Government
Did You Hear the One About The 3 Democrats That Filed a Marijuana Legalization Bill in The Republican Leaning Senate?
After reading the write ups on the new Cannabis Administration Opportunity Act (CAOA) and checking with our DC sources, I wish we could say we are more opportunistic on the passage of the new cannabis legalization bill in the Senate.
The new 296-page bill mimics the early 163-page flop that Senator Shumer and Booker introduced many months ago. If you don’t remember back that far due to a smoky haze, or care not too, we are talking huge federal taxes, nonsensical amounts of cannabis for personal use, not supporting the Safe Banking Act, and a whole slew of head-scratching marijuana ideas and promises. You can read about it here.
The new bill improves such things as cannabis worker’s rights, a legal standard for driving while impaired, banking access, and a new Federal marijuana license idea for shipping cannabis from state to state. Yes, that is included so that legal states can ship product to other legal states and non-legal states must allow the cannabis to pass through, but it may not be distributed in those states.
You think wholesale prices and retail prices are hitting a bottom now? Look out below when mass producing states can ship their excess inventory across the country to heavily regulated states. Prices will plummet, but the good news is that we will get an efficient market for the legal and non-legal markets. Just to make it more exciting for law enforcement, the legal THC limit for hemp would also be raised to 0.7% from 0.3%. How you like them apples, officer? Now try and test that crop you just pulled me over for in your legal or non-legal state.
Before the industry gets too excited about a the federal cannabis legalization bill actually in the Senate now, not just the House, let’s look at five dire facts.
One, we will have cannabis legalization when Senator Mitch McConnel says we will have federal legalization. At the present, he has not endorsed this bill.
Two, do you think the Republicans are going to let the 3 Democrats introduce and pass a very popular bill with the voters in the Republican controlled Senate? So, the Democrats get to do a victory lap for weed legalization in the Republican’s endzone? Fat Chance! Better chance of Rep. Nancy Mace’s bill getting traction with Mitch and his band of 8, then a Democratic lead bill in the Senate. Let us not forget how Senator McConnel has publicly mocked Democrats for trying to even pass the Safe Banking Act in a variety off add-on measures to current Defense and China-based bills.
Three, this version of the CAOA has a good amount of social justice, economic empowerment, and federal taxes going to communities most effected by the War on Drugs thanks to Senator Booker. This is a non-starter with most Republicans, the new federal taxes and the social equity parts of the bill, that is.
Think we are being a bunch of curmudgeons on federal legalization, again? Here is Marijuana Moment’s take on the passage of the bill:
While the sponsors have spent months discussing the proposal with offices across the aisle, there’s still a fair amount of skepticism about the prospects of reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the measure through the Senate.
Republican senators are generally expected to oppose a measure to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), let alone one that would also impose a federal tax on marijuana sales and contains progressive social equity provisions such as automatic expungements for prior cannabis convictions.
It’s also not guaranteed that all Democratic members of the Senate will support the legislation. Several members have been either non-committal or signaled that they’d oppose it based on the original draft language. Democrats hold a slim majority in the chamber, so any dissent within the caucus could compromise the bill’s chances of passage.
Four, November elections are coming up and Democrats are losing seats. We are also in a wave of Conservative thinking sweeping America in regard to gun laws, abortion, maybe gay marriage is next, and weed legalization would not be high on the list of things to get done by Conservative Americans in power right now.
Five, President Biden is no fan of drugs, a longstanding “War on Drugs” supporter, and having a family member die of drugs, he is just not a weed guy. While pledging on the campaign tour to release low level cannabis-offense inmates, 3 years later we are still waiting for that pledge to be fulfilled. His office has said an announcement is coming soon, but he is obviously not making cannabis legalization a priority even though he is a Democrat and his Vice President sponsored one of the cannabis legalization bills.
If the House flips Republican in the Fall, then Rep. Mace’s bill may be the best shot at legalization as she is a Republican in the House and then the Republicans could take full credit for legalizing weed, their way, and get the voter approval ratings.
Time will tell and elections will come and go, but weed will be legalized when Mitch McConnell says so.
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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