Government
Duluth, Minnesota Bans Pot Smoking in Public Parks
The ordinance extends a ban on vaping and tobacco.
Officials in Duluth, Minnesota this week approved an ordinance that will ban smoking marijuana in all city parks.
The passage of the measure came about two weeks after a new state law allowing recreational cannabis use for adults aged 21 and older took effect on August 1.
Minnesota Public Radio reports that the newly passed ordinance “also bans vaping marijuana, and extends a ban on smoking tobacco to all city parks,” although consuming “cannabis in other forms, such as gummies, is still allowed.”
Previously, according to MPR, smoking pot “was only forbidden in select parks.”
The ordinance was approved by the Duluth City Council on Monday by a vote of 8-1.
“I want to protect clean air for folks in our public spaces and our parks,” said Duluth City Council Vice President Roz Randorf, as quoted by Minnesota Public Radio. “When you’re smoking in public and in parks and in buildings, we really have to think of those folks that are around us that could have health conditions, pre-existing conditions, our youth.”
The lone councilmember to vote against the proposal was Azrin Awal.
“We’ve heard [from] constituents, that they’re worried about smoking taking place in sidewalks. But if they’re not able to go into a public facility, if they can’t smoke in their multifamily or public building, and they can’t go into a public park, what’s left is our sidewalks and streets … where there’s more traffic,” Awal said at Monday’s meeting, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
According to MPR, the city council “tabled an amendment to reduce the maximum $300 fine for violating the ban, but appeared close to agreeing to a new fee structure.”
Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize adult-use cannabis in May, when Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill into law.
“We’ve known for too long that prohibiting the use of cannabis hasn’t worked. By legalizing adult-use cannabis, we’re expanding our economy, creating jobs, and regulating the industry to keep Minnesotans safe,” Walz said after signing the legislation. “Legalizing adult-use cannabis and expunging or resentencing cannabis convictions will strengthen communities. This is the right move for Minnesota.”
Walz’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, echoed those sentiments.
“Legalizing adult-use cannabis is about keeping our communities safe, advancing justice for Minnesotans, and investing in a strong economic future,” said Flanagan. “Prohibiting the use of cannabis hasn’t worked and has disproportionately harmed communities of color across the state. By expunging nonviolent cannabis convictions, we are removing the barriers that prevent thousands of Minnesotans from fully returning to work, to their communities, and to their lives. This is how we make safer communities.”
Although the law officially took effect on August 1, empowering adults to use and possess cannabis, sales are not expected to begin until sometime next year.
An analysis prepared by the nationally recognized cannabis firm Vicente LLP suggested that recreational cannabis sales in Minnesota could generate as much as $1.5 billion annually by 2029.
“Minnesota stands to attract a significant amount of tourist traffic from neighboring states like Iowa and North Dakota, as consumers venture to purchase Minnesota’s cannabis products,” said Brian Vicente, a founding partner at the firm.
New York, which legalized recreational cannabis for adults in 2022, also adopted a measure banning the smoking of pot in state-owned parks and beaches.
“Smoking is a dangerous habit that affects not only the smoker but everyone around them, including families and children enjoying our state’s great public places,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said after signing the legislation into law last summer. “I’m proud to sign this legislation that will protect New Yorkers’ health and help reduce litter in public parks and beaches across the state.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/duluth-minnesota-bans-pot-smoking-in-public-parks/
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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