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No medical marijuana fight this year

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Mar 14, 2013 at 6:51 am

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) Minnesota won't have a showdown over medical marijuana this year.

Advocates are holding off on a planned push to change the state's marijuana laws until the 2014 session. Heather Azzi of Minnesotans for Compassionate Care, a pro-marijuana policy group, said Wednesday that bills to permit marijuana for medical reasons will be introduced in the next week or two. But Azzi says they won't move through Legislature this year.

Supporters hope to latch onto efforts to relax marijuana laws in other states. But they have been unable to get Minnesota's law enforcement community to budge from its opposition. Gov. Mark Dayton has also said he wasn't interested in decriminalizing marijuana for medical or recreational use.

Minnesota lawmakers approved a medical marijuana bill in 2009, but it ran into a veto.