Business
Florida To Double Number of Medical Cannabis Licenses
Florida regulators announced last week that new licenses will be issued to double the number of medical marijuana operators in the state.
The Florida Department of Health announced last week that it will open a new round of licensing for medical marijuana businesses that will double the number of vertically integrated cannabis operators in the state. In an emergency rule released on Friday, the health department revealed that 22 new medical marijuana business licenses will be available, a move that would double the 22 operators currently licensed to produce and sell medical marijuana in Florida.
The new emergency rule comes more than six years after Florida voters legalized the medicinal use of cannabis with the passage of a constitutional amendment ballot measure in 2016. The following year, state lawmakers passed legislation to regulate the state’s medical marijuana industry, with provisions to issue additional cannabis business licenses as the number of registered patients grew.
With the number of registered medical marijuana patients now standing at nearly 790,000, according to data released last week, state regulators should have issued nearly two dozen medical marijuana business licenses to keep up with the program’s growth. But until last week, the Department of Health had failed to take action on issuing additional medical marijuana business licenses since the administration of Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis took control of the state’s executive branch in 2019.
“This is an exciting milestone for Florida’s medical cannabis program, more than five years in the making,” Courtney Coppola, a former director of the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use, told The News Service of Florida. “These additional licenses are an important step in moving the program forward for Florida’s patients and future licensees.”
Florida Applications To Be Accepted In April
In December, cannabis regulators at the state health department announced that it had developed a process to apply for new medical marijuana business licenses, with plans to accept applications in “batching cycles,” according to media reports. Under the emergency rule published on Friday, the department will accept applications for 22 additional licenses between April 24 and April 28. Louise St. Laurent, a former general counsel for the state Department of Health, said that the state’s medical marijuana operators “are thrilled” by last week’s announcement from regulators.
“There’s been no shortage of companies waiting and watching the department for these rules since probably at least 2017 to be able to have an opportunity to be able to compete for these licenses,” St. Laurent said on Friday.
Florida’s existing medical marijuana operators were licensed under a 2014 law that legalized “non-euphoric” forms of cannabis for a limited number of patients. The new licensing round announced on Friday will be the first batch of new licenses issued since the measure to regulate the state’s medical cannabis industry was passed in 2017.
The 2017 legislation also required the Department of Health to issue a license to a Black farmer with business ties in Florida. In September, regulators announced that the license would be awarded to a man in Suwannee County, but legal challenges have forced the health department to delay issuing the license to the successful applicant.
Recreational Weed Initiative Planned For 2024
Although Florida has so far only legalized medical marijuana, a constitutional amendment campaign to legalize cannabis for use by adults is currently underway, with plans for the proposal to appear on the ballot for the 2024 election. Last week, organizers for the constitutional amendment campaign, which is largely funded by Florida’s largest medical marijuana Trulieve, submitted enough signatures from voters backing the measure to require the Florida Supreme Court to review the proposal.
Under state law, the Supreme Court must approve initiatives before they can be placed on the ballot. In 2021, Florida’s highest court used that power to strike down two separate proposals to legalize recreational marijuana, denying the state’s voters the opportunity to weigh in on the initiatives. But Jade Green, the president of cannabis industry consulting firm Next Titan Capital, believes that the fate of the 2021 proposals is not likely to impede support for this year’s attempt to legalize adult-use cannabis.
“Florida is definitely a market of interest, especially compared to some of the other more mature, more saturated markets,” said Green. “The main reason is, everybody has a similar belief that, whatever happens in 2024, eventually adult-use (recreational) cannabis will come to Florida.”
Florida’s existing medical marijuana industry is estimated to generate about $1 billion in annual sales for the state’s operators. Adding legal recreational marijuana would open the market to all adults in the state, offering companies an added incentive to enter Florida’s medical marijuana industry.
“If you can make it in Florida until rec (recreational marijuana) hits, then you will have a significant advantage in what will be one of the largest cannabis economies not just in the U.S. but in the world,” Green said.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/florida-to-double-number-of-medical-cannabis-licenses/
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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