Government
Albania Prompted to Implement Medical Cannabis Reform After U.N. Criticism
Albania was named number 7 out of 154 countries for the illegal cultivation and distribution of cannabis by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
It may be hard for most people to locate Albania on a map (it is a coastal country directly across the Adriatic Sea from Italy) but what has just happened there is certainly unique to the legalization discussion. After being named the 7th worst country in the world for illegal cannabis activities, the government decided to legalize medical cannabis.
The law, entitled “control of the cultivation and processing of the cannabis plant and the production of its by-products for medical and industrial purposes” is now online.
The Status of the Legislation
The draft law does not lay out a lot of detail except for its intent to regulate cannabis production for medical use and for its export. Additional details that have now showed up in the press coverage of the situation mention that licensing will be granted for greenhouses and other secured, covered areas up to 150 hectares and will be valid for a maximum of 15 years. Companies must also show working capital of about $85,000, have at least 15 employees and must pay a levy to the state of 1.5% of the annual company turnover.
However, by far the most interesting thing about such developments is that this bill was specifically prompted by the high ranking “achieved” by Albania on the U.N.’s recent report on drugs and crime. The fact that the country was actually named for the “Balkan route” for trafficking heroin from Pakistan to western countries, including across the Adriatic to Italy does not help matters.
The bill will now be available for public comment, after which it will be forwarded to Parliament.
Opposition groups are furious, calling the development irresponsible and claiming that it will only facilitate even more illegal cultivation. Enkelejd Alibeaj, a member of Parliament and leader of one of the two political groups now opposed to this reform also accused the prime minister of going soft on the issue, even after his former interior minister is in prison due to involvement with “criminal groups of cannabis trafficking.”
Many criminal gangs have also moved their production indoors to evade detection.
About one third of the 8,328 Albanians prosecuted for cannabis trafficking between 2013 and 2019 were actually convicted.
The government, in contrast, believes that this law will enable them to control the legal industry—and even bring in much needed foreign export income.
Eliminating the Black Market via Medical Reform
While admirable, and most definitely overdue, this law may well not achieve what it intended. Then again, so far, what legalization effort has gone smoothly anywhere? That said, North Macedonia, right next door, is in a similar position. Medical cannabis reform, however, has not so far been the windfall that was hoped for, in large part because of the complexity of exporting this narcotic from a non-European country to the E.U.—and from the Balkans.
However, it is clearly a step in an inevitable position.
The History of Cannabis in Albania
Albania is no stranger to large-scale cannabis cultivation. Indeed, it became a large part of the economy after the fall of the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the country’s economic situation collapsed. The illicit, albeit at first localized, industry was subsequently penetrated by a series of increasingly powerful and violent gangs. This period peaked in about 2016—the same year that Albania was named as one of the largest illicit producers in the world. Even though there was a concerted international effort to disrupt this the next year, it has not achieved much except push traffickers into more remote areas and to take additional evasion techniques.
The government of Albania has also cooperated with international police forces to attempt to stop the problem via military means. Indeed, with the aid of Italian reconnaissance flights between 2013 and 2019, authorities identified 613 hectares (1,514 acres) of land planted with cannabis, much of it centred in the southern village of Lazarat, also dubbed “Europe’s cannabis capitol.” In a country which is only 2.9 million hectares, this is a significant amount of territory.
In such an environment, it will be interesting to see the impact of legalization of at least medical cultivation—particularly as the entire issue of cannabis reform moves forward internationally.
The recent U.N. report on international drugs and crime was also controversial for its assertions about increased cannabis use and the reasons for it. It appears it has now had a visceral impact on at least one country’s reform schedule the week after Germany concluded its own hearings on recreational cannabis reform.
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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