Georgia’s Rep. Broun, who earlier this month lost a primary bid for the US Senate, testified last week that medical marijuana is “less dangerous than some narcotics that doctors prescribe all over this country.” Broun also noted that allowing states to experiment with marijuana laws is needed to “reserve the states’ powers under the Constitution.”

Some members of a new Republican Study Committee Taskforce on the 10th Amendment are also open to the argument. According to Friday’s vote, 21 percent of the members are for protecting medical marijuana states from federal interference, up from 11 percent two years ago.

In Sacramento, the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization advocacy group, has endorsed Igor Birman, a tea party politician looking to unseat a Democratic Congresswoman. MPP lobbyist Dan Riffle said Mr. Birman “is among the growing number of Republicans with common sense views on marijuana.”

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said recently that the state may find an administrative way to allow medical marijuana dispensaries – which, if it happens, would be the first real entrée of legal marijuana into the Bible Belt.