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Colorado Voters Approve Psychedelics Decriminalization Measure
Colorado voters have passed Proposition 122, a ballot measure to decriminalize and regulate psilocybin and other natural psychedelics for therapeutic use.
Voters in Colorado on Tuesday approved a ballot measure to decriminalize the therapeutic use of natural psychedelics including psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms. With 88% of the vote counted as of Wednesday evening, Proposition 122, the Natural Medicine Health Act, had garnered more than one million voters, representing 51.4% of the votes cast.
“This is a historic moment for both the people of Colorado and our country,” Kevin Matthews, coalition director for Natural Medicine Colorado, said in a statement after the approval of Prop 122 became apparent on Wednesday. “I think this demonstrates that voters here in Colorado are ready for new options and another choice for healing, especially when it comes to their mental and behavioral health.”
The Natural Medicine Health Act creates a state-regulated therapeutic system for adults to access natural psychedelic medicines, such as psilocybin mushrooms, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine and mescaline not derived from peyote. The psychedelics will be available under the guidance of a licensed and supervised facilitator at designated healing centers and healthcare facilities such as hospice centers. The medicines are prohibited from leaving the facilities, and no retail sales are allowed in any form.
Psychedelics As Therapy
Psychedelics including psilocybin have seen a resurgence of interest in the potential of the drugs to treat a wide range of mental health conditions. The Food and Drug Administration has designated psilocybin as a “breakthrough therapy” but has not approved the use of the drug.
Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine released a new study showing that psilocybin can quickly and significantly reduce symptoms of treatment-resistant depression. Prior research from the nation’s top medical research universities including Johns Hopkins University, the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, and New York University have shown positive patient outcomes for depression and anxiety. Additionally, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has started offering psychedelics to patients as a part of clinical trials.
Psychedelics such as psilocybin, mescaline, and DMT have also been used for centuries by indigenous American cultures for medicinal and spiritual purposes. Matthew X. Lowe Ph.D., research director at psychedelic research nonprofit Unlimited Sciences, says that there are numerous health and wellness benefits “that come from consuming psilocybin.”
“Preindustrial Mesoamerican cultures have consumed psilocybin for thousands of years in ritualized contexts to enhance psychotherapeutic healing, religious insight, and self-exploration,” he told Forbes. “In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of psilocybin in treating a range of different psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, suicidality, substance use disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, among others.”
“Psilocybin consumption has now been consistently associated with antidepressant and anxiolytic effects and is being considered for the treatment of depression and anxiety,” Lowe continued. “In fact, a recent study determined that decreased brain modularity following psilocybin therapy was correlated with improvements in depressive symptomatology and outcomes when compared with a commonly prescribed” anti-depressant.
Natural Medicines Advisory Board To Be Named
With the passage of Prop 122, Colorado Governor Jared Polis has until January 31, 2023, to appoint 15 members to a new Natural Medicine Advisory Board, which will advise the state’s Department of Regulatory Agencies on implementing the measure. The board’s first recommendations are due by September 30, 2023. Recommendations on a facilitator training program for the medical use of psilocybin mandated by the measure are due on January 1, 2023. Regulated access to psilocybin would become available in late 2024.
“Colorado voters saw the benefit of regulated access to natural medicines, including psilocybin, so people with PTSD, terminal illness, depression, anxiety and other mental health issues can heal,” Matthews and Veronica Lightening Horse Perez, the measure’s co-proponents, said in a statement on Wednesday. “We look forward to working with the regulatory and medical experts and other stakeholders to implement this new law.”
Joshua Kappel, chair of Natural Medicine Colorado and a founding partner of the psychedelics and cannabis law firm Vicente Sederberg LLC, said “it’s a relief to know that the people of Colorado believe in Prop 122 and the hope of healing these natural psychedelics can provide for those with PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, trauma and other mental conditions.”
“History has been made this week. We proved to the world it’s possible to pass a ballot measure that not only provides access to natural psychedelic-assisted therapy in a responsible state-regulated setting but also protects individual and community-based healing modalities from arrest and many civil offenses,” Kappel, the author of Prop 122, said in an email to High Times. “Many told us that this dual approach was not wise or possible. Tonight, we showed that inclusive and equitable policies are not only necessary but politically viable.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/colorado-voters-approve-psychedelics-decriminalization-measure/
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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