current system is slated for review in the Court of Appeals on March 7th. Nearly eight years ago a group of detainees in the Baltimore City jail filed a class action lawsuit challenging the state’s…
It seems that sparks fly and countless news headlines appear each time the marijuana debate hits the floors of the state legislature. This past week was no different, as a spirited discussion drew unprecedented crowds, which spilled into the hallways of the Maryland State House. The issue of changing the…
The state Senate recently passed a bill that would ban the sale of grain alcohol throughout Maryland. The bill passed by a wide margin, 37 to 10 to be exact, and now awaits a vote in the House of Delegates before reaching the governor’s desk. This same bill passed the…
The legislative session has been underway for more than a month, and few fireworks have come out of Annapolis. Occasionally a story pops up about a group standing in opposition of Maryland’s strict gun laws. This past month we have seen a proposal to repeal a pro-slavery law from the…
A few months back we posted an article about a Maryland gubernatorial candidate who came out in support of marijuana legalization. Heather Mizeur, who is currently serving as a delegate in the state legislature, made numerous headlines with her public stance on legalized pot. Now the democrat from Montgomery County…
It certainly did not take long for the first marijuana focused headlines to come out of Annapolis. The legislature has only been in session for a couple of weeks, and there are already two prospective pot laws generating chatter among state law makers. The first being a proposal to legalize,…
The 2014 Maryland Legislature is officially open for business, and day one provided a few headlines worth discussing. The most notable being governor O’Malley’s comments in opposition of marijuana legalization. O’Malley was quoted as saying he is “not much in favor of it”, and that it could be “a gateway…
A completely objective means to measure one state’s gun laws against another simply does not exist. There is no cut and dry way to compare laws that are worded differently, and more importantly enforced differently. But academic institutions and lobbyist groups nonetheless love to take the abstract and put it…
The Blog posted numerous articles on the progress of marijuana legislation during this past legislative session. There were progressive ideas thrown around in the Senate and the House, but neither legalization nor decriminalization bills passed the General Assembly. The only bill to cross the governor’s desk last spring was the…