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Australia Report Reveals Potential Cannabis Legalization Plan
A recent report has revealed Australia’s plans to approach marijuana legalization within the next few years.
The Australian Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) recently released a proposal exploring two options on how to approach cannabis legalization. It was commissioned to explore what legalization could look like through the request of Sen. David Shoebridge (described on his Twitter page as “the devil’s lettuce daddy of Australia”) and the Australian Greens Party (also referred to as the Greens).
According to the PBO’s report, the first option would establish the creation of the Cannabis National Agency (CANA), which would act as the sole wholesaler between producers and retailers, set wholesale prices on cannabis, and issue licenses to potential cannabis business owners. Ideally, the agency would be funded completely through the fees required to apply for production and retail licenses.
This option would legalize cannabis for anyone 18 and older, specifically with no restriction on the amount that an individual can purchase. This approach would also create penalties for selling to underage individuals, which is similar to how the country manages sale of alcohol to minors. Recreational cannabis would be available to “oversea visitors,” and residents would be allowed to cultivate up to six plants. Finally, recreational sales would “attract the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as well as an excise of 25% on GST-inclusive sales.”
The second option contains all provisions from the first option, except for the final recommendation, which would change the excise tax to 15% instead of 25%.
The report explains that this approach would be similar to Canada’s law on cannabis. In Canada, residents may only cultivate up to four plants at home, cannot smoke publicly, and are limited to possession of 30 grams or less.
The PBO projects that the country could collect up to AU$28 billion in cannabis tax revenue during the first decade of legalization.
According to The New Zealand Herald, Sen. Shoebridge suggested that the tax revenue could also be used to raise rates provided by JobSeeker, the government’s job finding service, and raise financial aid provided by the job service Youth Allowance. He also suggested that cannabis tax revenue could help build more than 88,000 public housing units in the next decade, which could give more than 250,000 people a home.
“This costing from the PBO shows the incredible opportunity legal cannabis creates to not just reduce harm but to generate revenue that could be invested in health, education and public housing,” said Shoebridge. “The Greens’ model creates a right for adults to grow up to six plants at home without being taxed and without having to pay. This costing takes that into account. It also guarantees commercial possibilities for co-operatives and local entrepreneurs to grow and sell cannabis including through regulated cannabis cafes.”
He also explained that legalization just makes sense. “Legal cannabis makes enormous social and economic sense. When we legalise cannabis we take billions away from organised crime, police and the criminal justice system and we can then spend it on schools, housing, hospitals and social support,” Shoebridge said.
Furthermore, he added that legalization reduces the harm caused by criminal injustice, and that overall, polls have revealed that most Australians support and consume cannabis regularly. “It’s a fact that almost half of adult Australians have at one time or another consumed cannabis. Laws that make almost half of the country criminals don’t pass the pub test,” Shoebridge said. “When you legalise cannabis you can properly regulate the market, provide consistent health and safety advice and make the product safer. Right now the only ‘safety regulators’ for the cannabis market are bikie gangs and organised crime and that doesn’t make much sense.”
Commercial cultivation could begin in Australia as early as July 2023 if the PBO’s plans are adopted, which would ensure that the cannabis supply is well ahead of the demand. Applications for production and retail licenses could begin as early as 2023 or 2024, with an expectation of launching sales by 2024 or 2025.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/australia-report-reveals-potential-cannabis-legalization-plan/
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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