Marijuana Moment

New Mexico House Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill, With Senate Action Imminent

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 02:25:56 GMT

The New Mexico House of Representatives on Friday approved a bill to legalize marijuana in the state, one day ahead of a scheduled Senate committee hearing on that chamber’s separate proposals to end cannabis prohibition.

The legislation that cleared the House—which would allow adults 21 and older to possess “at least” two ounces of cannabis and grow up to six mature and six immature plants for personal use—recently sailed through two committees before moving to the floor, where it was approved in a 39-31 vote.

The measure is favored by reform advocates because—unlike other House and Senate reform measures that have been introduced this session—it would prioritize using tax revenue from marijuana sales to support reinvestments in communities most impacted by the war on drugs. It also stands out for including provisions to automatically expunge prior cannabis convictions.

Meanwhile, the Senate Tax, Business & Transportation Committee will take up three separate legalization bills on Saturday.

Rep. Javier Martinez (D) introduced the House legislation, which would establish a system of regulated marijuana sales. It would require rules for the market to be implemented by January 2022.

“As I dove into this work years ago, I realized that, to me, legalizing recreational cannabis is not about the money,” Martinez said on the floor prior to the vote. “It’s a great revenue source for the state, but that’s not why I’m doing it.”

“Legalizing adult use of cannabis is probably going to be good for tourism. Legalizing is probably going to be good in terms of creating jobs and a new homegrown industry,” he said. “But really when you get to the core of why I’m doing this and why I’ve worked on this for so long, it’s because I have seen the faces of the people who have most been impacted by this terrible and unwinnable war on drugs. It’s one that we cannot win.”

The Taxation & Revenue Committee approved a substitute version of the measure on Wednesday that includes a number of changes, including moving the start of legal sales back to January 1, 2022 from October 1 of this year. That would apply to existing medical cannabis dispensaries and microbusinesses, with sales for other retailers set to start September 2022.

Language was also removed in committee that earmarked tax revenue for a community reinvestment fund and a low-income patient subsidy program. The fund accounts will still be created, but it would be up to lawmakers to steer money to them in future sessions once cannabis revenue starts coming in.

Other modifications include language on regulatory authority for the cannabis market, allowing health and safety inspections of businesses, addressing workplace and employment issues, replacing fines and fees for youth who violate the law with a civil infraction penalty, stipulating that people can petition for resentencing for offenses made legal and adjusting the state excise tax on marijuana from nine percent to eight percent while giving local jurisdictions the option to levy an additional four percent tax.

On the floor on Friday, members additionally accepted a technical amendment to add back in a section of the bill that had been inadvertently deleted by committee staff.

Rep. Randal Crowder (R) offered an amendment to allow local jurisdictions to opt out of allowing marijuana businesses. But after it was pointed out to him that its broad language would have unintentionally impacted medical cannabis operations as well as recreational ones, he withdrew it. A second, revised version, was more narrowly drafted to focus only on adult-use operations, but it was blocked by a successful motion to table it.

“Cannabis legalization in New Mexico is one step closer to the finish line,” Emily Kaltenbach, senior director of resident States and New Mexico for the Drug Policy Alliance, said after the vote. “After tonight’s debate, we’re even more optimistic that this bill has a path to the governor’s desk.”

She argued that the House bill is superior to the three measures the Senate panel will take on Saturday.

“Given HB 12 puts the lives of New Mexicans ahead of solely business interests, it is critical it be the vehicle for legalization as the issue moves forward,” she said. “HB 12 legalizes cannabis in an equitable way that begins to repair the harms that have disproportionately impacted Hispanic/Latinx, Black, Native and Indigenous people in New Mexico. New Mexicans are absolutely ready to see marijuana legalization become a reality in the state, but they have made it clear that repairing the damage done by the drug war is non-negotiable.”

For her part, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has repeatedly talked about the need to legalize as a means to boost the economy, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic. She said during a State of the State address last month that “a crisis like the one we’ve experienced last year can be viewed as a loss or as an invitation to rethink the status quo—to be ambitious and creative and bold.”

The governor also included cannabis legalization as part of her 2021 legislative agenda that she released last month and said in a recent interview that she’s “still really optimistic about cannabis” this session.

That optimism is bolstered by the fact that several anti-legalization Democrats, including the Senate president pro tem and the Finance Committee chair, were ousted by progressive primary challengers last year.

Additional pressure to end cannabis prohibition this year is coming from neighboring Arizona, where voters approved legalization in November and where sales officially launched earlier this month.

New Mexico shares another border with Colorado, one of the first states to legalize for adult use. Cannabis is also expected to be legalized across the southern border in Mexico, with lawmakers facing a Supreme Court mandate to end prohibition by April.

Last year, a bill to legalize cannabis for adult use passed one New Mexico Senate committee only to be rejected in another before the end of the 30-day session.

Earlier, in 2019, the House approved a legalization bill that included provisions to put marijuana sales mostly in state-run stores, but it died in the Senate. Later that year, Lujan Grisham created a working group to study cannabis legalization and issue recommendations.

Polling indicates that voters are ready for the policy change. A survey released in October found that a strong majority of New Mexico residents are in favor of legalization with social equity provisions in place, and about half support decriminalizing drug possession more broadly.

Last May, the governor signaled that she was considering actively campaigning against lawmakers who blocked her legalization bill in 2020. She also said that she’s open to letting voters decide on the policy change via a ballot referendum if lawmakers can’t send a legalization bill to her desk.

Washington Supreme Court Strikes Down Criminalization Of Drug Possession

Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.

The post New Mexico House Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill, With Senate Action Imminent appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Connecticut Marijuana Hearing Shows Governor’s Legalization Bill Likely To Be Amended After ...

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 00:48:59 GMT

Connecticut lawmakers took a full day’s worth of public testimony on Friday about Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D) plan to legalize and regulate marijuana for adults. The legislation has drawn harsh criticism from social equity advocates since its unveiling earlier this month as part of the governor’s budget, and the bill’s supporters said at Friday’s hearing that they’re open to making changes to address those concerns.

“This is not a final bill,” Lamont’s chief of staff, Paul Mounds, told equity advocates during his testimony to the legislature’s Judiciary Committee. “We want to sit at the table. We want you at the table.”

Before Friday’s official legislative hearing, a group of reform advocates critical of the governor’s proposal held a press conference to bring attention to what they say are shortcomings of the bill’s licensing, equity and criminal justice provisions. Among them, they argue the governor’s plan, SB 888, would give an overwhelming advantage to businesses in the state’s existing medical marijuana system by allowing them early control of the legal adult-use industry. That would likely make it hard for smaller applicants or Black and brown people trying to enter the new market as business owners rather than as employees.

One speaker at the press conference, Rep. Anne Hughes (D), said she would be willing to vote against the governor’s bill if it doesn’t end up including a stronger emphasis on equity.

“If we put equity applicants at the back of the line,” Hughes said, “I don’t think we can ever repair that. I don’t think we can catch up.”

Critics of the governor’s plan have drawn attention to a separate legalization bill, HB 6377, which includes additional equity measures, such as early registration for equity license applicants and funding for low-interest business loans.

Supporters of the governor’s bill struck a conciliatory tone at Friday’s hearing, denying that the two proposals are in conflict. “These bills aren’t competing,” said Jonathan Harris, a senior advisor to the governor. “They’re actually complementary.”

Jason Ortiz, a drug policy advocate and president of the Minority Cannabis Business Association who served as chair of the governor’s cannabis licensing working group last year, has been critical of Lamont’s proposal, arguing that the administration effectively ignored his suggestions for how to build an equitable industry. In a Facebook post on Thursday, he said the governor’s legalization plan “creates a white only market for an indefinite period of time.”

At Friday morning’s press conference, Ortiz said equity advocates would be happy to help strengthen Lamont’s proposal.

“We were available months ago and we’re available now. The governor just needs to pick up his phone and call Reps. [Robyn] Porter and her colleagues,” he told Marijuana Moment after the event, referring to backers of the separate legalization bill, HB 6377.

State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D), meanwhile, has said the cannabis legalization bills need to be “pulled apart and put back together,” according to The Connecticut Examiner, adding that there’s still “a lot of work to be done.”

“We need to be start taking all of these different ideas and putting them together,” House Speaker Matt Ritter (D) told the Examiner, “so we can have an actual bill to rally the votes behind.

For her part, Porter, who chairs the Labor Committee, said during Friday’s hearing that she’s confident that HB 6377’s provisions will be considered in an eventual compromise bill.

As introduced by Lamont in his budget proposal earlier this month, SB 888 would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis and purchase products from licensed stores, which would be scheduled to open in May 2022.

Homegrow would be forbidden under the plan, and some but not all marijuana-related convictions from before October 2015 would be automatically expunged. Fiscal estimates project the market could make the state more than $33 million in revenue in fiscal year 2023, growing to $97 million by 2026. Beginning in 2024, half of all state excise tax would be earmarked for municipal aid and equity spending.

Ortiz—whose criticisms were acknowledged by Lamont advisor Harris at Friday’s hearing—identified a number of criminal justices areas of the bill he said were “lacking” during his testimony to the panel, noting that SB 888 does not decriminalize home cultivation or expunge an array of cannabis convictions, including for possession of more than for ounces of cannabis.

“At the core of equity is decarceration, getting folks out of prison; decriminalization, making sure we’re not putting more people in prison; and expungement, making sure the records of whatever interaction they have don’t follow them,” he said. “SB 888 acknowledges the need for all of those, but then doesn’t actually do it in policy.”

Fascinating to watch what's unfolding in Connecticut between the cannabis bill that represents equity (HB 6377) and the cannabis bill that represents a whole lot of lip service and nothing else (SB 888, hearing now). Follow @therealcurect to stay updated and show support. https://t.co/UB6AxrC8wv

— Shaleen Title (@shaleentitle) February 26, 2021

Friday’s hearing—the first to consider the governor’s legalization proposal—drew extensive written and oral testimony. Among those who submitted statements ahead of the hearing were a number of state officials expressing their support for legalization, which is expected to bring tens of millions of dollars in state revenue.

“S.B. 888 will help create jobs, foster an emerging and growing industry in our state, and help support the state and local tax base—all areas that are critical as our state emerges from the pandemic,” wrote David Lehman, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development and a senior economic advisor to the governor.

Officials also said the policy change would align Connecticut with other nearby states, ensure limits on advertising and products designed to appeal to children, protect the rights of employers to prohibit cannabis use and support social justice.

“Legalizing cannabis means taking meaningful strides to address our state’s criminalization of cannabis to date and the disproportionate impact this has had on communities of color,” said Marc Pelka, undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning at the Office of Policy and Management.

Commissioner of Consumer Protection Michelle Seagull and others noted that nearby sources of legal, regulated cannabis are increasingly available to state residents. “Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont already have some form of a market for adult-use cannabis,” she wrote, “bills were just signed into law by New Jersey’s Governor, and New York and Rhode Island are poised to legalize adult-use this year. We cannot ignore or avoid this fact.”

That was a sentiment echoed by Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner James Rovella, who pointed out that surrounding states are enacting legalization and that “cannabis is already among us and law enforcement is dealing with it and expending resources on it.”

Department of Banking Commissioner Jorge L. Perez similarly said the governor’s proposal “recognizes that the trend nationally and in nearby states is to legalize the adult use of recreational cannabis” and that it regulates marijuana in way that “prioritizes public health, public safety, and social justice.”

Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services Commissioner Miriam Delphin-Rittmon said she appreciates that the bill “protects public health by providing adult access to safe products and preventing advertising and retail locations that would appeal to children.”

Others who submitted testimony in support include Department of Revenue Services Commissioner Mark D. Boughton, Department of Labor Commissioner Kurt Westby and Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Sibongile Magubane.

Some in law enforcement and health care submitted testimony against the legalization plan.

“The rush towards legalization of recreational marijuana ignores how profit-driven corporations hooked generations of Americans on cigarettes and opioids, killing millions and straining public resources,” said the Connecticut State Medical Society. “Connecticut has an obligation to protect the health and welfare of its citizens and rushing to legalize a potentially unsafe drug abdicates this responsibility.”

The state Police Chiefs Association, meanwhile, said it opposes the bill primarily because no qualified roadside test exists to detect cannabis-impaired driving. “While the presence of a police officer trained in Advanced Roadside Impairment Driving Enforcement (ARIDE) or the presence of a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) may potentially assist in the evaluation of a motorist,” the group said, “there is presently no legal device in which to test such operators. The DRE evaluation mentioned in this [bill] is a process which occurs after the arrest is made.”

The governor’s own written testimony ahead of Friday’s hearing underscored the drug war’s failure. “The war on cannabis did little to protect public health and safety, and instead caused significant injustices for many residents, especially people in black and brown communities,” Lamont wrote.

“One thing on which most of us agree is that social equity must be included in any adult-use market we create. While there is significant consensus around that goal, there are many different approaches as to how to best accomplish it,” he added. “This hearing is the continuation of this critical conversation.”

Despite disagreement over policy details, many expect legalization to happen Connecticut’s near future. Ritter, the speaker, said in November that legalization in the state is “inevitable.” He added later that month that “I think it’s got a 50–50 chance of passing [in 2021], and I think you should have a vote regardless.”

Should this year’s effort fail, Ritter said he will move to put a constitutional question on the state’s 2022 ballot that would leave the matter to voters. A poll released last year found that nearly two-thirds of voters (63.4 percent) either “strongly” or “somewhat” supported recreational legalization.

Marijuana Use Won’t Automatically Block People From Federal Jobs, Biden Administration Memo Says

Photo courtesy of Rick Proctor

The post Connecticut Marijuana Hearing Shows Governor’s Legalization Bill Likely To Be Amended After Equity Pushback appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Marijuana Use Won’t Automatically Block People From Federal Jobs, Biden Administration Memo Says

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 15:52:59 GMT

Admitting to past marijuana use should not automatically disqualify people from being employed in the federal government, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said in a memo distributed to agencies on Thursday. Separately, the Biden administration is instituting a new policy of granting waivers to some White House staff who’ve used cannabis.

While the extent and recency of an applicant’s use can still be factors in making employment decisions, OPM said that simply admitting to prior cannabis consumption doesn’t necessarily mean a person lacks the “suitability or fitness for a position,” as long as they commit to not use marijuana while employed.

“It would be inconsistent with suitability regulations to implement a policy of finding an individual unfit or unsuitable for federal service solely on the basis of recency of marijuana use,” Acting OPM Director Kathleen M. McGettigan wrote. “Past marijuana use, including recently discontinued marijuana use, should be viewed differently from ongoing marijuana use.”

This government-wide development comes as NBC News is separately reporting that President Joe Biden’s administration will be granting waivers for certain officials in the White House’s Executive Office of the President who have used cannabis. Again, the extent of the person’s past use can influence whether they obtain a waiver, and they must pledge to stop consuming marijuana.

“As more state laws have changed, federal agencies are increasingly encountering individuals whose knowledge, skills, and abilities make them well-qualified for a position, but whose marijuana use may or may not be of concern when considering the suitability or fitness of the individual for the position,” says the new OPM memo, which applies to most federal workers except for those dealing with classified information or who are employed in a sensitive national security position.

There are statutory considerations that agencies must still take into account, including two factors that “could be implicated by an individual’s use or possession of marijuana.” Illegal use of controlled substances without “evidence of substantial rehabilitation” is one, OMP said, and the other is “criminal or dishonest conduct.”

“However, OPM’s suitability regulations do not permit agencies to automatically find individuals unsuitable for federal employment based on either factor,” it continues. “Rather, when agencies consider the suitability or fitness of an applicant or appointee for a position, the individual’s conduct must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine the impact, if any, to the integrity and the efficiency of the Government.”

“Even where an individual has illegally used marijuana without evidence of substantial rehabilitation, agencies cannot find an individual unsuitable unless there is a nexus between the conduct and the ‘integrity or…efficiency of the service,'” the memo says.

This is a notable development that recognizes the reality that more states continue to legalize cannabis for medical and recreational purposes, and people who have used marijuana shouldn’t be discriminated against, even if it remains illegal under federal law.

The marijuana employment policy has been evolving for years, with a 2015 OPM memo similarly advising agencies against uniformly denying applicants based only on cannabis use and to instead approach hiring on a case-by-case basis. But the language and framing of the previous guidance was more critical of people who’ve used drugs, leaning into stereotypes about what such behavior means about their qualifications.

“Drug involvement can raise questions about an individual’s reliability, judgment, and trustworthiness or ability or willingness to comply with laws, rules, and regulations, thus indicating his or her employment might not promote the efficiency or protect the integrity of the service,” it said. “However, the individual’s conduct must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.”

In recent years, lawmakers have encouraged OPM to review its marijuana-related guidance for hiring. Report language was attached to a House spending bill last year that said the policy should be specifically assessed as it concerns applicants and employees whose use of marijuana is compliant with state law.

The “policies should reflect changes to the law on marijuana usage and clearly state the impact of marijuana usage on Federal employment,” it says. Identical language was inserted into 2019 appropriations legislation as well.

Reps. Charlie Crist (D-FL) and Don Young (R-AK) have attempted to codify protections for federal workers who use cannabis in compliance with state law, introducing the bipartisan legislation in 2019 and 2018.

Beyond bringing federal employment policies up to speed amid the state-level legalization movement, the guidance could widen the applicant pool and invite more talent into various agencies. Former FBI Director James Comey suggested in 2014 that he wanted to loosen the agency’s employment policies as it concerns marijuana, as potential skilled workers were being passed over due to the requirement.

“I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview,” he said at the time.

Biden, for his part, might continue to be opposed to adult-use legalization, but he does support other reforms like legalizing for medical use, decriminalizing possession, expunging prior records, modestly rescheduling the plant and letting states set their own policies. And regardless of where he stands, the fact remains that many Americans have used cannabis, meaning the administration would likely face hiring challenges if they imposed a blanket ban.

With respect to the White House policy that NBC reported, an official said that the guidelines “effectively protect our national security while modernizing policies to ensure that talented and otherwise well-qualified applicants with limited marijuana use will not be barred from serving the American people.”

“President Biden is committed to bringing the best people into government—especially the young people whose commitment to public service can deepen in these positions and who can play leadership roles in our country for decades to come,” an official said in a statement. “The White House’s policy will maintain the absolute highest standards for service in government that the president expects from his administration, while acknowledging the reality that state and local marijuana laws have changed significantly across the country in recent years.”

But former Obama administration staffer Tommy Vietor weighed in on the news about the Biden team’s move, saying it “seems similar if not the same” as the prior policy.

I don't get how this change squares with the Obama admin rules. It seems similar if not the same, but at some point there needs to be a public conversation about how the background check process is stupid and outdated. Why is the FBI asking about marijuana use in 2021? https://t.co/nWrfob4AL2

— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) February 26, 2021

There is one somewhat odd stipulation for White House workers who say they’ve used marijuana and receive a waiver. Depending on how recent that use was, they may be asked to work remotely for some amount of time, for unspecified reasons. They must also be subject to random drug testing.

Read the OPM memo on marijuana use and job eligibility below:

Memo Assessing Suitability … by Marijuana Moment

IRS Chief Says Agency Would ‘Prefer’ If Marijuana Businesses Could Pay Taxes Electronically

Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.

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Washington Supreme Court Strikes Down Criminalization Of Drug Possession

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 13:01:32 GMT

Washington State’s felony penalties against drug possession abruptly disappeared on Thursday after the state Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional. As lawmakers decide how to respond to the decision—with a bill to decriminalize all drugs having already passed a legislative committee earlier this month—some police departments and prosecutors have now announced they’ll no longer arrest or pursue cases against people over possession of small amounts.

Simple drug possession “is no longer an arrestable offense,” the Seattle Police Department said in a public statement following the ruling. “Effective immediately, officers will no longer detain nor arrest individuals” merely for having drugs.

The ruling in the case, State v. Blake, applies only to possession of controlled substances. Other state drug laws, such as those against selling or driving under the influence of drugs, are unaffected.

Meanwhile, according to The Associated Press, the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys sent a memo directing its members to drop ongoing drug possession cases and seek orders vacating convictions for past cases.

“While the legislature can change this prospectively (such action is doubtful), police officers must immediately stop making arrests for simple possession of drugs,” an official with the prosecutors group wrote in an email to Seattle police. “No search warrants. No detentions upon suspicion of simple possession awaiting canine units, etc.”

“You will need to advise your officers as to whether officers should still seize the unlawful drugs as contraband or leave them in possession of the individual,” the email continued.

BREAKING: @SeattlePD has been ordered to stop arresting criminals in possession of drugs.

Washington State Superior Court ruled today that arresting those in possession of drugs is ‘unconstitutional.’

This is the start of drug legalization in the state of WA. pic.twitter.com/nrqIOjdRVh

— Katie Daviscourt (@KatieDaviscourt) February 25, 2021

Pacific County Prosecutor Ben Haslam told The Chinook Observer that the ruling “has come as a shock to our office.”

“On the prosecutor’s office’s end, we are preparing to request the immediate release of individuals being held in custody only for simple-possession cases,” he said. “Next, we will have to quash all active warrants on pending possession cases. Moving forward, I expect we will be required to vacate charges for individuals previously convicted of possession, and I’m sure there will be many other ramifications as well.”

How long Washington’s de facto legalization of drug possession will last is an open question. The court struck down the state’s possession law over a single issue: the statute failed to require proof a defendant knowingly possessed the drugs, allowing people to be convicted without any intention of committing a crime.

In response, lawmakers could simply replace the old law with a new one that includes such a requirement. Or they could not.

The idea of reducing or removing criminal penalties for simple drug possession is growing in popularity, with Oregon voters recently replacing penalties for possession of any drug with a $100 civil fine or referral to a health assessment. A bill introduced in Washington’s legislature earlier this year would make similar changes, removing all penalties for possession of personal-use amounts of drugs and significantly expanding state funding for outreach, treatment and recovery services.

The measure, HB 1499, passed a House panel earlier this month.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision gives renewed urgency to the conversation about our state’s response to untreated substance use disorder,” the bill’s prime sponsor, Rep. Lauren Davis (D), told Marijuana Moment late Thursday. “It presents an opportunity to continue the discussion that was begun in the legislature this session with HB 1499.”

The court decision accomplishes only part of Davis’s proposal. While one prong of her plan would decriminalize drugs, the other would create a “continuum of care” to ensure access to drug treatment and recovery services—something Thursday’s ruling does not do.

“It is imperative that we stop handing down felony possession convictions that compound shame and create barriers to recovery. We must stop criminalizing symptoms of a treatable brain disease. Today’s decision does that,” Davis said. “But that alone is insufficient. It is equally important that we build out a response to substance use disorder that truly works—a robust and fully funded continuum of care ranging from outreach to treatment to recovery support services.”

Christina Blocker, communications director for the advocacy group Treatment First WA, which is working to build support for the decriminalization bill, said the ruling provides “more evidence that clearly what we are doing isn’t working and it’s time for us to change our current drug policies.”

“We need policies that treat substance use disorders as what they are—a public health issue,” she said.

King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said lawmakers should act to address the court’s action.

“While there will be a significant amount of work necessary to comply with this ruling in the courthouses throughout the state, it is equally important that the Legislature take steps now to amend this statute to correct the defect found by the Supreme Court,” he said in a statement. “The Legislature should act with a sense of urgency to add the necessary elements to make this statute constitutional this session, and not leave a defective statute on the books.”

Justices on the court weren’t necessarily setting out to legalize drugs when they undertook the case that led to Thursday’s decision. Rather than taking aim at the broader drug war, the ruling says that Washington’s possession law unconstitutionally allowed innocent people to be charged and convicted by failing to require that a defendant knew that drugs were in their possession.

“The possession statute at issue here does far more than regulate drugs,” the court wrote in a majority opinion by Justice Sheryl Gordon McLoud and signed by five of the court’s nine members. “It is unique in the nation in criminalizing entirely innocent, unknowing possession.”

The statute would criminalize a postal carrier who delivers a package containing unprescribed Adderall, the opinion says, as well as a roommate unaware the person they live with has hidden drugs in the common areas of the home.

“A person might pick up the wrong bag at the airport, the wrong jacket at the concert, or even the wrong briefcase at the courthouse,” it continues. “Or a child might carry an adult’s backpack, not knowing that it contains the adult’s illegal drugs.”

The defendant in the case, Shannon Blake, was charged with felony drug possession after police in 2016 found a small bag of methamphetamine in the coin pocket of her jeans. Blake, however, said she didn’t use drugs and was given the secondhand jeans as a gift just two days earlier.

Because Washington’s drug law didn’t require that defendants knowingly had drugs on their person, Blake was charged and convicted.

In rendering its decision Thursday, the Supreme Court vacated Blake’s conviction.

The court’s prior interpretations of the law make the statute “criminalize innocent and passive possession, even by a defendant who does not know, and has no reason to know, that drugs lay hidden within something that they possess. The legislature’s police power goes far, but not that far,” the justices determined. “Accordingly, RCW 69.50.4013(1)—the portion of the simple drug possession statute creating this crime—violates the due process clauses of the state and federal constitutions and is void.”

Not all justices agreed the decision needed to be so sweeping. Justice Debra L. Stephens said in a separate opinion, which concurred in part and dissented in part with the majority, that the court could break from its past holdings and simply reinterpret the law to require proof that defendants knowingly broke the law. She agreed Blake’s conviction should be thrown out but argued the possession law need not be scrapped in its entirety.

“I would overrule our erroneous precedent and, considering the main arguments actually briefed in this case, read an implied intent element into the drug possession statute,” Stephens wrote. “Nearly every other state to have interpreted the model statute holds that it does [have such an element], and Blake urges us to embrace this interpretation.”

Three other justices signed a dissenting opinion, arguing that the court has interpreted Washington’s drug possession law for more than 60 years as not requiring an element of intent—and moreover, that the court’s past decisions have respected the authority of lawmakers to “criminalize conduct regardless of whether the actor intended wrongdoing.”

It’s not entirely clear how many past cases might be affected by Thursday’s ruling. Mark Middaugh, a lawyer who filed a friend-of-brief in the case on behalf of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense lawyers, told the Seattle Times that he believes the ruling could be applied retroactively, allowing anyone with a past conviction for simple drug possession to have that record thrown out.

A press release from the Washington Appellate Project, which represented Blake in the case, was comparatively understated. “Washington joins 49 other states and the federal government,” it said, “in recognizing that the unknowing possession of drugs is not a crime.”

Richard Lechich, a Washington Appellate Project staff attorney who argued the case before the Supreme Court, said justices “correctly recognized the injustice of convicting people for innocent conduct.”

“While the decision cannot rectify the harm this law caused to so many communities, particularly communities of color, it at least puts an end to it,” he said.

Lechich, however, warned Washingtonians to not to take advantage of the situation. While the possession law is off the books, he said, and some in law enforcement seem to be halting arrests and prosecutions, it’s still a risk to openly acknowledge having drugs.

“I would be very careful about that,” Lechich told Marijuana Moment. “Certainly if you were my client, I wouldn’t advise you to do that.”

Theshia Naidoo, managing director for the Drug Policy Alliance’s Department of Legal Affairs, said that the court ruling is a “perfect dovetail to the drug decriminalization bill moving through the legislature.”

“We urge legislators to immediately consider this bill and the benefits it would bring, including expanded health, harm reduction and recovery services, rather than re-enacting the harmful criminal penalties of the past that have resulted in extreme racial disparities, record drug overdoses and countless lives ruined,” she said.

Washington Lawmakers Approve Drug Decriminalization Bill In Committee Vote

Photo courtesy of Markus Spiske

The post Washington Supreme Court Strikes Down Criminalization Of Drug Possession appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

IRS wants cannabis biz to access banks (Newsletter: February 26, 2021)

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 11:22:55 GMT

KS gov medical marijuana bill filed; CT gov touts legalization plan before hearing; VA deadline; MO psychedelics bill; MT weighs cannabis restrictions

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Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig said he’d “prefer” if marijuana businesses were able to pay their taxes in direct deposits instead of having to use cash because they can’t get bank accounts.

“It’s a security issue for our employees in our taxpayer assistance centers.”

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s (D) bill to legalize medical marijuana and use revenue to fund Medicaid expansion has been officially introduced just as a House committee held back-to-back hearings on separate medical cannabis legislation.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) hosted a roundtable discussion to lay out the case for his marijuana legalization bill ahead of its first official hearing on Friday. But some equity advocates say they’re “insulted” by how he’s framing the legislation.

“This has been a long time coming. We’ve been talking about this for ages, and I think now is the time to legalize adult-use recreational marijuana in a carefully regulated way with an emphasis upon equity and justice. Now is the time.”

Disagreements among Virginia conference committee members are threatening a marijuana legalization deal ahead of Saturday’s deadline. Lawmakers are divided over a proposed delay in regulatory decisions until next session, but have reportedly settled on delaying the legalization of cannabis possession until 2024 in any case.

A Missouri representative filed a bill to allow seriously ill people to use psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, DMT, mescaline and ibogaine under the state’s Right To Try law.

The Montana House Business and Labor Committee held a hearing on bills to severely limit the number of marijuana businesses that are allowed in the state and to provide employment protections for medical cannabis patients.

/ FEDERAL

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is being sued for allegedly improperly blocking imports of hemp trimming machine components.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is testing the idea of including hemp questions in the 2022 Census of Agriculture.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) tweeted, “For 4 years, @SenLeiladeLima has been unjustly imprisoned in the Philippines for shining a spotlight on police abuses & killings during Pres. Duterte’s ‘war on drugs.’ Today, I again call on @philippinesusa to #FreeLeilaNow & cease all attacks on #HumanRights defenders.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) disclosed that she sold between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of stock in Medical Marijuana, Inc. this month.

/ STATES

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) made additional appointments to the Cannabis Regulatory Commission. Separately, he said it “might be a little bit aggressive” to expect legal marijuana sales to begin within the next six months. He also did a radio interview about legalization implementation and tweeted, “Is adult-use cannabis legal in New Jersey? Yes Yes Yes ”

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) spoke about the benefits of legalizing marijuana for the state’s farmers. Separately, the lieutenant governor replaced the cannabis and LGBT flags that Republicans keep having removed from his office with even bigger ones.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) tweeted, “The marijuana industry, which is now partially owned by Big Tobacco, has its eye on NE as a new place to turn a profit. Previously, they hid this moneymaking motive under the guise of ‘medical’ marijuana. Now they are just pushing for full legalization.”

Alabama’s House speaker said the body will “take our time” with a Senate-passed medical cannabis bill and send it through the body’s Judiciary and Health committees.

Connecticut’s House speaker and Senate majority leader suggested that there are likely to be substantial changes to Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D) marijuana legalization bill.

The South Dakota House of Representatives approved a bill to delay the implementation of medical cannabis legalization. Separately, the Senate defeated bills to decriminalize up to an ounce of marijuana and to defelonize drug possession.

The Colorado Senate approved a bill to create a program to assist marijuana entrepreneurs. Separately, the Senate Education Committee advanced a bill to require schools to allow students to use cannabis-based medicines.

The Indiana Senate approved a bill to provide a defense to prosecution for anyone who operates a vehicle with marijuana or its metabolites in their blood as long as they don’t cause an accident. Separately, a federal judge rejected a petition to place a preliminary injunction on the state’s smokable hemp ban.

The Washington State Senate passed a bill to exclude certain felony drug convictions from counting towards a person’s criminal history score.

The Utah House Health and Human Services Committee approved a bill to allow more providers to recommend medical cannabis.

The West Virginia Senate Health Committee rejected an amendment to remove marijuana from the scope of a bill to require TANF cash assistance applicants to be drug tested.

The Georgia Senate Agriculture Committee approved a bill to revise hemp definitions.

The Idaho House Agricultural Affairs Committee delayed a planned vote on a hemp legalization bill.

The Missouri House Downsizing State Government Committee held a hearing on a bill to prevent state agencies from sharing medical cannabis patient data with the federal government.

Wyoming lawmakers are likely to consider several marijuana reform bills this year.

Massachusetts cannabis regulators are hiring a director of equity programming and community outreach.

Florida officials published an ad saying that having a medical cannabis card is not an excuse for impaired driving.

The Illinois Adult Use Cannabis Health Advisory Committee announced its meeting dates for later this year.

—
Marijuana Moment is already tracking more than 700 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
—

/ INTERNATIONAL

Morocco’s government plans to legalize farming, export and sales of cannabis for medical and industrial use.

/ SCIENCE & HEALTH

A study found that legalizing medical and recreational marijuana “reduced morphine milligram equivalents per enrollee by 7% and 13%, respectively.”

A review concluded that “while hemp inflorescence is rich in nonpsychoactive, yet biologically active cannabinoids, such as cannabidiol (CBD), which exerts potent anxiolytic, spasmolytic, as well as anticonvulsant effects, hempseed has a pleasant nutty taste and represents a valuable source of essential amino acids and fatty acids, minerals, vitamins, and fibers” and that “hempseed oil is a source of healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids, and hemp sprouts are rich in antioxidants.”

/ ADVOCACY, OPINION & ANALYSIS

A poll found that Canadians support decriminalizing drugs, 59%-41% and that they back supervised injection sites, 65%-35%.

The Alabama Democratic Party tweeted, “Legalizing cannabis for medical use is an important 1st step. However, as we move to expand the legal uses of cannabis we must also expunge convictions and release folks charged with low-level cannabis offenses. It’s past time for criminal justice reform.”

/ BUSINESS

The CEO of Hightimes Holding Corp. said the company will “definitely” go public this year, with a target date of 4/20.

A subsidiary of Acreage Holdings, Inc. is selling its Florida operations to Red White and Bloom Brands, Inc.

Indus Holdings, Inc. is acquiring the assets of the Lowell Herb Co. from The Hacienda Group.

Columbia Care Inc. closed a previously announced bought deal private placement offering worth nearly C$29 million.

Fyllo has a new COO.

/ CULTURE

“The Marijuana Conspiracy” is a new film being released on 4/20 that tells the story of a controversial 1972 Canadian study on the effects of marijuana on women.

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The post IRS wants cannabis biz to access banks (Newsletter: February 26, 2021) appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Disagreements Threaten Virginia Marijuana Legalization Deal As Deadline Approaches

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 01:37:20 GMT

Conference committee members are divided over a proposed delay in regulatory decisions until next session, but have reportedly settled on delaying legalization of cannabis possession in any case.

By Ned Oliver, Virginia Mercury

With a Saturday deadline approaching, state lawmakers in the House and Senate are still working to resolve differences over landmark legislation that would legalize recreational marijuana in Virginia.

As of Thursday evening, it was unclear whether the two chambers would be able to reach an agreement on the bill, which Gov. Ralph Northam (D) has made a priority in his final year in office.

At least one lawmaker privately doubted the legislation would pass. Others, however, remained optimistic even as they acknowledged negotiations had grown tense, suggesting a vote was possible as early as Friday.

According to five sources familiar with the talks, the primary point of contention is language sought by the Senate that would delay decisions about how the new market is regulated until next year. Members of the chamber said during hearings last month they felt the legislation was too expansive and complex to complete work on during the 45-day session.

Lawmakers in the House have resisted, arguing the delay is unnecessary, citing in-depth studies conducted by legislative analysts and Northam’s administration. House lawmakers have also expressed discomfort about voting to legalize the drug without finalizing plans for a legal marketplace, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations.

If a bill does emerge from the conference negotiations, it’s likely to disappoint civil rights advocates who have been pushing for an immediate end to criminal penalties related to the drug.

Both the House and Senate passed legalization bills that wouldn’t allow sales of recreational marijuana to begin until January 1, 2024—time both sides agree they need to set up a new cannabis authority to regulate the industry.

But they have differed over whether criminal penalties related to the drug should stay in place until legal sales begin. The House advanced legislation that wouldn’t end prohibition until 2024 while the Senate proposed legalizing possession of an ounce or less of marijuana beginning July 1 of this year.

The House, whose members worried that repealing criminal penalties before legal sales are permitted would encourage the black market, appear to have won the debate, with Senate negotiators agreeing to maintain existing criminal penalties until 2024, according to the sources.

The approach stands in contrast to a legalization bill signed by New Jersey’s governor on Monday, which immediately ended criminal penalties for possession of up to six ounces even though retail sales aren’t expected to begin until 2022 at the earliest.

Advocates had called the Senate’s position the minimum the legislature could do to address criminal penalties before the retail marketplace opens. Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, who proposed it, said it didn’t make sense to continue prosecuting people for something lawmakers had voted to legalize.

“We can’t risk more people being caught in the system for acting in ways that will soon be legal,” wrote a coalition of 25 advocacy organizations led by the ACLU of Virginia and the reform group Marijuana Justice.

Lawmakers skeptical of repealing criminal penalties before there are legal avenues to buy the drug have said they view the decriminalization legislation they passed last year, which reduced penalties for simple possession to a $25 civil fine, an adequate interim step.

Chelsea Higgs Wise, director of Marijuana Justice, countered that the approach unnecessarily allows the disproportionate enforcement of marijuana laws against Black Virginians to continue for three years. She said court data obtained by advocates shows that even with reduced fines, Black people are four times more likely than White people to face citations despite using the drug at the same rate.

“The commonwealth’s ‘decriminalization’ enforcement maintains Virginia’s racial disparities and goes against Governor Northam’s stated commitment to social equity, racial equity, and economic equity for marijuana legislation,” she wrote in a statement.

The two chambers are continuing to debate another focus for advocacy groups: how to treat people under 21 caught with the drug. As drafted, the Senate’s version would dramatically increase penalties for underage users caught with the drug, increasing the civil penalty for possession from $25 to $250 for people ages 18 to 20. Minors would face a $200 civil penalty for a first offense.

Valerie Slater, the director of RISE for Youth, which advocates for reforming the state’s juvenile justice system, said she favors the House’s approach, which would also increase penalties for underage possession, but only on subsequent offenses.

But she pointed to New Jersey’s new law as a better alternative, which calls for a written warning for a first offense, a call to parents for a second offense and referral to community services for a third offense. Members of the state’s Black Legislative Caucus opposed fines, worrying “police would continue to stop and fine minority youth more frequently than White people under 21,” according to The Star-Ledger.

“At no point should this be a crime for kids,” she said. “Can we just take New Jersey’s language and drop it into ours? It would be ideal.”

This story was first published by the Virginia Mercury.

Kansas Governor’s Medical Marijuana Bill Introduced As Lawmakers Take Up Separate Legalization Proposal

The post Disagreements Threaten Virginia Marijuana Legalization Deal As Deadline Approaches appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Kansas Governor’s Medical Marijuana Bill Introduced As Lawmakers Take Up Separate ...

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 21:55:52 GMT

A bill championed by the governor of Kansas to legalize medical marijuana and use the resulting revenue to expand healthcare was officially introduced on Wednesday. The move comes as lawmakers held back-to-back hearings on separate reform legislation this week.

Gov. Laura Kelly (D) has pushed for legalizing medical cannabis and using that revenue to support Medicaid expansion, and now Rep. Brandon Woodard (D) has filed a measure to do just that. He introduced it in the House Federal & State Affairs Committee, where members heard testimony on the separate legalization bill on Wednesday and Thursday.

“By combining broadly popular, commonsense medical marijuana policy that will generate significant revenue with Medicaid expansion, all logical opposition to expansion is eliminated,” Kelly said at a press briefing on Wednesday. “This bill just makes sense.”

Watch the governor discuss the medical cannabis and Medicare expansion bill, starting around 6:16 in the video below:

“In the face of the worst public health crisis our country has seen in a century, I’m even more committed to delivering healthcare and jobs and support for our hospitals through Medicaid expansion,” she said. “I urge the legislature to take Representative Woodard’s proposal seriously and to also consider the implications if they should fail to pass expansion yet again.”

Under Woodard’s bill, a draft version of which was shared with Marijuana Moment, there would be 21 medical conditions that qualify patients for cannabis—including cancer, multiple sclerosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic or intractable pain—and regulators would be able to add additional conditions later.

This morning in House Federal & State Affairs, I introduced @GovLauraKelly's bill that would legalize medical marijuana and finally pass Medicaid expansion. #ksleg

— Brandon Woodard (@Woodard4Kansas) February 24, 2021

The secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment would be responsible for developing regulations for the program by July 1, 2023. That includes setting a standard for a 90-day supply of cannabis that a registered patient could possess. It would then be tasked with issuing patient and caregiver registrations and identification cards.

The director of Alcoholic Beverage Control would have its own role in the program, issuing licenses for marijuana “cultivators, laboratories, processors, distributors and retail dispensaries.”

“For too long, the Kansas Legislature has ducked the topic of legalizing medical cannabis. An overwhelming, bipartisan majority of Kansans support medical marijuana, as well as Medicaid expansion,” Woodard told Marijuana Moment. “It’s time to expand healthcare coverage to more than 100,000 Kansans, while giving Kansans the opportunity to use a legal, compassionate therapy to treat a variety of conditions.”

“Whether Kansas chooses the path of legalization of medical, recreational, or something in between, I’m glad that the conversation is finally happening and the people of Kansas are watching,” he said.

While the representative’s bill would make it so Kansas would join the vast majority of states that have legal medical marijuana markets, it is restrictive as far as advocates are concerned. It would, for example, prohibit smoking or vaping cannabis. And it sets a 35 percent THC limit for marijuana flower. Home cultivation by patients would not be allowed.

—
Marijuana Moment is already tracking more than 700 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
—

The governor first announced a plan at the beginning of the month to enact medical marijuana legalization and use cannabis tax revenue to fund Medicaid expansion. And she said more recently that she wants voters to put pressure on their representatives to get the reform passed.

The Federal & State Affairs panel started debate this week on a separate medical marijuana legalization bill that’s been introduced this session, sponsored by the committee itself. Supporters and opponents of the reform testified on the proposal on Wednesday and Thursday, and advocates anticipate it will get a vote in the next 10 days before heading to the floor.

The first hearing consisted of those who favor the policy change, including a veteran, health care worker and former state lawmaker. The second involved testimony from neutral or opposing parties.

Former state Rep. Willie Dove (R) urged the committee not to “take this for granted.”

“We’re not talking about hippies from the 60s. You’re talking about individuals, law-abiding citizens, that really want to make something happened for their families,” he said. “And I would like to say that the revenue generated from this will be greatly appreciated in Kansas because it does help our bottom line.”

Like the Kelly bill, the committee-sponsored legislation lists 21 conditions that would qualify patients for the program, including chronic pain, HIV and post-traumatic stress disorder. Smoking and vaping products would be prohibited, however. It would also not provide for home growing.

“Veterans of all ages and ideologies are in favor of medical cannabis more than any other demographic,” George Hanna, codirector of Kansas NORML and a veteran, said. “Every veteran’s organization, representing every generation and political perspective, has overwhelmingly come out in support of safe access. I personally have had several physicians, within the VA itself, privately support medical cannabis.”

The opposing testimony on Thursday touched on a variety of talking points—that the scope of the qualifying conditions for medical marijuana is too large, legalization would increase youth access to cannabis, THC concentration levels are too high and ingestion by pregnant women or adolescents is dangerous.

But industry stakeholders with the Kansas Cannabis Business Association (KCBA) told Marijuana Moment that the testimony, particularly from law enforcement representatives, was notably “negligent and dispassionate, with most of their concerns rebutted by [Chairman John Barker (R)] on the spot.”

“Essentially the message was, ‘if 30 other states have found solutions to those problems, you can too,” KCBA’s Erin Montroy said.

A separate medical cannabis legalization bill was introduced by the Senate Commerce Commerce this month, though it has not seen action.

The measure’s language largely reflects legislation that was introduced in the House last year. Patients would be eligible for medical cannabis with a doctor’s recommendation if they have a condition that significantly inhibits their ability to conduct daily activities or if the lack of treatment would pose serious physical or mental harm.

Registered patients would be allowed to grow and possess at least four ounces of marijuana. The bill would also establish a Kansas Medical Cannabis Agency to oversee the program.

Read the draft text of Woodard’s medical cannabis legalization bill that he’s carrying for the governor below:

Kansas medical cannabis leg… by Marijuana Moment

Missouri Bill Would Add MDMA, Psilocybin Mushrooms And LSD To Right-To-Try Law

The post Kansas Governor’s Medical Marijuana Bill Introduced As Lawmakers Take Up Separate Legalization Proposal appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Montana Lawmakers Weigh Bill To Limit Marijuana Businesses

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 18:36:57 GMT

The committee also considered legislation on employment protections for medical cannabis patients.

By Keila Szpaller, The Daily Montanan

Glenn Broughton grew his medical marijuana business from a small storage shed to an operation that employees nearly 30 people, and if he’s shut down, he said he’ll go bankrupt.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life of what is going to happen to me at a pen-stroke,” said Broughton, who operates in Missoula, Lolo and St. Regis.

The business owner testified Wednesday before the House Business and Labor Committee against House Bill 568. The bill would allow roughly 115 marijuana dispensaries in the state—or not more than one per 10,000 people in a county, but 10 maximum—compared to the 355 medical dispensaries that are currently open.

No members of the public spoke in favor of the legislation.

In November, voters passed an initiative that legalizes recreational marijuana by 57 percent, and the Montana Department of Revenue anticipates accepting license applications in October.

Sponsored by Rep. Lola Sheldon-Galloway, R-Great Falls, the bill would limit dispensaries to be no closer than 1,000 feet from a school, daycare, place of worship, park or playground. It also would limit dispensaries to one per 10,000 residents in a county or up to 10 dispensaries maximum in one county.

“The people of Montana have asked us to have recreational marijuana in our state,” Sheldon-Galloway said. “My bill is just asking for some sideboards.”

Opponents, though, argued the sideboards would “squash the little guy” and favor massive operations flush with cash over smaller homegrown businesses. They also said the prohibitions go too far to realistically implement.

Sam Belanger, who said he read Montana’s marijuana legalization bill from cover to cover, told the committee he didn’t think the location restriction of 1,000 feet as the crow flies—rather than 500 feet and on the same street—would work in cities and towns.

“It eliminates almost all viable options for any dispensary in the state inside municipalities,” said Belanger, of Ronan.

Kate Cholewa, a cannabis advocate who has worked on related legislation in Montana, said the math simply doesn’t pencil out. When medical users were “tethered,” or tied to a specific provider, she said a business with 200 customers could make a good living.

With proposed limits, providers would have six times those customers. She also wondered who would be deciding who gets the the small number of licenses that would be available if the bill is enacted.

“This is just an invitation to problems and corruption,” Cholewa said.

Pepper Petersen, president of the Montana Cannabis Guild, said one of the reasons he helped draft Initiative-190, the legalization bill, is that recreational marijuana can generate tax revenue for the state.

“Most of that coal economy is gone. We need a replacement for that money,” Petersen said.

He estimated the revenue for state coffers could hit nearly $100 million a year for both recreational and medical marijuana. A study from the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana estimated a 20 percent tax on recreational marijuana could result in $43.4 million to $52.0 million a year from 2022 to 2026.

As part of her argument in favor of the bill, Rep. Sheldon-Galloway pointed to the relatively high use of marijuana among Great Falls middle and high school students compared to the state average. In Alaska, she said school suspensions for marijuana increased 141 percent after legalization.

Chuck Holman, though, said Montanans don’t want more regulations, and Cascade County needs to deal with its own problems.

“That county needs to address it themselves,” Holman said.

Wednesday, the committee heard a separate bill related to medical marijuana, House Bill 582.

Sponsor Rep. Robert Farris-Olsen, D-Helena, said he brought the bill forward because one of his constituents told him she lost her job because of her use of medical marijuana for a debilitating condition.

He said the bill wouldn’t allow the use of medical marijuana on the job, but it would prevent an employer from barring a person from using medical marijuana off the job for a medical condition.

Several opponents argued the bill wouldn’t make sense for industries where employees operate heavy equipment or must have a CDL, a commercial driver’s license. Jason Todhunter, with the Montana Logging Association, said logging is a highly hazardous industry, and some employers choose to conduct drug testing.

“This would muddy the waters on what we could check for,” Todhunter said.

The committee did not take action on either bill on Wednesday.

This story was first published by The Daily Montanan.

Alabama Senate Approves Medical Marijuana Legalization Bill

The post Montana Lawmakers Weigh Bill To Limit Marijuana Businesses appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

IRS Chief Says Agency Would ‘Prefer’ If Marijuana Businesses Could Pay Taxes Electronically

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 17:06:55 GMT

The head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) told Congress this week that the federal agency would “prefer” for state-legal marijuana businesses to be able to pay taxes electronically, as the current largely cash-based system under federal cannabis prohibition is onerous and presents risks to workers.

During an oversight hearing before the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee on Tuesday, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig was asked about the lack of banking access for marijuana businesses and what steps could be done to normalize the market.

Rep. David Joyce (R-OH), who serves as a co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, said that barring marijuana companies from traditional financial services is “inefficient for business and the IRS alike, obviously, not to mention ample opportunity for fraud and abuse it creates, as well as potential for criminal acts as far as robbing and stealing from those.”

Rettig replied that “the IRS would prefer direct deposits moreso than receiving actual cash payments.”

“It’s a security issue for the IRS. It’s a security issue for our employees in our taxpayer assistance centers, [which] is actually where we receive these payments,” he said. “We created special facilities in the tax to receive the payments. Then we similarly have to transport the payments themselves.”

Watch the IRS commissioner talk about marijuana tax challenges below:

“Money is fungible. We have to receive it. We don’t make a determination as to what is or is not legal, but the tax payments do come in and we would rather have direct deposits if we could,” the commissioner said.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in 2019 that he’d like to see Congress approve legislation resolving the cannabis banking issue and he pointed to the fact that IRS has had to build “cash rooms” to deposit taxes from those businesses as an example of the problem.

Marijuana finances also came up this week during a confirmation hearing for President Joe Biden’s pick for deputy secretary of the Treasury.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) asked the nominee, Adewale Adeyemo, whether he feels 2014 Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance should be updated to “set expectations for financial institutions that provide services to cannabis-related industries” and what steps he would take to that end.

“I look forward, if confirmed, to talking to my colleagues at Treasury about this important issue and thinking through what changes may be needed and doing this in a way that’s consistent with the interagency with the president’s guidance,” Adeyemo replied. “In doing that, I look forward to consulting with you and members of this committee on our path forward.”

IRS released updated guidance on tax policy for the marijuana industry last year, including instructions on how cannabis businesses that don’t have access to bank accounts can pay their tax bills using large amounts of cash.

This update appears to be responsive to a Treasury Department internal watchdog report that was released in April. The department’s inspector general for tax administration had criticized IRS for failing to adequately advise taxpayers in the marijuana industry about compliance with federal tax laws. And it directed the agency to “develop and publicize guidance specific to the marijuana industry.”

The IRS’s commissioner of the Small Business/Self Employed Division participated in a cannabis-focused event in December in which he noted the legalization movement’s continued momentum, saying that it will potentially succeed in ending prohibition in “all states.”

As far as banking is concerned, House Democrats did approve a bill in 2019 that would have protected financial institutions that service the marijuana industry from being penalized by federal regulators. Leadership also attached that measure’s language to two pieces of coronavirus relief legislation last year, but they declined to add it to their latest version, despite having reclaimed the majority in both chambers of Congress and control of the White House.

Many of these financial services issues would also be resolved if Congress passed legislation to federally deschedule cannabis—and there’s a plan in the works on the Senate side to get that done this year.

A trio of senators—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)—are in the process of drafting a legalization bill. And they recently held a meeting with representatives from a variety of advocacy groups and business associations to get input on the policy change.

Connecticut Governor Touts Marijuana Legalization Bill Ahead Of First Hearing

The post IRS Chief Says Agency Would ‘Prefer’ If Marijuana Businesses Could Pay Taxes Electronically appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Missouri Bill Would Add MDMA, Psilocybin Mushrooms And LSD To Right-To-Try Law

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 14:43:23 GMT

Missouri residents with debilitating, life-threatening or terminal illnesses could gain legal access to an array of psychedelic drugs under new legislation aimed at expanding the state’s existing right-to-try law.

A bill introduced last week by Republican Rep. Michael Davis of Kansas City would allow seriously ill people to use substances such as MDMA, psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, DMT, mescaline and ibogaine with a doctor’s recommendation after exhausting all other approved treatment options. It would also remove felony penalties statewide for simple possession of the drugs, reclassifying low-level offenses as misdemeanors.

Supporters at Crossing Paths PAC, a political action committee that supports “pro-drug policy and criminal justice reform campaigns and candidates,” said the bill would allow patients to try therapies “considered promising in the treatment of a variety of mental health conditions,” including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.

In a statement put out by the group, Davis said the bill “protects the liberty interests of Missourians who believe these drugs offer valuable options in the treatment of numerous conditions.”

Missouri State Representative Michael Davis Files Psychedelic "Right to Try" Access Billhttps://t.co/gjpAEz49s8 #moleg #mogov @tomangell @kylejaeger @MAPS pic.twitter.com/cMeRvIi7uD

— Crossing Paths PAC (@DrugReformMO) February 19, 2021

“Many psychedelic drugs have decades of clinical research supporting their efficacy and safety profiles,” Davis said, “yet the FDA has been slow to act to reschedule these drugs.”

HB 1176 would build on the state’s 2014 right-to-try law, Republican-led legislation that allows patients with terminal illnesses to access “investigational drugs and devices” that are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

President Donald Trump signed a federal “Right to Try Act” in 2018, allowing certain patients to access drugs that have not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for broad use.

The current Missouri law specifically forbids the use of Schedule I controlled substances.

The new bill would remove that provision and expand eligibility to include patients with “debilitating” or “life-threatening” illnesses. A patient with a doctor’s recommendation who “has considered all other treatment options” would be exempt from the state’s laws against possessing the drugs.

Drug manufacturers could also legally produce the substances under state law, and physicians and pharmacies could lawfully distribute them.

For people who aren’t qualifying medical patients, the measure appears to reduce existing criminal penalties for possessing the listed substances. Under HB 1176, possession of up to 10 grams would be a class D misdemeanor, which carries a maximum $500 fine. Possession of between 10 and 35 grams would be a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a maximum $2,000 fine.

Under current law, possessing any amount of the listed psychedelics is class D felony, which can mean up to seven years in prison.

The Missouri measure is similar to a bill introduced in Iowa last week that would expand that state’s right-to-try law to include psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, DMT, peyote and other currently illegal drugs. The Iowa bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jeff Shipley (R), who earlier this month introduced legislation to remove psilocybin from the state’s list of controlled substances, recently described the right-to-try legislation to Marijuana Moment as “the most conservative approach to usher in the new age of mental and emotional healthcare.”

Missouri’s HB 1176 is one of more than a dozen bills related to drug policy to have been introduced in the state this year, including measures to put marijuana legalization on the 2022 ballot and allow medical marijuana consumption at hotels and Airbnb lodgings.

Other bills being considered this session, according to a summary of legislation being tracked by Crossing Paths PAC, would expunge marijuana-related offenses, prohibit the disclosure of medical marijuana patient information to unauthorized parties, reduce penalties for drug possession, protect medical marijuana patients in family court matters and adjust rules around medical marijuana licensing, taxes and banking.

“While other crises took precedence in terms of media attention,” the group said in a blog post last week, “2021 will go down in history as the year Missouri lawmakers—Republican and Democrat—began to take serious action to end the War on Drugs.”

Elsewhere across the country, lawmakers are considering similar reforms to roll back drug penalties or carve out legal access for therapeutic use.

Last week, a California lawmaker, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) introduced legislation that would legalize the possession and social sharing of a number of drugs, including psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, ketamine, mescaline, ibogaine, DMT and MDMA. It would also provide for the expungement of past criminal records for possession or use. The state would establish a task force under the proposal to study potential future regulatory systems around psychedelics, with a report due in 2024.

Also last week, Massachusetts lawmakers introduced two drug-reform proposals, one to remove criminal penalties for all drugs and another to establish a task force to explore legalizing plant- and fungi-based psychedelics.

Earlier this month, a Texas state legislator introduced a bill to require the state to study the therapeutic potential of psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine in the treatment of certain mental health conditions.

Legislators in Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Washington State and Virginia are also considering psychedelics and drug policy reform bills for the 2021 session.

Vermont lawmakers, meanwhile are expected to introduce a number of drug reform bills this session, including a measure to decriminalize all drugs and a separate proposal, expected Tuesday, that would remove psychedelic plants and fungi from the state’s list of regulated substances.

Biden Cabinet Pick Defends Proposal To Use Marijuana Tax Dollars To Fund Schools

Photo elements courtesy of carlosemmaskype and Apollo

The post Missouri Bill Would Add MDMA, Psilocybin Mushrooms And LSD To Right-To-Try Law appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Connecticut Governor Touts Marijuana Legalization Bill Ahead Of First Hearing

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 13:05:05 GMT

At a press conference on Wednesday to build support for his plan to legalize marijuana in Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) and other backers described the proposal as a thoughtful, data-driven measure designed to address decades of disproportionate harm to the state’s Black and brown residents. While the bill is set for its first committee hearing on Friday, some social justice advocates have deep concerns about how the legal market would be structured.

“This has been a long time coming,” the governor said of his proposal. “We’ve been talking about this for ages, and I think now is the time to legalize adult-use recreational marijuana in a carefully regulated way with an emphasis upon equity and justice. Now is the time.”

Lamont, who began circulating a draft of the legalization bill last month, described the state’s enforcement of current laws against cannabis as “erratic with prejudice” and “fundamentally unfair” to people of color.

“I’m proud of what we’ve done in terms of justice and in terms of erasure of those convictions,” the governor said of the bill, SB 888. “We can do this in a safe way…that redresses some of the wrongs of the past and gives folks who have been hardest hit an opportunity to get back on their feet.”

Lamont introduced the legalization proposal as part of his budget plan earlier this month, after calling for the policy change earlier this year during his State of the State address.

“This is a comprehensive bill but it has three main and very logical components: decriminalization, regulation and revenue generation,” Rep. Michael D’Agostino (D), chair of the House General Laws Committee and a lead coordinator on the governor’s legalization proposal, said at Wednesday’s event. “One animating principle and theme that’s embedded through all of those components is equity.”

Among equity advocates, however, not everyone is impressed. Jason Ortiz, who served as chair of a cannabis licensing working group convened by the governor late last year, described the press event as “a disgusting display of naked greed,” adding that “SB 888 must be stopped if we are ever going to have a serious conversation on equity.”

“I am deeply disappointed and quite frankly insulted that the work of the equity discussion group would be used to support a bill that denies our community economic opportunities that they are handing over to the rich white men who control the Connecticut medical industry,” Ortiz, who is also the political director for advocacy group CT United for Reform and Equity, told Marijuana Moment in an email. “This is corruption plain and simple, and they are exploiting the suffering of my community in order to line their pockets.”

Under SB 888, Connecticut’s existing medical marijuana businesses would be able to begin selling to adults before the rest of the legal market is up and running, a head-start intended to begin legal sales as soon as possible. Critics warn the approach would create obstacles to smaller operators trying to enter the newly legal market.

The details of how communities most impacted by the war on drugs could gain from the legal industry would be mostly determined after officials receive a report from a new equity commission, and advocates are worried that big businesses may have cornered the market by then.

The Judiciary Committee scheduled a hearing on Gov. Lamont’s legalization bill on Friday. We will be imploring the committee to advance the bill, but to first make revisions to make it stronger and more explicit on equity. Witnesses can sign up here: https://t.co/tZ9ZopqlWk

— Regulate Connecticut (@Regulate_CT) February 23, 2021

Rather than give people impacted by the war on drugs priority in licensing, as some other states have attempted to do, Connecticut’s initial plan would use a portion of cannabis tax revenue to fund local governments and programs in so-called impact zones, geographic areas that have seen disproportionate arrests and convictions under the war on drugs.

“What we heard in conversations with regulators in other states, and in talking to folks in these communities, is that this social equity plan needs to be broad-based and focus not merely on who gets these businesses and licenses at the end of the day, but what our community impact is,” Arunan Arulampalam, deputy commissioner of the Department of Consumer Regulation, said at Wednesday’s press conference.

“We’re going to use the revenues from this to get back into the community, get back to municipalities, hold down property taxes and help some of the communities that have been hardest hit get back on their feet” added Lamont. “I think that’s an important piece of the equity justice that we mean to do.”

“I think now is the time for legalized adult-use recreational marijuana in a carefully regulated way with an emphasis on equity and justice.” https://t.co/1xYyEaV6g6

— Governor Ned Lamont (@GovNedLamont) February 24, 2021

In a Facebook post after Wednesday’s event, Ortiz called attention to recommendations he made as chair of the governor’s marijuana licensing task force that didn’t make it into the bill, including proposals to establish a capital fund to provide zero-interest loans to equity applicants and a provision to require equity applicants to control at least half of all licenses before any legal sales could begin.

“Ask the governor and everyone of the rich white men stumping for his bill to point to the specific line in SB888 where these recommendations were implemented,” he wrote. “The bill literally says only a handful of rich white men get to sell cannabis, but the office of the governor is going to claim equity advocates like myself are the BARRIER to community investment?”

In a separate post, Ortiz drew attention to a competing marijuana bill, HB 6377, which includes additional equity measures, including priority application and funding for low-interest loans among equity applicants. “The difference between these two approaches to politics and governance,” he wrote, “could not be more stark.”

HB 6377 was introduced on February 2, more than a week before SB 888, and referred to the Joint Committee on Labor and Public Employees. The panel held a February 9 public hearing but has not yet voted on the measure.

Lamont’s bill will be heard on Friday by the legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee.

Mike Taylor, a professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven, said Wednesday that more than 7,500 people were arrested and charged in Connecticut with some form of marijuana possession in 2020. “That’s a number equal to about 10 percent of the business of our criminal courts,” Taylor said.

Other speakers at Wednesday’s press event included Department of Consumer Regulation Commissioner Michelle Seagull, who discussed marijuana packaging and advertising limits meant to discourage use by minors.

A reporter for Hartford-based CBS TV affiliate WFSB asked Seagull whether the bill would allow advertising on billboards along interstates, noting that some businesses have already put up billboards in Connecticut inviting residents to buy marijuana across the border in Massachusetts.

“The restrictions here would apply just to the Connecticut businesses that we’re licensing. That’s sort of the universe we can control,” Seagull replied. “We can’t regulate what those [Massachusetts] businesses are putting up in Connecticut to attract people.”

Lamont interjected, saying he didn’t think cannabis companies from either state should be advertising their businesses on billboards.

“Let me talk to Gov. Charlie Baker about that,” he said, referring to his Massachusetts counterpart, “because that makes no sense that he can advertise in Connecticut and our guys can’t. I don’t think either should be doing billboard advertising. I think it’s the wrong way to go, and I’ll make that case.”

ICYMI: Watch today's discussion on Governor Lamont's proposal to responsibly and equitably legalize and regulate the adult use of marijuana in Connecticut.

Video: https://t.co/CXjoR1xVi2

Details on the proposal: https://t.co/PohRQDlxRp pic.twitter.com/kt9ePrkq07

— Governor Ned Lamont (@GovNedLamont) February 24, 2021

Despite disagreement over the details of the policy proposal, many expect legalization to happen Connecticut’s near future. House Speaker Matt Ritter (D) said in November that legalization in the state is “inevitable.” He added later that month that “I think it’s got a 50–50 chance of passing [in 2021], and I think you should have a vote regardless.”

New York Marijuana Legalization Proposals Get First Joint Legislative Hearing Of 2021

The post Connecticut Governor Touts Marijuana Legalization Bill Ahead Of First Hearing appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

AL Senate approves medical cannabis (Newsletter: February 25, 2021)

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 11:21:27 GMT

NM legal marijuana heads to floor; VA’s Sat. legalization deadline; Biden pick defends cannabis $ for schools; 1st NY hearing; PA bill’s GOP support

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/ TOP THINGS TO KNOW

Deb Haaland, President Joe Biden’s nominee for interior secretary, defended her support for using marijuana tax revenue to fund schools in response to an attack from Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). She added that we “don’t know what President Biden’s stance is on cannabis.”

The Alabama Senate passed a bill to legalize medical cannabis. It now heads to the House of Representatives.

Virginia lawmakers face a Saturday deadline to resolve differences between separate marijuana legalization bills passed by the House and Senate. Marijuana Moment compiled a look at issues that need to be hashed out by the conference committee—including timelines, licenses and a referendum.

The New Mexico House Taxation & Revenue Committee approved a bill to legalize marijuana, sending it to the House floor as the next step.

The New York Senate Finance Committee and Assembly Ways & Means Committee held the first joint hearing of the year on marijuana legalization proposals.

A bipartisan team of Pennsylvania senators announced a new marijuana legalization bill. It’s the first time a GOP lawmaker has signed onto cannabis legalization legislation in the Republican-controlled legislature.

“It’s clear to me that public attitudes towards marijuana have changed dramatically in the past decade, maybe more than any other issue in recent memory.”

/ FEDERAL

The Drug Enforcement Administration is reopening the comment period for rules on suspicious orders of controlled substances.

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH) wrote in a constituent letter that he is in favor of leaving marijuana policy up to the states.

Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA) tweeted about New Jersey’s marijuana legislation being signed, saying, “This is great news & I continue to support federal legalization of adult-use #cannabis as well!”

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) tweeted, “Should Congress legalize cannabis? The only correct answer is: Yes”

/ STATES

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) authored an op-ed about his opposition to marijuana reform.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) tweeted, “This week, we made history by reforming a decades-old approach to marijuana that failed the meaning of justice at every level. Let’s continue building on the progress and move forward — together.” Separately, his budget proposal document touts the growth of the state’s medical cannabis program since he took office.

The South Dakota Senate approved a bill creating a framework for recreational marijuana sales in case the state’s voter-approved legalization initiative is held up in court on appeal.

The New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill to let patients grow their own medical cannabis.

The Arizona House of Representatives approved a marijuana testing bill.

The Montana House Business and Labor Committee held a hearing on a bill to limit the number of marijuana business licenses in the state.

A Pennsylvania court ruled that the Housing Authority of Indiana County must create a policy on medical cannabis use by residents.

The Illinois Department of Agriculture published 2020 hemp harvest data.

Colorado regulators issued bulletins on marijuana delivery and social equity.

New York officials stripped a doctor of his license for violations in New Jersey “related to the indiscriminate authorization of the use of medicinal marijuana for several patients.”

Vermont regulators are hosting a hemp conference on Friday.

The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission will meet on Tuesday.

—
Marijuana Moment is already tracking more than 700 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
—

/ LOCAL

More than 70 New Jersey municipalities have proactively banned marijuana businesses.

The Chittenden County, Vermont state’s attorney spoke about a forthcoming drug decriminalization bill in the state legislature.

/ INTERNATIONAL

Morocco’s government is considering a marijuana legalization bill.

Jamaica’s Cannabis Licensing Authority has a new chairman and membership.

/ SCIENCE & HEALTH

A review concluded that data support “CBD’s therapeutic value in improving sleep (increased sleep duration/quality and reduction in nightmares) and depression, which are often comorbid with anxiety” and that “these features of CBD make it an attractive novel therapeutic option in COVID-related” post-traumatic stress symptoms.

New York University Langone Health is establishing a new Center for Psychedelic Medicine.

/ ADVOCACY, OPINION & ANALYSIS

A poll found that Virginia voters oppose making marijuana possession in a vehicle illegal, 59%-35%.

The Democratic Governors Association tweeted, “Democratic governors are working to legalize marijuana – bringing us closer to social, racial, and economic justice.”

The NAACP New York Branch will hold a webinar on marijuana legalization on Thursday.

/ BUSINESS

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation launched a new $2.5 million fund to support “social justice organizations working toward criminal justice reforms and economic inclusion as more states regulate cannabis.”

Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. reported quarterly revenue of $37.1 million.

Canopy Growth Corporation filed a preliminary short-form base shelf prospectus allowing it to raise up to $2 billion.

Verano Holdings Corp. announced a bought deal private placement of special warrants worth more than C$100 million. It also announced a deal to acquire three dispensaries and a cultivation and production facility in Arizona.

Aurora Nordic Cannabis A/S medical cannabis products made in Denmark are now available in German pharmacies.

/ CULTURE

Rapper Sean Paul spoke about his relationship with marijuana.

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The post AL Senate approves medical cannabis (Newsletter: February 25, 2021) appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Alabama Senate Approves Medical Marijuana Legalization Bill

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 22:40:39 GMT

The Alabama Senate on Wednesday approved a bill to legalize medical marijuana in the state.

Weeks after the chamber’s Judiciary Committee advanced the legislation, it cleared the full floor in a vote of 21-8 following a brief, 15-minute discussion.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Tim Melson (R), would allow people with qualifying conditions to access cannabis for therapeutic purposes.

Melson is the same lawmaker who sponsored a similar bill that was approved by the full Senate last year but which later died without a House vote amid the coronavirus pandemic.

This latest proposal would establish an 11-member Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission to implement regulations and oversee licensing.

To qualify for the program, patients would have to be diagnosed with one of about 20 conditions, including anxiety, sleep disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and intractable pain. Regulators would not be able to independently add additional conditions, leaving that decision up to lawmakers.

Advocates say they’re encouraged that medical cannabis reform is advancing in Alabama, but they’ve raised concerns about a number of aspects of the bill.

One problematic provision, they say, is that patients with chronic or intractable pain could only be recommended medical marijuana in cases where “conventional therapeutic intervention and opiate therapy is contraindicated or has proved ineffective.”

The bill also prohibits raw cannabis, smoking, vaping and candy or baked good products. Patients would instead be allowed to purchase capsules, lozenges, oils, suppositories and topical patches.

Patients would be allowed to purchase and possess up to “70 daily dosages of medical cannabis.” Under an amendment approved on the floor, the maximum daily dose was reduced from 75 to 50 milligrams. However, the amendment’s sponsor said it could be increased to 75 milligrams in some circumstances.

The revision also calls for a label on marijuana products to indicate that cannabis can cause drowsiness.

It also calls for a nine percent gross proceeds tax on medical marijuana sales. After covering implementation costs, 60 percent of revenue would go to the state’s general fund and 30 percent would go to research into the medical potential of cannabis.

Patients, caregivers and and medical cannabis businesses would receive legal protections under the proposal, preventing them from being penalized for activities authorized by the state.

For physicians to be able to recommend cannabis to patients, they would have to complete a four-hour continuing education course and pass an exam. The course would cost upwards of $500 and doctors would also be required to take refresher classes every two years.

Under the bill, regulators would be tasked with developing restrictions on advertising and setting quality control standards. Seed-to-sale tracking and laboratory testing would be mandated.

Other changes approved on the floor would add language to stipulate that gelatinous cannabis products cannot be sugar coated and insert provisions promoting good manufacturing practices and tamper-evident packaging.

A separate amendment that cleared the chamber added sickle cell anemia as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana.

Applications for cannabis business licenses would have to be accepted starting September 1, 2022 and then proceeded within 60 days.

The commission would be required to approve at least four cultivators, up to four processors, up to four dispensaries for the first year of implementation (more could be approved after that point depending on demand) and as many as five vertically integrated operators.

This bill’s reintroduction has been greatly anticipated by advocates. The Senate approved a separate medical cannabis bill in 2019, but the House later severely compromised it. The legislation as enacted would not have legalized patient access; rather, it set up a study commission to explore the issue and make recommendations.

The commission came back with its report in December 2019, with members recommending that medical marijuana be legalized.

The Senate’s president voted against medical cannabis in 2020 but said he is open to letting the issue advance again in the new session. Meanwhile, the House speaker said that “if the bill comes up and it has proper restrictions in it, then I’m open to at least debating it.”

There could be additional pressure on the legislature to enact legalization given that voters in neighboring Mississippi approved a medical cannabis reform initiative during the November election.

New York Marijuana Legalization Proposals Get First Joint Legislative Hearing Of 2021

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New York Marijuana Legalization Proposals Get First Joint Legislative Hearing Of 2021

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 21:07:37 GMT

New York lawmakers on Tuesday held the first public hearing of the year on proposals to legalize marijuana, specifically focusing on budget implications.

In a joint session with members of the Senate Finance Committee and Assembly Ways & Means Committee, legislators heard testimony from two pro-legalization industry representatives and one opponent, Kevin Sabet of the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

Notably, despite their ideological differences when it comes to legalization in general, all three panelists were critical of the reform proposal that Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) included in his budget request.

NY Cannabis Growers and Processors Association President Allan Gandelman and NY Medical Cannabis Industry Association President Ngiste Abebe both said they favor a legalization measure out of the legislature—the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA)—arguing that its tax structure and social equity provisions are superior to the governor’s plan, even after Cuomo submitted amendments in hopes of shoring up support among skeptical lawmakers.

“We deeply appreciate the possibilities offered in the MRTA. New York will need to balance issues involving taxes, licensing and speed to market,” Gandelman said. “The MRTA does an excellent job allowing for social consumption, cannabis home grow, microbusinesses, home delivery and funding for social equity applicants. These policies should be, without question, integrated into any final legislation enacted by the state.”

Watch the joint public hearing on marijuana legalization in New York below:

Cuomo did propose amending his legalization plan to add a home delivery option and specify how social equity grants for cannabis businesses would be distributed—but advocates say it still falls short of the MRTA, sponsored by Sen. Liz Kreuger (D), chair of the Finance Committee.

Abebe, who also serves as public policy director for Columbia Care, said that her organization believes “the governor’s proposal could be improved as well—and then, between the [Cannabis Regulation and Taxation Act] and the MRTA, there is a pathway to effective legalization in New York.”

But the April 1 deadline to get those improvements included in Cuomo’s budget plan and pass the legislation is quickly approaching, and legislative leadership has indicated that they’d prefer to pass the MRTA first and then begin negotiations with the governor’s office.

“It is my hope and desire that New York will legalize adult-use of cannabis this current session in 2021,” Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D), who has been especially critical of the governor’s proposal, recently said.

Earlier this month, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) told Marijuana Moment in an interview that there would be room for revisions to the governor’s plan, stating that “much of it is going to be negotiated with the legislature, and all these details can be resolved with their input as well.”

Cuomo said that the changes in his bill reflect “the conversations we’ve had, but I’m hopeful that we can come to an agreement and we can get it done. He added that he believes, “because I’ve seen this movie before, “if we don’t get it done by April 1, we won’t get it done.”

This is the third year in a row that Cuomo has included a legalization proposal in his budget plan. The last two times, negotiations with the legislature stalled amid disagreements over certain components such as the tax structure for the market and funding for social equity programs.

Regardless of which direction the legislature ultimately goes on this issue, there’s growing recognition in the state that legalization is an inevitability.

The top Republican in the New York Assembly said in December that he expects the legislature to legalize cannabis this coming session.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D) said in November that she also anticipates that the reform will advance in 2021, though she noted that lawmakers will still have to decide on how tax revenue from marijuana sales is distributed.

Cuomo also said that month that the “pressure will be on” to legalize cannabis in the state and lawmakers will approve it “this year” to boost the economy amid the health crisis.

The push to legalize in New York could also be bolstered by the fact that voters in neighboring New Jersey approved a legalization referendum in November.

Separately, several other bills that focus on medical marijuana have been filed in New York, and they touch on a wide range of topics—from tenants’ rights for medical cannabis patients to health insurance coverage for marijuana products.

Biden Cabinet Pick Defends Proposal To Use Marijuana Tax Dollars To Fund Schools

Photo courtesy of WeedPornDaily.

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Biden Cabinet Pick Defends Proposal To Use Marijuana Tax Dollars To Fund Schools

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 19:56:48 GMT

President Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of the Interior Department on Tuesday defended a past campaign promise to support marijuana legalization as a means to diversify her state’s economy and help fund public education.

Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) was pressed on her 2018 remarks during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the panel’s ranking member, asked whether it was still her position that tax revenue from cannabis sales could be used to support schools as a replacement for oil and gas royalties as part of a plan to shift away from fossil fuels.

“Well, I think the point of that, ranking member, was to say that we should diversify our funding streams for education and not just rely on one,” she replied.

“Is selling marijuana among what the Biden administration calls ‘better choices’ that the Biden administration has promised to give displaced oil and gas workers?” Barrasso asked. “Is that the better choice? Marijuana?”

“I honestly don’t know what President Biden’s stance is on cannabis currently,” the nominee said.

Biden's Interior nominee Deb Haaland stands by past comments, wants to use marijuana to fund schoolshttps://t.co/BDtqCrdcJp pic.twitter.com/P5UzBp5ZwM

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 24, 2021

The president’s position on marijuana does depart with Haaland’s, as he has maintained an opposition to adult-use legalization and hasn’t signaled that he’d be interested in enacting the reform as a way to raise revenue for any particular initiative. He supports legalizing medical cannabis, decriminalizing low-level marijuana possession, modestly rescheduling the plant, expunging prior cannabis convictions and letting states set their own policies.

In any case, the senator—along with the Republican National Committee (RNC), which circulated Haaland’s 2018 comments ahead of the hearing—apparently feels that the marijuana position of his nominee to head Interior are damning, despite the bipartisan public support for legalization and broad sentiment that tax revenue from cannabis should be effectively utilized for public services.

FLASHBACK: Deb Haaland suggests marijuana will plug school funding deficit caused by fossil fuels banhttps://t.co/cEdKMa9fzI pic.twitter.com/07kEzqUc8b

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 23, 2021

“We know what your stances on replacing the revenue, the energy jobs, the jobs that power our economy and the energy that powers our country. And your preference is to turn to drugs is what you’ve recommended to the voters,” Barrasso said. “At a time when there’s high unemployment and energy workers lose their jobs—we’ve seen it in West Virginia, we’ve seen it around the country—there’s been an opioid crisis in this nation. And yet what I hear from you is the answer in a better choice world is marijuana.”

Later in the hearing, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) returned to the ranking member’s line of questioning and said “just to be clear on the marijuana issue, this isn’t a Seattle issue. Out of 39 counties, 20 to 25 counties in the state of Washington supported legalizing cannabis.”

“I don’t blame our legislature or others from getting revenue from that and put it towards public health issues in the state of Washington,” she said. “This is respecting the wishes of the voters and then putting it to good use.”

Watch Cantwell’s marijuana comments, starting around 55:45 into the video below:

Marijuana also came up during Haaland’s initial committee confirmation hearing on Tuesday, with Rep. Don Young (R-AK) introducing Haaland and joking about her energy policy by saying that “anybody who thinks you’re going to cut off fossil fuel immediately is smoking pot—that’s legal in the state of Alaska, by the way.”

Watch Young’s cannabis comments, about 37:00 into the video below:

For advocates, while it’s encouraging to see administration nominees embrace pro-reform positions, this was not the most consequential cannabis comment during a confirmation session this week. On Monday, Merrick Garland, the president’s nominee for attorney general said it is not “a useful use of limited resources” to go after people who are complying with state marijuana laws. He also citied cannabis enforcement as an example of the racially discriminatory impact of the criminal justice system.

Another New Mexico House Committee Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill

The post Biden Cabinet Pick Defends Proposal To Use Marijuana Tax Dollars To Fund Schools appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Another New Mexico House Committee Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 18:18:36 GMT

Another New Mexico House committee has approved a bill to legalize marijuana in the state.

The Taxation & Revenue Committee, which is chaired by the bill’s sponsor Rep. Javier Martinez (D), passed the legislation on Wednesday in a 8-4 vote. This comes one week after the Health & Human Services Committee advanced the measure.

Under the proposal, adults 21 and older would be allowed to possess “at least” two ounces of cannabis and grow up to six mature and six immature plants for personal use. It would also create a system of regulated and taxed cannabis sales.

The legislation is favored by reform advocates because—unlike the other House and Senate reform measures that have been introduced this session—it would specifically use tax revenue from marijuana sales to support reinvestments in communities most impacted by the war on drugs. It also stands out for including provisions to automatically expunge prior cannabis convictions.

Martinez’s proposal would require rules for the market to be implemented by January 2022.

The committee approved a substitute version that includes a number of changes, including moving the start of legal sales back to January 1, 2022 from October 1 of this year. That would apply to existing medical cannabis dispensaries and microbusinesses, with sales for other retailers set to start September 2022.

The substitute also removes language earmarking tax revenue for a community reinvestment fund and a low-income patient subsidy program. The fund accounts will still be created, but it would be up to lawmakers to steer money to them in future sessions once cannabis revenue starts coming in.

Other modifications include new language on regulatory authority for the cannabis market, allowing health and safety inspections of businesses, addressing workplace and employment issues, replacing fines and fees for youth who violate the law with a civil infraction penalty, stipulating that people can petition for resentencing for offenses made legal and adjusting the state excise tax on marijuana from nine percent to eight percent while giving local jurisdictions the option to levy an additional four percent tax.

Martinez said at the hearing that one primary objective of his bill is to “protect” and “enhance” the state’s medical cannabis program, which “has been a godsend for communities and families across the state, particularly those suffering from chronic illness, chronic pain, PTSD.” Secondly, he said, “we’ve got to ensure that whatever legalization framework we lead with is rooted in values of equity and justice.”

The legislation next heads to the House floor. Separate Senate bills have not yet been scheduled for hearings.

Additional pressure to end cannabis prohibition this year is coming from neighboring Arizona, where voters approved legalization in November and where sales officially launched earlier this month.

Last year, a bill to legalize cannabis for adult use passed one New Mexico Senate committee only to be rejected in another before the end of the 30-day session.

Virginia Conference Committee Faces Saturday Deadline To Finalize Marijuana Legalization Proposal

Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.

The post Another New Mexico House Committee Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Bipartisan Pennsylvania Senators Team Up On New Marijuana Legalization Bill

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 18:04:50 GMT

A bipartisan duo of Pennsylvania senators rolled out a bill on Wednesday that would legalize marijuana in the state. And it’s that bipartisan component that advocates hope will convince the GOP-controlled legislature to advance the policy change.

Sens. Dan Laughlin (R) and Sharif Street (D) are introducing the legislation, which would allow adults 21 and older to purchase and possess cannabis from licensed retailers. The possession limit would be set at 30 grams, and only medical marijuana patients would have an option to cultivate up to five plants at home.

Regular people, farmers, and small businesses will benefit. Micro Cultivation licenses will give regular people access to the emerging cannabis market in PA. https://t.co/EjttpZBfoX #CannabisCommunity #LegalizeIt

— Senator Sharif Street (@SenSharifStreet) February 24, 2021

This marks the first time that a Republican legislator in Pennsylvania has sponsored an adult-use legalization bill—a significant factor given that the legislature under GOP control has long resisted legalization. Laughlin says that he’s not necessarily in favor of cannabis use, but he views regulating the market to be “the most responsible approach” to the issue and a superior alternative to criminalization.

“I ran for public office because I wanted to solve problems—and you can only solve problems when you are honest about what people think and how people really feel,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday. “It’s clear to me that public attitudes towards marijuana have changed dramatically in the past decade, maybe more than any other issue in recent memory.”

“As a public official, I believe it is my role to bring people together to ensure adult-use marijuana legalization done right,” he said. “Our proposal prioritizes safety and social equity. And furthermore, it will let Pennsylvania’s robust agricultural industry participate in marijuana cultivation.”

Street said the legislation is “pragmatic both economically and socially. It is both the right thing to do and it will help the commonwealth do well.”

Under the proposal, which hasn’t yet been formally introduced, a Pennsylvania Cannabis Regulatory Control Board would be responsible for managing both the medical and recreational programs and issuing marijuana business licenses. Cannabis products would be subject to the state’s six percent sales tax, in addition to a 10 percent excise tax, according to details first reported by The Erie Times-News.

Revenue from those taxes—which is estimated to become $400 million to $1 billion annually—would go to a new Cannabis Regulation Fund, as well as a Cannabis Business Development Fund that would provide financial aid, loans, grants and technical assistance to social and economic equity businesses.

Social and economic equity businesses would be defined as those are at least 75 percent owned and controlled by people who’ve lived in a “disproportionately impacted area” for at least five of the previous 10 years, or who’ve been arrested or convicted of certain cannabis offenses.

Regulators would be able to issue 528 dispensary licenses for the initial rollout of the program. Of those, 480 would be able to sell both medical and recreational marijuana products and 48 would have to sell only medical cannabis. Additionally, they could issue 100 cultivation business licenses.

People could have their criminal records expunged for convictions related to activity made legal under the legislation.

Social Justice: If you've been imprisoned for possession or use, non violent offenses, this bill is for you. If you've been on the short side of cannabis regulation, like many black and brown communities, this bill is for you https://t.co/EjttpZBfoX #CannabisCommunity #LegalizeIt

— Senator Sharif Street (@SenSharifStreet) February 24, 2021

Also in the bill, there’s language providing protections for firearm owners who use marijuana—though that wouldn’t nullify federal rules that preclude people from buying guns if they admit to consuming cannabis, regardless of state law.

“This year our neighbors in New Jersey have signed adult use marijuana into law and our neighbors in New York are likely to legalize,” Laughlin and Street wrote in a cosponsorship memo. “It is our duty to taxpayers to seize the initiative and legalize marijuana concurrently with bordering states. Failure to do so risks permanently ceding hundreds of millions of dollars of new tax revenue as well as thousands of jobs at a time when taxpayers can least afford it.”

But Laughlin told the Times-News that, even with a budget shortfall exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, his sponsorship is not about the money.

“I know there are many people who believe this will be a large revenue stream, but that’s at the very bottom of my list of reasons to introduce this bill,” he said. “This is where we are as a country. The majority of people want this legalized and regulated.”

Erie News Now | WICU & WSEE in Erie, PA

Gov. Tom Wolf (D), meanwhile, said earlier this month that marijuana legalization is a priority as he begins annual budget negotiations with lawmakers—even though his formal spending request doesn’t contain legislative language to actually accomplish the cannabis policy change.

The governor has repeatedly called for legalization and pressured the Republican-controlled legislature to pursue the reform since coming out in favor of the policy in 2019. Shortly after he did that, a lawmaker filed a bill to legalize marijuana through a state-run model.

A majority of Senate Democrats sent Wolf a letter in July arguing that legislators should pursue the policy change in order to generate revenue to make up for losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, reform advocates also have a strong champion of legalization in Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D).

The top official, who is running for U.S. Senate, previously led a listening tour across the state to solicit public input on legalization. He’s credited that effort with helping to move the governor toward embracing comprehensive reform.

While Republican lawmakers have resisted these calls, Fetterman has put his support centerstage, including by hanging marijuana-themed flags at his Capitol office.

In an interview with Marijuana Moment last month, he said the decor was removed this week at the behest of certain GOP members who passed a temporary budget restricting the types of flags that can be flown on government property—but he promptly put them back up.

Fetterman also said that farmers in his state can grow better marijuana than people in New Jersey—where voters approved a legalization referendum in November—and that’s one reason why Pennsylvania should expeditiously reform its cannabis laws.

In September, the lieutenant governor hosted a virtual forum where he got advice on how to effectively implement a cannabis system from his counterparts in Illinois and Michigan, which have enacted legalization.

Virginia Conference Committee Faces Saturday Deadline To Finalize Marijuana Legalization Proposal

Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.

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Virginia Conference Committee Faces Saturday Deadline To Finalize Marijuana Legalization Proposal

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 13:48:25 GMT

Virginia lawmakers are working to reconcile conflicting House and Senate marijuana legalization bills this week, scrambling to reach deals on matters such as business licensing and criminal penalties ahead of a legislative deadline on Saturday.

Each chamber passed its own legalization bill earlier this month, building off a plan introduced in January by legislative leaders and Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who last year committed to legalizing cannabis in the commonwealth. While the two measures—each spanning more than 500 pages—are substantially similar, key differences remain on a range of hotly debated topics.

“This is one of the largest, most significant pieces of legislation debated in the commonwealth in decades, with years of preparation, study and research leading up to its proposal,” Jenn Michelle Pedini, development director for NORML and executive director of the group’s Virginia chapter, told Marijuana Moment. “Virginia is one of the single most prepared states to undertake a legalization effort.”

Both measures (HB 2312 / SB 1406) would allow adults 21 and older to purchase up to an ounce of marijuana and cultivate up to four cannabis plants (two mature) for personal use. Commercial production and retail sales would be regulated by the state, and tax from the legal industry would fund investment in pre-K education and public health initiatives. The two bills would each create a new agency to regulate cannabis instead of have the state’s existing alcohol authority do so as was originally envisioned by Northam.

But as the proposals have made their way through each chamber, amendments have led to competing approaches on the finer details of legalization.

Some disagreements are relatively simple. The Senate bill would legalize personal possession of marijuana later this year, for example, while the House proposal would keep penalties in place until as late as 2024 to align the change with the launch of legal sales.

Other differences are more complex, especially those around how businesses would be licensed and regulated. Vertical integration of businesses—under which a single company could grow, process and sell cannabis products—would be banned under the House bill. The Senate measure, meanwhile, would allow vertical integration only if a business were to pay $1 million fee into a state equity fund.

The decision on that rule would affect how easily the state’s existing medical marijuana businesses, which are vertically integrated, could participate in the new adult market.

While both bills would leave the total number of business licenses in the state up to local regulators, the House bill would limit individual license holders to no more than five licenses apiece in an effort to avoid the market being dominated by large marijuana businesses. The Senate bill would only limit the number of cultivation licenses any one individual could hold.

Social equity applicants would be given licensing priority under both versions of the legislation in an effort to recognize the drug war’s racial and economic disparities, but who qualifies for equity status isn’t settled. Lawmakers have debated whether people who attended the state’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) should be eligible, for example, or whether businesses could qualify simply by employing people impacted by the drug war or giving a portion of profits to equity groups.

The two chambers also differ on the issue of local control. The Senate measure would allow individual cities to ban cannabis companies within its borders, while the House bill would allow businesses statewide, although facilities would still be subject to local zoning requirements.

Further controversy surrounds how violations of the new law would be penalized. The Senate proposal creates a number of new criminal penalties, such as making it a misdemeanor—rather than the state’s current $25 fine—for consuming cannabis in public. It would also criminalize consuming cannabis in a moving vehicle, even in the case of a passenger eating a cannabis edible. Driving under the influence of marijuana would remain a crime under both bills.

The House bill also makes clear that adults 21 and older are free to share small amounts of cannabis between them so long as the marijuana isn’t exchanged as part of a larger transaction, as in the case of quasi-legal delivery services that have tried to skirt gifting laws in other states.

Penalties for minors caught with cannabis are more restrained under the House bill, with youth subject to a $25 civil fine and referral to a substance education or treatment program. The Senate bill, meanwhile, would impose a $250 fee for a first offense and criminal charges and even jail time for subsequent convictions.

Expungement of prior convictions could occur under both bills, although the House bill specifies that a larger portion of eligible expungements would happen automatically. Separate legislation advancing this session (HB 2113 / SB 1339) would make changes to the state’s expungement processes more broadly.

Pedini, at NORML, called the House bill “much better when it comes to post-legalization penalties,” noting that the reform group has encouraged the members of the conference committee to avoid rolling back progress recently made with the decriminalization law Northam signed last year, which replaced criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana with a $25 civil fine and no threat of jail time.

Advocates have noted that even as overall marijuana arrests have fallen since the decriminalization law took effect, data from the state Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court show persistent racial disparities in possession charges. Black Virginians accounted for 52 percent of all such charges, the group Marijuana Justice found, despite just 20 percent of the state’s population being Black.

“NORML has long warned that decriminalization, while an important step to reducing marijuana-related arrests, will only do so by about 50 percent, and will unfortunately not address the disparate enforcement of marijuana laws,” Pedini said. “The legislature must act swiftly to stop the harm by legalizing the responsible use of cannabis by adults and begin undoing the harms of prohibition inflicted overwhelmingly on poor, young, Black, and Brown Virginians.”

Virginia NORML has been tracking several other cannabis-related bills this session, a few of which have already made it to the governor’s desk. Most notably, lawmakers on Tuesday signed off on legislation to allow the production and sale of raw, so-called botanical cannabis to medical marijuana patients. Another measure, which passed the House earlier this month and is set to be considered by the Senate on Wednesday, would prevent workers from discharging, disciplining or discriminating against an employee for being a lawful medical marijuana patient. That bill would not restrict an employer’s ability to fire someone for being high on the job.

Pedini urged lawmakers considering the legalization bills to adopt clearer language on how to incorporate the state’s existing medical marijuana businesses into the state’s new market to ensure that both systems flourish.

“The committee has everything they need to reach a resolution in advance of the Saturday deadline,” they said. “If they don’t reach an agreement or fail to pass the bills, it’s purely for political reasons, and reasons that blatantly ignore public opinion.”

Some lawmakers, however, have already floated the idea of delaying certain portions of the legislation. The Senate version of the bill contains a clause that would force the legislature to vote again next year before the legal market could move forward, and it would ask voters to weigh in through a nonbinding referendum on next year’s ballot.

“We’re part-time legislators. It’s 46 days and a 13,000-line bill. This bill makes more substantive change in the law than anything I’ve seen in the whole time I’ve been down here,” Sen. Creigh Deeds (D), told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in an interview earlier this month. “We want to get it right. We need to have it back before us next year.”

The focus on legalizing the “right” way has become a common refrain among Virginia officials. Announcing his commitment to enacting policy change, Northam said late last year he was “committed to doing it the right way.”

Asked by the Times-Dispatch about the House and Senate bills, a spokesperson for Northam replied: “Both bills would legalize marijuana in the right way.”

Democratic lawmakers began formally pushing for legalization last summer, a day after the new state marijuana decriminalization law took effect. In November, a legislative working group issued recommendations to lawmakers and the governor about how best implement a legal cannabis program, and a separate workgroup of state cabinet officials also prepared a study on the issue, which together became the basis for Northam’s proposal.

“Legislative leaders in Virginia deserve a big round of applause for their commitment to ending cannabis prohibition and replacing it with sensible regulation,” said Matt Simon, senior legislative analyst for Marijuana Policy Project, which is also tracking the differences in the two bills. “There are still a few details that still need to be resolved in the legislation, but overall we are happy with the direction things appear to be going and hopeful that legislators will agree on a policy that works for all Virginians.”

Even if state lawmakers pass a reconciled legalization bill in coming days, there would still be a long way to go before legal sales begin. Under both bills, Virginia’s first legal adult-use sale wouldn’t occur until 2024.

“While this protracted timeline is both unnecessary and far from ideal, what’s most important is that the measure succeed. In the next legislative session, we can make improvements,” Pedini said. “What we cannot do is continue to kick the legalization can down the road for yet another year.”

New Jersey Attorney General Orders Marijuana Cases To Be Dropped Following Legalization Bill Signing

Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images

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ND House votes to legalize cannabis (Newsletter: February 24, 2021)

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 11:15:11 GMT

NJ AG’s marijuana memos; Biden Treasury nom pressed on cannabis banking; MN legalization advances; Poll: SC support for medical marijuana

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/ TOP THINGS TO KNOW

The North Dakota House of Representatives approved a bill to legalize marijuana. It’s an attempt to avoid a more far-reaching cannabis measure that activists want to put on the 2022 ballot.

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal (D) issued a memo directing prosecutors to drop pending marijuana cases now that legalization has been signed into law. A separate memo clarifies what police can and can’t do when it comes to cannabis.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) pressed President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy treasury secretary on revising marijuana banking guidance. Meanwhile, House Democrats left the cannabis financial services issue out of their latest coronavirus relief bill despite including it twice last year when the party didn’t control the Senate or White House.

The Minnesota House Labor, Industry, Veterans and Military Affairs Finance and Policy Committee amended and approved a bill to legalize marijuana—one week after a separate panel also advanced it.

A new poll found that South Carolina voters support legalizing medical cannabis by a five-to-one ratio.

A new federally funded study found that workers’ compensation claims and payouts decline in states that legalize marijuana.

“We hypothesize that access to marijuana through [recreational marijuana laws] increases its medical use and, in turn, allows better management of symptoms that impede work capacity—e.g., chronic pain, insomnia, mental health problems, nausea, and so forth.”

/ FEDERAL

Under secretary of state for political affairs nominee Victoria Nuland disclosed that she has consulted for cannabis firm Tilray.

Congressional Democrats filed an immigration reform bill that excludes some marijuana offenses from a provision that blocks people with certain convictions from citizenship eligibility.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) spoke at a Black History Month Town Hall about his work to lead marijuana reform efforts in the Senate.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-KY) purchased several marijuana stocks shortly after Election Day and ahead of his vote on a federal legalization bill.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK), in introducing interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland before her confirmation hearing, said, “Anybody who thinks you’re going to cut off fossil fuel immediately is smoking pot—that’s legal in the state of Alaska, by the way.” (About 37 minutes into the video.)

/ STATES

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) tweeted, “Tell your state legislator to get a bill legalizing adult-use marijuana to my desk. I’d be more than happy to sign it into law.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) tweeted, “Let me be blunt: Today, I signed historic adult-use cannabis reform bills into law – with social justice, racial justice, and economic justice leading the way.”

New York’s lieutenant governor tweeted, “Great news for farmers and small business entrepreneurs. New York State is now accepting applications from businesses seeking to operate as cannabinoid hemp processors, retailers or distributors.”

Florida’s agriculture commissioner tweeted, “Florida should legalize marijuana for adult use.”

The South Dakota House of Representatives approved a bill to amend hemp rules. Separately, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill to defelonize the ingestion of drugs.

The Indiana Senate approved a bill to allow the state attorney general to take over cases that local prosecutors refuse to pursue, including those for marijuana.

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office published an overview of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) plan to consolidate the state’s marijuana regulatory responsibilities.

The Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a bill to revise marijuana regulations on Thursday and Friday.

Missouri’s Administrative Hearing Commission awarded medical cannabis cultivation licenses to two businesses that were originally rejected by regulators. Meanwhile, regulators extended deadlines for approved businesses to open.

Arizona regulators sent guidance on tax requirements for marijuana businesses, including that the official code for such businesses is 420.

Oklahoma regulators began signing up people for trainings on medical cannabis seed-to-sale tracking.

Massachusetts regulators sent a bulletin on telehealth consultations for medical cannabis patients.

Nebraska activists held a rally to pressure lawmakers to legalize medical cannabis.

The Washington State Social Equity in Cannabis Task Force’s Disproportionately Impacted Communities Workgroup will meet on Thursday.

The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission will meet on Thursday.

Colorado regulators will hold a marijuana rulemaking hearing on Friday.

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/ LOCAL

A St. Louis County, Missouri councilman is preparing a marijuana decriminalization proposal.

/ INTERNATIONAL

Iceland’s health minister is proposing decriminalizing drugs.

A Kenyan lawmaker is pressing colleagues to pass legislation legalizing medical cannabis.

/ SCIENCE & HEALTH

A study concluded that medical cannabis “may represent an alternative treatment for patients with [fibromyalgia syndrome] who are unresponsive to conventional therapy.”

A study suggested that “convenience and lower cost of administering psilocybin as a fixed dose outweigh any potential advantage of weight-adjusted dosing.”

/ ADVOCACY, OPINION & ANALYSIS

The Republican National Committee posted a tweet criticizing interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland’s support for legalizing marijuana.

The South Dakota Democratic Party tweeted about the passage of hemp legislation.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy has a new executive director.

Illinois marijuana social equity advocates erupted into disagreements about preferred legislative approaches at a press conference.

/ BUSINESS

Green Thumb Industries Inc. raised $56 million by selling shares.

The AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF announced that it has surpassed $1 billion in assets under management.

Liberty Health Sciences Inc. shareholders voted to approve its acquisition by Ayr Wellness Inc.

Canopy Growth Corporation announced that it beneficially owns approximately 20% of TerrAscend Corp. shares following the closing of its plan of arrangement with RIV Capital Inc.

Acreage Holdings, Inc. announced that its CFO is leaving the company.

The U.S. Tax Court ruled that Desert Organic Solutions owes taxes due to the 280E provision.

/ CULTURE

Filmmaker Kevin Smith said that in the upcoming Clerks III movie, Jay and Silent Bob run a marijuana store.

Comedy Central posted a tweet about New Jersey’s legalization of marijuana.

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The post ND House votes to legalize cannabis (Newsletter: February 24, 2021) appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

Minnesota Marijuana Legalization Bill Clears Second House Committee

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 22:48:54 GMT

A second Minnesota House committee approved a bill on Tuesday that would legalize marijuana in the state—though several other panels are expected to take up the legislation over the course of the next few weeks before it reaches the floor.

House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler (D), Speaker Melissa Hortman (D) and other lawmakers filed the measure earlier this month. It would allow adults 21 and older to purchase and possess up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis and cultivate up to eight plants, four of which could be mature.

The House Labor, Industry, Veterans and Military Affairs Finance and Policy Committee passed the measure in a 7-5 vote. This comes one week after the Commerce Finance and Policy Committee advanced the legislation. It will next head to the Workforce and Business Development Finance and Policy Committee.

“The fact of the matter is that our laws are the part of this system that don’t work,” Winkler said on Tuesday. “We criminalize responsible adults who use cannabis for their own purposes. We criminalize people who use cannabis for their health benefits. We criminalize veterans who use cannabis as an alternative to opioids. And we criminalize countless African Americans because of their use of a substance that is common.”

“As we look at making updates to the way we treat cannabis and we look at ways to make responsible smart policy choices, we have to make sure that we are actually dealing with cannabis as it is—not as people believe it to be during a period of Reefer Madness in the 20th century,” he said. “Things are not that way.”

Winkler’s bill as introduced was identical to a proposal he filed last year, with some minor technical changes. The majority leader, who led a statewide listening to gather public input ahead of the measure’s introduction, called it the “best legalization bill in the country” at the time. It did not advance in that session, however.

Under the proposal, social equity would be prioritized, in part by ensuring diverse licensing and preventing the market from being monopolized by corporate players. Prior marijuana records would also be automatically expunged.

During the latest committee meeting, members approved an amendment that would clarify the process for veterans to qualify for medical cannabis and appropriate funds for job training for the marijuana industry. The bill also underwent other changes during last week’s initial hearing.

On-site consumption and cannabis delivery services would be permitted under the bill. And unlike in many legal states, local municipalities would be banned from prohibiting marijuana businesses from operating in their areas.

Retail cannabis sales would be taxed at 10 percent. Part of that revenue would fund a grant program designed to promote economic development and community stability.

The bill calls for the establishment of a seven-person Cannabis Management Board, which would be responsible for regulating the market and issuing cannabis business licenses. It was amended in committee on Tuesday to add members to that board who have a social justice background.

People living in low-income neighborhoods and military veterans who lost honorable status due to a cannabis-related offense would be considered social equity applicants eligible for priority licensing.

Local chapters of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the United Food and Commercial Workers chapter and Sensible Change Minnesota submitted written testimony in favor of the proposal ahead of Tuesday’s hearing.

Gov. Tim Walz (D) is also in favor of ending marijuana prohibition, and last month he called on lawmakers to pursue the reform as a means to boost the economy and promote racial justice. He did not include a request to legalize through his budget proposal, however.

Walz did say in 2019 that he was directing state agencies to prepare to implement reform in anticipation of legalization passing.

Winkler, meanwhile, said in December that if Senate Republicans don’t go along with the policy change legislatively, he said he hopes they will at least let voters decide on cannabis as a 2022 ballot measure.

Heading into the 2020 election, Democrats believed they had a shot of taking control of the Senate, but that didn’t happen.

The result appears to be partly due to the fact that candidates from marijuana-focused parties in the state earned a sizable share of votes that may have otherwise gone to Democrats, perhaps inadvertently hurting the chances of reform passing.

In December, the Minnesota House Select Committee On Racial Justice adopted a report that broadly details race-based disparities in criminal enforcement and recommends a series of policy changes, including marijuana decriminalization and expungements.

North Dakota House Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill

Photo courtesy of WeedPornDaily.

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