This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, November 8th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Several individual cities have legalized marijuana.

Colorado has imposed a new tax on the drug.

Dan Riffel, director of federal policies of the Marijuana Policy Project, will discuss that

and the likelihood that DC will soon join the ranks of areas that have legalized marijuana.

In the city of Portland, voters in Portland, Maine voted to decriminalize up to 2.5 ounces

of marijuana, so there'll be no more penalties at least under city of

Portland law for possession of up to two and a half ounces of marijuana.

However, the police chief in the city of Portland has already said he's going to

essentially bypass the the voters and continue to enforce state law in the matter.

Now Maine has decriminalized possession of marijuana by the state but there's still a

$100 fine whereas the penalty in in Portland actually is zero there is no no penalty it's completely legal under

the city of Portland under the initiative it just passed but we'll see how

the how the initiative is enforced there and whether the police chief in Portland actually continues to issue citations to marijuana users.

Around the rest of the country, three suburban cities in Michigan outside of Detroit.

Ferndale was one, a couple others in Michigan.

Also decriminalized possession of marijuana, and by decriminalized here, I mean again,

removed all penalties for possession of marijuana.

And then maybe the biggest one is in Colorado voters passed Proposition AA which puts a 15%

excise tax on wholesale sales of marijuana as well as a 10% sales tax on the sales of marijuana

to consumers in Colorado.

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