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Missouri Foster Parents Can Now Legally Possess, Grow Cannabis in Their Homes
Foster parents should be treated like regular parents.
Foster parents in Missouri can now legally possess and grow cannabis in their homes. This news results from an emergency rule the state Department of Social Services filed last week.
However, of course, there are guidelines. Foster parents must store their cannabis in a manner “so as to be inaccessible to the children,” the rule says. And don’t think of lighting up around kids; consuming cannabis in a method that releases smoke or vapor is still prohibited inside the house, so duck outside to light your joint.
These caveats aren’t unheard of. Rather, they follow similar guidelines for how one must store prescribed medication, alcohol, and matches. If a foster parent chooses to grow, the law states they must do so “in an enclosed, locked facility” as defined by law.
Thanks to the passage of this new law, foster parents can now legally participate in cannabis, just like everyone else. Back in November of 2022, Missouri voters passed a ballot initiative, Amendment 3, to legalize and regulate marijuana for adults 21 and older. Amendment 3 allows purchasing and possessing up to three ounces of cannabis. After registering, one can legally grow up to six mature plants for personal use. However, the newly passed legislation barred foster parents of about 14,000 children from participating.
Missouri adopted the changes to the law, which addresses “physical and environmental standards” for foster care on an emergency basis as the current guidelines clash with the approved constitutional amendment, according to a statement attached to the rule’s text.
“Rule 13 CSR 35-60.040 presently provides that foster parents shall not use or possess marijuana or marijuana-infused products,” it reads. “A regulation that conflicts with the Missouri Constitution is invalid.”
Following emergency rule guidelines, the change expires on February 23, 2024.
Based on what Caitlin Whaley, Social Services spokesperson, shared with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the changes are meant to protect the foster children.
“This is to protect the foster child from the hazards of second-hand smoke,” Whaley said. “Foster parents may smoke marijuana and tobacco outside the premises but not in a vehicle while transporting a foster child and not in the presence of a foster child.”
Last year, researchers at the University of Mississippi published a study that suggests cannabis legalization leads to at least a 10% drop in foster care admissions. “Our most conservative estimates imply that legalization causes at least a 10 percent decrease in total admissions to foster care, with larger effects in years further after legalization and for admissions into foster care due to specific child-welfare concerns,” the authors of the research concluded.
But if cannabis were legal federally; as a result, there would be hundreds of millions of dollars in estimated cost savings for foster care systems yearly.
The authors analyzed data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System from 2000-2017 and other sources. Their findings showed that while there were unremarkable differences between states pre-cannabis legalization, foster care placements gradually decreased in states that enacted the reform. “Legalization may impact foster-care admissions directly by changing the welfare of children or indirectly by changing policies and attitudes towards marijuana use in the home,” they wrote. “Direct effects may arise because marijuana use itself causes behaviors that affect child welfare, or because it changes the likelihood of using other drugs,” Marijuana Moment reports.
The study, published in the journal Economic Inquiry, additionally examined what those declines would mean regarding economic impact. Additional previous research suggests that a single foster care placement costs an average of $25,000. The latest study found that legalizing cannabis on a national level would “reduce the financial burden of the foster-care system by about $675 million, annually.”
“We also find that placements due to physical abuse, parental neglect, and parental incarceration decrease after legalization, providing evidence that legalization reduces substantive threats to child welfare, although the precise mechanism behind these effects is unclear,” the authors conclude.
State Auditor Republican Scott Fitzpatrick began an investigation into Missouri’s cannabis program to probe into whether regulators are operating “in a manner that is efficient, accountable and transparent,” whining that cannabis provisions “now make up more than one-fifth of the language in our state constitution,” the Missouri Independent reports. This is the latest foray into the inside of a heavily criticized program, which draws scrutiny from both state lawmakers and federal law enforcement, in addition to simply trying to stay on top of the level, speed, and growth of the changing laws. Fitzpatrick told the Missouri Independent that the audit is because cannabis is set to be a $1 billion industry in Missouri. He adds that the amendments that legalized it “represent some of the most substantial changes we’ve seen to our state constitution in recent memory.”
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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