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Bill To Dismantle Montana Adult-Use Weed Market Goes Down in Flames

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Senate Bill 546, which would have put an end to Montana adult-use cannabis businesses, is dead after being introduced last month.

You are still free to get high in the “Big Sky.” That is because last week, lawmakers in Montana voted to table a bill that would have effectively dismantled the state’s new adult-use cannabis program.

Republican state Sen. Keith Regier introduced Senate Bill 546 in Montana last month that would have eliminated recreational marijuana dispensaries in Montana.

Almost 60 percent of voters in Montana approved a ballot initiative in November 2020 to legalize weed for adults aged 21 and older, which set up a regulatory framework for a state-sanctioned recreational cannabis market.

Recreational cannabis sales launched last year, ultimately bringing in more than $200 million to the state in 2022.

The Montana Department of Revenue reported in January that sales of adult-use marijuana amounted to $202,947,328 in 2022, while medical cannabis sales came to $93,616,551. (Montana voters legalized medical cannabis in 2004.)

But Regier’s bill never made it out of the Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs Committee, which held a hearing on the measure on March 29.

“I just think it’s good not to make voters think that their voice doesn’t count. Then they really turn away from this whole process,” Kate Cholewa, who represents the trade group Montana Cannabis Industry Association, said at last week’s hearing for the bill, as quoted by Montana Free Press.

Per the outlet, Regier addressed that objection during his opening remarks at the hearing, saying that there “have been several examples of the will of the voters being reversed.” (“Two of the three examples he cited involved voter initiatives being overturned by courts, not lawmakers,” Montana Free Press noted.)

Regier’s bill would have also raised “the state tax on medical marijuana from 4% to 20% and puts significant limits on medical marijuana potency and allowable amounts for possession,” Montana Free Press reported last month.

The issue of marijuana potency was raised at last week’s committee hearing.

“There is no need to have 90% potent marijuana products unless you’re trying to addict kids,” 

Said Dr. Kevin Sabet, co-founder and president of the national anti-marijuana organization Safe Approaches to Marijuana, as quoted by Montana Free Press. “That’s simply the only reason to do it. Or addict (sic) people in the workplace and cause crashes on the road.”

But on Thursday, members of Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs Committee decided they had heard enough, and voted 6-4 to table the bill.

According to Montana Free Press, “three Republican committee members—Senate President Jason Ellsworth, Committee Chair Jason Small and Sen. Walt Sales—joined with all three Democratic members to oppose the bill,” before the “committee subsequently tabled the bill unanimously.”

It might not be the Montana legislature’s last word on cannabis reform.

Last month, that same committee in the state Senate “heard testimony on two marijuana-related bills,” according to local news station KTVH, including one that “would prohibit marijuana businesses in Montana from promoting their business or brand in print, over TV and radio or using a billboard.”

The other proposal “would revise the required warning labels that marijuana businesses must put on their products, to say that marijuana use during pregnancy could result in ‘congenital anomalies, and inherited cancers developed by a child later in life,’” KTVH reported.

Tax revenue from marijuana sales in Montana are used to support a number of programs in the state, including the HEART Fund, which provides money for substance abuse treatment in Montana.

“Funding a full continuum of substance abuse prevention and treatment programs for communities, the HEART Fund will offer new support to Montanans who want to get clean, sober, and healthy,” the state’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, said in 2021.

Source: https://hightimes.com/news/bill-to-dismantle-montana-adult-use-weed-market-goes-down-in-flames/

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New Mexico cannabis operator fined, loses license for alleged BioTrack fraud

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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:

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/

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Marijuana companies suing US attorney general in federal prohibition challenge

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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.”

Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-companies-suing-us-attorney-general-to-overturn-federal-prohibition/

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Alabama to make another attempt Dec. 1 to award medical cannabis licenses

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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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