Government
Minnesota Cities Temporarily Banning Cannabis Retailers Ahead Of Legalization
Minnesota cities are passing temporary bans on cannabis sales until state regulations are approved.
Nearly a dozen Minnesota cities have passed laws to temporarily ban recreational marijuana dispensaries from opening in their jurisdictions as a new state law legalizing adult-use cannabis is poised to go into effect. Minnesota lawmakers passed the bill, which legalizes marijuana for adults aged 21 and older, in May, and the legislation is slated to go into effect on August 1.
Minnesota’s cannabis legalization bill allows adults 21 and older to use marijuana recreationally and to possess up to two ounces of cannabis in a public place, beginning on August 1. The bill also legalizes the possession of up to two pounds of marijuana in a private residence and the limited home cultivation of cannabis by adults aged 21 and older. Under the legislation, adults would be allowed to grow up to eight cannabis plants at home, including four mature, flowering plants.
The bill also legalizes commercial cannabis activity, with regulated sales of recreational marijuana coming after rules are drafted and approved by the Office of Cannabis Management, a new state agency created by the legislation. The new agency will also regulate medical marijuana and cannabis products derived from hemp.
The law also gives local governments some control over cannabis businesses that locate within their jurisdictions, including limiting the number of cannabis retailers that can set up shop within a town’s city limits to one retailer per every 12,500 residents, with a minimum of one dispensary. But outright bans on dispensaries are not allowed.
State lawmakers included provisions barring local governments from banning cannabis businesses after local control laws in other states led to so-called cannabis deserts, where consumers had little or no access to legal cannabis. Jason Tarasek, an attorney at the cannabis law practice Vicente LLP who manages the firm’s Minnesota office, said that he is “grateful that the Minnesota state legislators paid careful attention to the failed policies in those states that allowed local governments to prevent cannabis businesses from operating in their jurisdictions.”
“By precluding local governments from opting out, yet giving municipalities power to regulate the time, place and manner of the operations of cannabis businesses, Minnesota is much more likely to put the illicit market out of business in every corner of the state,” he added.
Cities Passing Temporary Bans on Retail Sales
State agencies have set a target date of May 2024 to begin accepting applications for adult-use cannabis retailers, according to a report from Minnesota Public Radio News, with dispensary sales of recreational marijuana anticipated to start in January 2025. But with the legalization of possession only days away, many cities are taking steps to temporarily ban retail sales of cannabis until state regulations take effect.
In Rochester, Minnesota, city leaders are considering a prohibition on retail cannabis sales until January 2025. If the ban is approved, the city would join at least 10 others that have passed similar temporary bans on retail cannabis sales. Rochester city clerk Kelly Geistler says the temporary ban will give the city council time to decide what kind of rules governing cannabis businesses are appropriate for the community.
“We’re really just trying to preserve the space to get our ordinance in order so that we can be in lockstep with the state when they kick off their function, which they don’t have a prescribed date,” Geistler said in a statement to Minnesota Public Radio News. “But they have indicated that that’s likely to be January 2025.”
City officials in Mankato, Minnesota have also recently approved a temporary ban on cannabis retailers, with city manager Susan Arntz noting that local officials will have less influence over cannabis rules compared with other regulated products.
“It’s a completely different process,” Arntz said. “In this case, the city is less involved in the licensing, whereas with alcohol and tobacco, we are more involved.”
But she added that cities will be responsible for enforcing licenses once they have been issued by state regulators.
“Until the rules are published, you know, there’s a lot of unknowns,” she said.
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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