Business
Baja California Governor Says She’s ‘Totally Behind’ on Medical Cannabis
The position is at odds with the mayor of the state capital.
The leader of the Mexican state Baja California offered a full-throated endorsement of medical cannabis last week as debate surrounding the issue continues to rankle lawmakers in the country.
Marina del Pilar Avila, who serves as governor of Baja California, told reporters that she is “totally behind the legalization of marijuana as a way to treat chronic illnesses,” as quoted by the news outlet Border Report.
As the outlet noted, currently “the Mexican Senate is debating legalizing the widespread use of pot in Mexico.”
But Avila’s endorsement of the treatment is not shared by other leaders in Baja California.
Norma Bustamante, the mayor of Mexicali, which is the capital city of Baja California, “came out against Avila’s statement” almost immediately, according to Border Report.
“As a public servant, I’m always respectful of the law and as a woman, mother and grandmother of teenagers, I am against the use of drugs including marijuana and even cigarettes,” Bustamante said, as quoted by Border Report.
Adrián Medina Amarillas, who serves as the health secretary of Baja California, begs to differ.
“When the country allows the use of medical marijuana, we’ll be among the first to use it to treat chronic illnesses that don’t respond to conventional treatments among them cancer and Parkinson’s,” Medina said, as quoted by the outlet.
Long a robust producer and exporter of cannabis, Mexico’s marijuana laws are shrouded in ambiguity. As Leafly puts it: “It’s complicated.”
“Marijuana currently exists in a legal flux state in Mexico. It’s not entirely legal, but it’s not entirely illegal either,” Leafly explains. “Medical cannabis is technically legal in Mexico, but there is no legal framework in place to obtain a prescription or prove one’s own legal medical status. Possession of up to 5 grams of cannabis for any purpose, medical or otherwise, has been effectively decriminalized nationwide, although local and federal police often do not respect this status.”
As for recreational pot, possession “of up to 5 grams of cannabis is effectively legal since it was decriminalized federally in 2009, along with limited amounts of a number of other drugs, by authorities seeking to free up resources and separate public health issues from traffic crimes.”
“People found with less than 5 grams of cannabis should, according to the law, be encouraged into free treatment programs, but in reality they are still coerced into paying police bribes to be released from custody. They are generally not prosecuted for personal amounts, though the law states that purchasing and possessing amounts in excess of 5 grams can carry prison sentences of 10 months to 3 years,” Leafly explains.
The uncertain nature of that policy has prompted advocates and lawmakers to call for comprehensive cannabis reform.
In August, Olga Sánchez Cordero, president of the Senate Board of Directors, “urged approval of the reform to regulate cannabis, since she considered that Mexico is lagging behind in the matter compared to Latin America and the world,” according to the Mexican news magazine Proceso.
The magazine reported that, in Sánchez Cordero’s inaugural speech, she “recounted that Senator Margarita Valdez, president of the Upper House Health Committee, held a meeting in which representatives of Latin American countries asked her why Mexico did not regulate everything related to consumption of marijuana.”
“Now Senator Margarita Valdez told me that in a meeting she had, all our South American, Chilean, Argentine, Colombian brothers, in short, asked her when Mexico will take this important step in the regulation of cannabis. In my opinion, and I tell you this with all sincerity, I believe that we are falling behind the world if we do not make progress on this issue,” Sánchez Cordero, as quoted by Proceso.
Additionally, the outlet reported that she “mentioned other issues on the legislative agenda that are relevant and that will be discussed during the next regular session that begins on September 1, such as the National Code of Civil and Family Procedures, consumer protection, issues of a energy and the protection of the human rights of migrants.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/baja-california-governor-says-shes-totally-behind-on-medical-cannabis/
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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