City Commission this morning approved ballot language for a marijuana proposal that voters will consider in November. A city charter amendment sought by Decriminalize GR would make possession and use of marijuana a civil infraction enforced with a ticket, and prohibit Grand Rapids authorities from referring violations for criminal prosecution under state law...

Decriminalize GR last week submitted to the city clerk a petition with more than 10,000 signatures calling for the city charter amendment. The clerk’s office on Monday verified that the at least 6,565 of the signatures – the minimum 5 percent of registered city voters needed to get the proposal on the ballot – were valid.

If approved it would change the city’s laws to make being caught with marijuana a civil infraction punishable with only a $25 fine for the first offense. Fines would increase modestly for subsequent offenses.

Grand Rapids won’t be the only major city in Michigan voting on marijuana this November. After a lengthy two year legal battle the Coalition for Safer Detroit has an initiative that will finally be allowed to go before the voters in the city. If approved it will eliminate all local penalties for the possession of less than an ounce. Possession would still technically be illegal under state law.

A group of Arkansas drug reform activists submitted on Monday more than double the number of signatures needed to put their medical marijuana legalization initiative before the state’s voters in November.

The signatures represented the second round of petition gathering for campaigners with Arkansans for Compassionate Care, which saw its first submission of 65,413 signatures fall short after almost half of the entries were declared invalid and purged by the Secretary of State. Organizers told The Associated Press that they submitted an additional 74,000 signatures on Monday, even though they needed fewer than 30,000.

It’s not clear if voters in Arkansas, which trends deeply Republican, will approve the measure, but nationwide polling in recent years has found that an overwhelming majority of Americans favor legalizing marijuana for medical use.

...The American Nurses Association, the Lymphoma Foundation of America and the AIDS Action Council have all said that marijuana is useful in treating symptoms of numerous diseases like multiple sclerosis, AIDS wasting syndrome and chronic nausea caused by chemotherapy, among others.