Government
Court Ruling on Ballot Measures Simplifies Legalizing Weed in Nebraska
A federal judge has struck down a Nebraska law requiring ballot measures to receive signatures from 5% of voters in at least 38 counties, making it easier for two medical cannabis legalization proposals to qualify for the November ballot.
A federal judge has struck down provisions of Nebraska’s voter initiative process in a ruling that will simplify efforts to put a medical cannabis legalization measure on the ballot for the November election. In his ruling, federal district court Judge John M. Gerrard wrote that a requirement that campaigns for ballot initiatives collect signatures from 5% of the voters in 38 counties violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Gerard issued an order on Monday barring Nebraska from enforcing the rule as activists work to collect signatures on two complementary medical cannabis legalization initiatives for the 2022 general election.
Under Nebraska law, citizens wishing to place a measure on the ballot must collect signatures from at least 7% of registered voters, including a minimum of 5% of voters in at least 38 of the state’s 93 counties. In a lawsuit, activists with the group Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana (NMM) and the American Civil Liberties Union claimed that the 38-county rule is unconstitutional because it violates rights to free speech and equal protection guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.
Nebraska Initiative Process Violates ‘One Man, One Vote’
The plaintiffs argued that the rule violates the principle of “one man, one vote” by making the signatures of voters in sparsely populated rural counties more valuable than the signatures of voters in Nebraska’s cities. Under the rule, the plaintiffs said that one voter in rural Arthur County is the equivalent of 1,216 voters in Douglas County, which includes Omaha, Nebraska’s most populated city. NMM also stated that the requirement violates the First Amendment rights by dictating how the group prioritizes its signature-gathering efforts.
“A county number or how likely we are to qualify has dictated where I send my resources, where I send volunteers, you know, signature collectors,” Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana campaign manager Crista Eggers, a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, told local media.
Gerrard agreed with the plaintiffs and issued an injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing the 38-county rule for ballot measures, including those currently being circulated by NMM for two related medical cannabis legalization measures.
“The State of Nebraska is absolutely free to require a showing of statewide support for a ballot initiative—but it may not do so based on units of dramatically differing population, resulting in discrimination among voters,” the judge wrote in his ruling.
Gerrard also attacked the legal argument in support of the 38-county rule advanced by Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen and Attorney General Doug Peterson, who argued that if the requirement were struck down it would destroy the state’s entire initiative process.
“For the State to argue that the baby must go with the bathwater is eyebrow-raising,” Gerrard wrote in his 46-page opinion.
Two Medical Cannabis Proposals Vying for Voters’ Support
Activists with NMM are currently circulating petitions for two medical cannabis initiatives for the November ballot. The first proposal would “require the Legislature to enact new statutes protecting doctors who recommend and patients who possess or use medical cannabis from criminal penalty,” according to a report in the Lincoln Journal Star. Under the second initiative, lawmakers would be required “to pass legislation creating a regulatory framework that protects private entities that produce and supply medical cannabis.”
The group has until July 7 to submit at least 87,000 signatures for each of the two initiatives. So far, the group has collected a combined total of about 80,000 signatures. Leaders of the drive say that Gerrard’s ruling will make the task easier because fulfilling the 38-county rule has been a challenge, especially since the death of a major donor to the drive died in March.
“This allows me to be able to go and collect signatures from all Nebraskans,” said Eggers.
Nebraska state Sen. Anna Wishart, another leader of the campaign, said that Monday’s ruling is a “big win” for residents who want to see the medicinal use of cannabis legalized.
“Nebraskans across the state support this issue because they know a loved one, friend or neighbor, who is sick and would benefit from having access to medical cannabis,” Wishart said.
On Tuesday, a federal judge denied a motion from Evnen to stay the injunction. The attorney general’s office said that Gerrard’s ruling would be appealed, a move that received the secretary of state’s approval.
“I concur with the decision to immediately appeal the District Court’s order, which nullifies a Nebraska State Constitutional provision concerning initiative petitions,” Evnen said on Monday night.
The Nebraska ACLU said it will continue working to ensure the 38-county rule is not reinstated.
“We will just have to see what Secretary Evnen does,” said Daniel Gutman with ACLU of Nebraska. “And we’ll obviously be ready to respond.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/court-ruling-on-ballot-measures-simplifies-legalizing-weed-in-nebraska/
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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