Business
From the Archives: ATTICA! ATTICA! (1991)
The young, supple digital editor of High Times found out only recently about the Attica Prison riot of 1971 and is very glad to know that our beloved magazine covered the story on its 20th anniversary.
By William M. Kunstier
September 13th marked the 20th anniversary of the retaking of D-Yard at the Attica State Correctional Facility—a maximum-security penitentiary in upstate New York—by the authorities. The military assault on the yard by an army of state troopers, correction officers and sheriff’s deputies resulted in the deaths of 33 inmates and 10 hostages, as well as severe injuries to scores of other prisoners. Many died from loss of blood or lack of adequate medical attention because of the state’s failure to provide enough physicians, nurses and plasma for the anticipated number of casualties. Following the attack, inmates were forced to run a gauntlet of baton-wielding officers or were otherwise brutalized.
Some 17 years ago, a devoted band of attorneys who had been involved in the legal proceedings that followed the retaking of the facility, filed a class action suit on behalf of the affected inmates in federal court in Buffalo, NY. The suit sought damages for both the brutality practiced against their clients and the lack of planning for adequate medical and personnel resources. The original defendants included the estate of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, Correction Commissioner Russell Oswald, Warden Vincent Mancusi and his chief deputy. Although the Rockefeller attorneys succeeded in obtaining an order of dismissal for the estate, the suit against the other defendants has just been sustained by a federal appellate court, which also directed that a prompt trial take place.
In order to prepare for this trial—which, it is estimated, may take as long as six or seven months—an Attica Justice Committee has been formed. Among its hundred or so members are Susan Sarandon, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Spike Lee, Father Daniel Berrigan, Ramsey Clark, Bishop Paul Moore and painters Leon Golub and Nancy Spero. The committee’s purpose is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the uprising and to support the Attica plaintiffs and their families during the Buffalo trial. The trial’s budget is being estimated at $100,000, out of which the expenses of transporting many witnesses to Buffalo will be met. These include Dr. Michael Baden, the former New York City medical examiner; New York Times columnist Tom Wicker; and Malcom Bell, who, as an assistant New York state attorney general, exposed the unfair prosecution of the Attica inmates in his book, Turkey Shoot, which led Governor Hugh Carey to order the dismissal of all the charges against them.
As one of the observers requested by the inmates, I, along with the other members of our small group, spent the four days prior to the September 13 invasion attempting to persuade Gov. Rockefeller not to retake D-Yard by force until all efforts to effect a peaceful resolution had been explored. Tragically, we were unsuccessful. On the morning of the 13th, a Monday, I stood at the entrance to the prison watching officers stream through the gates, many shouting “Save me a nigger!” I could smell the CS gas dropped from hovering helicopters and listened, with tears in my eyes, to the staccato popping of what I later learned were rounds of double-O buckshot being emptied into the bodies of inmates and hostages alike. As long as I live, I will never forget those sounds and smells. Nor can I forget how a trooper tried to run me down with his car as I left the gate after the shooting had stopped.
Our last contact with the rebellious prisoners took place on Sunday, September 12. On that day we entered D-Yard along with a television crew from WGR-TV in Buffalo, who would eventually tape the pleas of some of the hostages that the authorities hold off any attempts to end the takeover until further negotiations could be held. Just before we left the facility, Commissioner Oswald showed us a document he was about to send into the yard. It contained a false statement that we were in agreement with him that the inmates should surrender. We implored him not to deliver it, because we felt that it might cost us our lives.
Despite his assurance that he would not send it in, he did so anyway. We were then asked, for the first time, to sign a general release on behalf of ourselves and our heirs indicating that if anything happened to us inside the yard, the state could not be held liable. I am firmly convinced that Commissioner Oswald and others in the correction hierarchy—and perhaps the Governor as well—were hoping that we would be branded as traitors by the inmates and slain, so that a planned attack by the state could be legitimized in the public view. Fortunately, the inmates were far more understanding than the authorities, and did not fall for this grotesque attempt to give justification to an assault. After the latter had taken place, the press was told it had been necessary because inmates were cutting the throats of their hostages. This turned out to be a lie. Two days later, the Monroe County Coroner announced that there had been no throats cut, and that all of the casualties were the result of gunfire.
It is hoped that the pending lawsuit will reveal not only the perfidy of the prison officials, but their refusal to respond to the many grievances filed by the inmates until their frustrations led them to explode during that September of so long ago. But its real value will be to emphasize that conditions in our penitentiaries are, if anything, worse than they were in 1971, as can be seen from the recent rebellion at the Southport Correctional Facility near Elmira, NY. It is sad beyond words that, as Santayana once put it, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/culture/from-the-archives-attica-attica-1991/
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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