Business
Colorado Governor Wants Pardons for Psychedelic Convictions
The remarks by Jared Polis came at the Psychedelic Science conference in Denver, Colorado.
On the heels of his state’s landmark new law that legalizes psychedelic drugs, the governor of Colorado wants to go even further.
Jared Polis, the Democrat who was elected to his second term as the state’s governor last year, said Wednesday that he wants Colorado lawmakers to empower him with the ability to issue pardons to individuals who have been busted for crimes related to psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms.
“So anybody who has something on their criminal record that is now legal can have that expunged and doesn’t hold them back from future employment opportunities,” Polis said at the Psychedelic Science conference, which is being held in Denver this week, as quoted by Axios.
“It is still ridiculous that in this day and age somebody suffering from anxiety, depression, PTSD can get medical coverage for very costly prescription drugs but cannot get coverage for a treatment in a healing center that will address some of the underlying causes of the issue,” the governor added.
Polis’s comments come less than a month after he signed a bill that will establish a regulatory framework for psychedelic drugs. The bill was the byproduct of last year’s voter-passed initiative, Proposition 122, and it will officially take effect on July 1.
The measure “legalized therapeutic psilocybin and decriminalized the personal cultivation, use and sharing of psilocybin mushrooms and three other natural psychedelics (DMT, ibogaine and mescaline that is not from peyote),” according to the local outlet Westworld.
“While licensed psilocybin therapy centers could open by late 2024, Prop 122 did not allow for the establishment of retail operations, only healing centers, so there won’t be mushroom stores popping up like the hundreds of cannabis dispensaries currently in Colorado,” Westworld reported last month.
Westworld, reporting this week at the Psychedelic Science conference, noted that Polis [who] “never publicly supported Prop 122 but has praised it since the measure passed, told the crowd that he has ‘no personal connection’ to psychedelic medicine,” but his support of psychedelic use is “values based” and about “body autonomy.”
“We are facing very difficult challenges in mental and behavioral health and are very excited about the opportunities,” Polis said, as quoted by Westworld. “In many of these areas, including cannabis, the people of our state, and not the politicians, led the way.”
The governor said at the conference that he envisions a significant expansion of the state’s psychedelic laws, including changes that would enable psychedelic therapy to be covered by insurance in Colorado.
“Yes, that’s right. People will no longer need to go to Mexico or Colombia. They can come right here to Colorado,” Polis said, as quoted by Westworld.
“Once it’s federally scheduled to be a pharmaceutical, it will immediately be rescheduled in Colorado,” the governor added. “We want people to say…Colorado got this right. Look, I’m sure we’ll get a few things wrong, but we can learn from them and build upon them.”
After a majority of Colorado voters approved Prop 122 in November, parts of the initiative took effect in December of last year.
“Coloradans voted last November and participated in our democracy,” Polis said at the time. “Officially validating the results of the citizen and referred initiatives is the next formal step in our work to follow the will of the voters and implement these voter-approved measures.”
About 53% of voters in Colorado approved Proposition 122 in last year’s election.
Following Polis’s certification of the measure in December, psychedelics were officially decriminalized in Colorado.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/colorado-governor-wants-pardons-for-psychedelic-convictions/
Business
New Mexico cannabis operator fined, loses license for alleged BioTrack fraud
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/
Business
Marijuana companies suing US attorney general in federal prohibition challenge
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.”
Business
Alabama to make another attempt Dec. 1 to award medical cannabis licenses
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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