Democratic election officials are punching back at President Trump's unfounded claims that voting by mail leads to widespread fraud.

Georgia experienced major problems with its voting processes during a primary election earlier in June. People waited in line up to eight hours to cast ballots, and poll workers struggled with new machines on which they hadn’t been trained due to the pandemic.

When some Georgia voters endured a pandemic, pouring rain and massive waits earlier this month to cast their ballot, President Donald Trump and other Republicans blamed local Democrats for presiding over chaos.

The U.S. State Department has again made clear that religious discrimination against marijuana consumers is a problem in other countries—though it also once more declined to mention that such discrimination inherently occurs in the U.S. due to ongoing federal prohibition. In its latest annual Report on International Religious Freedom, the department identified about a dozen countries and territories where cannabis policies either discriminate against consumers or where marijuana laws have been reformed to better respect religious liberties. The document shows similar themes as in past years. “I’m here one more time, proudly, to talk about freedom and free societies. And while America is not a perfect nation by any means, we always strive towards that more perfect union, trying to improve,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a recent press conference on the report, which covers developments that took place in 2019. “We remain the greatest nation in the history of civilization.” Antigua and Barbuda: The Caribbean nation decriminalized cannabis, enabling the government to “uphold the religious rights of persons of the Hindu and Rastafarian faiths,” the report states. “It allows these persons to apply for a special religious license to cultivate the plant within their private dwelling, use the plant for religious purposes within their private dwelling or within their approved place of worship, and transport the plant between their private dwelling and approved place of worship.” “In the wake of decriminalization of marijuana use and cultivation for religious purposes, Rastafarian leaders continued to state publicly the government had taken steps to recognize the dignity and worth of the Rastafarian community,” the State Department noted. That said, the cannabis license for religious purposes “does not permit any commercial or financial transaction involving any part of the cannabis plant.”

Anyone transporting hemp plants in Georgia would have to carry documentation or risk arrest, according to a bill the Georgia General Assembly passed Monday. The state Senate voted 34-13 to approve the measure, which would sets rules for Georgia’s new hemp farming industry. The legislation, House Bill 847, now advances to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature or veto.The legislation would require hemp farmers and processors to obtain licenses, allow hemp sales to out-of-state businesses and raise the annual processing fee to $50,000 a year, up from a $10,000 fee set last year. The fee for growing hemp would remain at $50 per acre, up to a $5,000 maximum.“This is going to be a phenomenal industry for our state. This is a way to get it off the ground,” said state Sen. Tyler Harper, a Republican from Ocilla. Assembly approved hemp farming last year, allowing people to grow and manufacture the plant used to make CBD oil, a popular health product that’s currently imported to Georgia from other states. Hemp contains less than 0.3% THC, the compound that gives marijuana users a high.By requiring licenses to transport hemp in Georgia, the bill would empower police to enforce marijuana laws when they can’t tell the difference between legal hemp and illegal marijuana plants, which look similar but have different chemical compositions.Police could use a field test to determine whether a green leafy substance is marijuana, state Rep. John Corbett, a Republican from Lake Park, said during a committee hearing last week. Possession of CBD oil would continue to be allowed, without needing a license or documentation. Opponents of the legislation said the $50,000 processing fee would shut too many people out of a hemp industry that could benefit hard-hit farmers, especially in South Georgia. “You’re squeezing them out and making it a much smaller industry for just a few people,” state Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, a Democrat from Dawson, said during last week’s committee meeting. “That’s not right. That’s not fair.”

In the year and a half since hemp was federally legalized, various military branches have issued guidance, broadly prohibiting active duty members from using products derived from the crop despite the legal status change. But a little-noticed memo is helping to explain the trend. In February, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced a new policy barring all active and reserve service members from using hemp products, including CBD. The memo acknowledges that hemp was legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, but it said the risk of exposure to products potentially containing excess THC is too great. “These legal changes and the resulting introduction of hemp products containing up to 0.3 percent THC in the marketplace create a serious risk to the viability of the military drug testing program for a number of reasons,” Under Secretary of Defense Matthew Donovan said. The memo, which was first noted by the Uniformed Services University in March but largely went under the radar until DOD’s Operation Supplement Safety program tweeted a link to it on Monday, states that regular use of lawful hemp products could result in a positive urinalysis test for THC. Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not certify THC concentrations in CBD products that are widely available in the marketplace, it says. “Consequently, Service members cannot rely on the packaging and labeling of hemp products regarding whether the amount of THC contained in the product could cause a positive urinalysis result,” the memo continues. The department also said that because so many hemp products are being introduced, it isn’t practical for them to develop a list of individual brands that meet their standards. “Since it is not possible to differentiate between THC derived from legal hemp products and illicit marijuana, and these products could cause or contribute to a THC positive urinalysis result, I find that the use of hemp products could effectively undermine the Department’s ability to identify illicit THC use,” Donovan wrote. “Accordingly, I find that protecting the integrity of the drug testing program requires the prohibition of the use of all hemp products, subject to the exclusions set out in this memorandum, even though such a prohibition will, in some instances, extend to products the normal use of which could not cause a positive urinalysis result. I specifically find a military necessity to require a prohibition of this scope to ensure the military drug testing program continues to be able to identify the use of marijuana, which is prohibited, and to spare the U.S. military the risks and adverse effects marijuana use has on the mission readiness of individual Service members and military units.”

The Ministerial Committee on Legislation decided on Sunday to advance two separate bills that would legalize cannabis, guaranteeing the coalition’s support for them in the Knesset. The bills were submitted by Likud MK Sharren Haskel and Blue and White MK Ram Shefa. Haskel said she has fought for the bill for five years but her persistence on behalf of what she said are more than a million cannabis users paid off. “Many sick people and other cannabis users will soon be able to breathe easier,” Shefa said. “Israel will soon join liberal countries like Holland and Canada. It is taking a big step toward full legalization.” Former health minister Ya’acov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) voted against the bills. Shas’s representative on the committee, Religious Services Minister Ya’akov Avitan did not participate in the vote. Bayit Yehudi leader Rafi Peretz voted against it. “Cannabis is a dangerous drug, and if people need it, they can get it by prescription,” Litzman said. The bills state that possessing up to 50 grams or up to 2 cannabis plants in a private place for personal use (grown under natural light) would not be a crime. Possessing more than that would still be subject to a large fine and using cannabis in public would remain illegal. Those who have been convicted of using cannabis privately could ask for their convictions to be canceled. The private use of cannabis would be permitted to Israelis from the age of 21, with the exception of those working in security positions. In addition, it would be prohibited to drive while using cannabis, and an advocacy fund will be set up to educate people in schools about the dangers of using cannabis and to prevent addictions. All advertising restrictions relating to tobacco would also apply to cannabis products. If the bill passes, it could pave the way for the establishment of cannabis retail outlets in Israel. The bills are expected to pass a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum on Wednesday and then will be combined in committee. They will then be brought back through the legislative process as a government-sponsored bill and will then have to pass three more times each in the plenum and committee to become law. Meretz faction chair Tamar Zandberg said she hopes the process of legislating the bills is completed as soon as possible.

Every time a medical marijuana patient gets behind the wheel of a car in Pennsylvania, they face risk of arrest and imprisonment, even if they’re completely sober and fine to drive. Under current state law, any trace of THC or its metabolites in their blood can be charged as driving under the influence (DUI). But a new bill introduced this week would change that by exempting legal medical cannabis use from the state’s law against DUI. Under the proposal, police would have to demonstrate that a state-licensed patient was actually impaired on the road rather than simply provide evidence of past use. “We need to ensure that the legal use of this medicine does not give rise to a criminal conviction,” state Sen. Camera Bartolotta (R), who introduced the legislation Friday, said in a statement about her bill. “Patients fought tooth and nail for years to see the use of medical cannabis legalized to treat a variety of terrible health conditions. They should have the peace of mind to know that they will not be punished later for using their prescriptions responsibly.” Pennsylvania legalized medical marijuana in 2016, with the first dispensaries in the state opening in 2018. But the state’s zero-tolerance DUI law still doesn’t reflect those changes. Because it criminalizes the presence of any THC or its metabolites in a driver’s blood—which can be detected for weeks after a person’s last use—the law puts virtually all medical marijuana patients at risk, even if it’s been days since their last use and they show no signs of impairment. Bartolotta’s bill would require officers to prove a registered patient was actually impaired on the road. The measure was “created in cooperation with patients, attorneys, and the Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association,” her office said, and “would prevent patients from being arrested and prosecuted for legally using medical cannabis that does not affect a driver’s ability to safely operate a vehicle.” “Unfortunately, Pennsylvania’s ‘zero tolerance’ driving under the influence (DUI) law does not contemplate the difference between medicinal and recreational use of marijuana,” the senator wrote in a cosponsorship memo to colleagues last month. “Because of this, unimpaired patients currently face the risk of being arrested, prosecuted and convicted for using medicinal marijuana that has no bearing on their ability to drive a vehicle.” “Given the very serious consequences of a DUI conviction, my legislation will provide critical protections for medicinal cannabis patients by ensuring responsible use of their legal medicine does not give rise to a criminal conviction,” she said.

US Senator Bernie Sanders said Wednesday that Congress should federally legalize marijuana as another step toward enacting policing reform and addressing racial injustices. During a speech on the Senate floor, Sanders discussed a wide range of changes that he feels should be implemented to policing and criminal justice policies. The former presidential candidate is one of several policymakers who have recently argued that ending the criminalization of cannabis could mitigate unnecessary law enforcement interactions amid growing outrage about police killings of black people. “Finally, and certainly not least importantly, we need to legalize marijuana,” he said toward the end of a nearly 25-minute address. “In the midst of the many crises we face as a country, it is absurd that, under the federal Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is at Schedule I, along with killer drugs like heroin.” “State after state have moved to legalize marijuana, and it is time for the federal government to do the same,” he added. “When we talk about police department reform, we must end police officers continuing to arrest, search, or jail the people of our country, predominantly people of color, for using marijuana.” The senator made similar points during a virtual town hall event with US Senator Cory Booker earlier this month. Along similar lines, US Representative Lou Correa argued during a House Judiciary Committee markup of policing reform legislation Wednesday that these policy changes should be coupled with ending marijuana prohibition in the name of racial justice.

Two members of a criminal justice task force organized by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and former rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently discussed why they feel the criminalization of marijuana is an untenable policy, with one—a former U.S. attorney general—suggesting that even drugs such as opioids and cocaine should be removed from the criminal justice system’s purview. Another member, who is also a former federal prosecutor, argued that the former vice president’s proposal to decriminalize marijuana is insufficient and should be replaced with a call for broader cannabis legalization. Former Attorney General Eric Holder said in a C-SPAN appearance last week that racial disparities in drug enforcement have long been a problem, and the solution is to treat such offenses as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice one. “Think about the crack epidemic and how we dealt with it there. We made it a criminal justice problem, we prosecuted people, we put people in jail,” he said. “Now we’re dealing with the opioid situation and now we’ve declared it—and I think correctly so and I’m not saying this is wrong—but we declared it a public health problem. Two different bodies of people—people perceived as being involved in crack, the use of crack and the use of opioids. It’s a racial component there.” “I’d like to be able to take out of the system those kinds of determinations and to put law enforcement in places that are needed. But we tend to, again, because of implicit biases, deploy law enforcement to a much greater degree in African American communities and communities of color, which results in disparity when it comes to arrest rates.” Holder said cannabis represents another example of the problem because “African Americans and whites use marijuana at roughly the same levels, yet you’re four times more likely to go to jail using marijuana if you are a person of color, if you’re black as opposed to if you’re white.” “If I could change anything, I’d want to take all of that stuff out of the system,” he said. “I think we have the possibility now, given all the protests that we have seen.” While Holder didn’t explicitly use the words “legalization” or “decriminalization” to describe his views on how drugs should be handled, those polices would generally be implicated when taking them “out of the system” of law enforcement. The former attorney general has previously said he would vote to legalize marijuana if he were in Congress, though he declined to reclassify the drug under federal law when he had the power to do so during his time leading the Justice Department. Two members of a criminal justice task force organized by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and former rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently discussed why they feel the criminalization of marijuana is an untenable policy, with one—a former U.S. attorney general—suggesting that even drugs such as opioids and cocaine should be removed from the criminal justice system’s purview. Another member, who is also a former federal prosecutor, argued that the former vice president’s proposal to decriminalize marijuana is insufficient and should be replaced with a call for broader cannabis legalization. Former Attorney General Eric Holder said in a C-SPAN appearance last week that racial disparities in drug enforcement have long been a problem, and the solution is to treat such offenses as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice one. “Think about the crack epidemic and how we dealt with it there. We made it a criminal justice problem, we prosecuted people, we put people in jail,” he said. “Now we’re dealing with the opioid situation and now we’ve declared it—and I think correctly so and I’m not saying this is wrong—but we declared it a public health problem. Two different bodies of people—people perceived as being involved in crack, the use of crack and the use of opioids. It’s a racial component there.” “I’d like to be able to take out of the system those kinds of determinations and to put law enforcement in places that are needed. But we tend to, again, because of implicit biases, deploy law enforcement to a much greater degree in African American communities and communities of color, which results in disparity when it comes to arrest rates.” Holder said cannabis represents another example of the problem because “African Americans and whites use marijuana at roughly the same levels, yet you’re four times more likely to go to jail using marijuana if you are a person of color, if you’re black as opposed to if you’re white.” “If I could change anything, I’d want to take all of that stuff out of the system,” he said. “I think we have the possibility now, given all the protests that we have seen.” While Holder didn’t explicitly use the words “legalization” or “decriminalization” to describe his views on how drugs should be handled, those polices would generally be implicated when taking them “out of the system” of law enforcement. The former attorney general has previously said he would vote to legalize marijuana if he were in Congress, though he declined to reclassify the drug under federal law when he had the power to do so during his time leading the Justice Department. Watch Holder discuss marijuana and drug policy below: In an interview with NPR that was published last week, another member of the Biden-Sanders task force, former federal prosecutor Chiraag Bains, said that while he’s encouraged that Biden has made modest evolutions in his criminal justice platform, “we need a specific agenda and it needs to be bold.” “I do see that the vice president is moving that direction,” he said. “I just think we need to do more.” Ideally, “more” will involve Biden moving past his opposition to marijuana legalization and embracing the policy change ahead of the November election. At this stage, the presumptive nominee has stopped short of backing the reform move despite its popularity, particularly among Democratic voters. Instead, he’s proposed decriminalizing cannabis possession, federally rescheduling it, expunging prior records, legalizing medical use and letting states set their own policies.