Ted Cruz flips position on marijuana legalization

Just a year ago, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) criticized President Obama for allowing Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes.

Now, he’s basically in favor of the same approach.

“If the citizens of Colorado decide they want to go down that road, that’s their prerogative,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “I personally don’t agree with it, but that’s their right.”

The conference is a chance for potential presidential candidates to stake out ground for 2016 and marijuana could be prime turf. Cruz, who some consider a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has expressed openness to changing marijuana laws in the past.

At a January 2014 event in Texas, he said there are “some reasonable arguments on that issue.” But he also blasted the president for ignoring federal drug laws and allowing residents in Colorado and Washington to carry out their marijuana policies.

“…Mind you these are criminal laws,” Cruz said. “These are laws that say if you do ‘X, Y, and Z’ you will go to prison. The president announced, ‘No, you won’t.’”

Earlier this week, two other presidential possibles were in the news because of pot. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) slammed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for opposing medical marijuana.

Life in prison for $20 worth of marijuana

Here’s the consequence of Congress allowing marijuana laws to remain unchanged: people like Fate Vincent Winslow will see life in prison for selling $20 worth of pot.

In 2008, the then 41-year-old homeless man sold two dime bags to an undercover police officer in Shreveport, Louisiana, according to a Daily Beast profile on Friday.

Winslow had multiple non-violent felonies on his record — including burglary and cocaine possession — and his felony conviction for selling marijuana triggered a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison without parole.

Investors lost $23.3 billion in marijuana penny stocks last year

The marijuana industry can be a great business opportunity — if you can avoid the scammers.

People who invested in small marijuana businesses using “penny stocks” lost $23.3 billion in 2014, according to VICE, which cited data analyzed by Openfolio, a social network for investors.

The penny stock market — where investors can buy stocks for less than $5 — is notoriously volatile and vulnerable to fraud, but marijuana stocks seem especially so.

Ted Hesson was formerly the immigration editor at Fusion, covering the issue from Washington, D.C. He also writes about drug laws and (occasionally) baseball. On the side: guitars, urban biking, and fiction.