Business
Legalization Bills Prefiled in Louisiana
The third time’s the charm for one Louisiana Rep. who has prefiled cannabis bills that would set the foundation for adult-use cannabis legalization.
Louisiana Rep. Candace Newell recently prefiled a package of bills that would legalize adult-use cannabis. According to the Louisiana Radio Network, Newell has introduced three bills: HB-17, HB-24, and HB-12. Each of the bills targets a specific area of regulation. “I’ve separated the three bills. It’s legalization, regulation, and taxation. So each bill does its own thing,” Newell explained.
HB-17, which Newell has filed twice in the past, would allow the Department of Agriculture to manage and issue 10 cultivation and processing licenses and 40 permits for retail dispensaries. “We want to have a handle on who’s growing it, so we know where it’s coming from…and you’re just not willy-nilly growing it in your back yard,” Newell told Louisiana Radio Network. Applicants would be required to undergo criminal background checks.
HB-24 would decriminalize cannabis possession and distribution. “Just as alcohol. You have a license to sell alcohol. If you don’t have a license you can’t sell it. The same will be with recreational marijuana…if I can get this bill passed.” Finally there’s HB-12, which has not yet been prefiled.
According to the Louisiana Illuminator, Newell wants to start setting the foundation for legalization now in preparation for the future. “More and more states are legalizing it, and it seems the federal government is leaning towards legalizing it,” Newell said. “I want to ensure that when it is legal, that it’s Louisiana citizens that have the opportunity to take part in this economic opportunity—that it’s people right here in Louisiana that’s making the money.”
While the effort to legalize adult-use cannabis begins, the state’s medical cannabis program has taken much time to expand. The state’s medical cannabis program has been around since June 2015 when former Gov. Bobby Jindal signed two bills into law—one that set up a basic foundation for a medical cannabis program, and another that reduced penalties for cannabis possession. However, it has taken years of additional bills to be passed in order to expand the program further, frequently due to opposition from legislators.
It wasn’t until May 2016 that former Gov. John Bel Edwards signed a bill that officially made Louisiana the 25th state to legalize medical cannabis though. Patients waited years until August 2019 for medical cannabis sales to actually begin, after the final round of testing was conducted on cannabis grown by Louisiana State University.
In June 2020, Edwards signed a bill into law that expanded the state’s qualifying conditions. While previously, medical cannabis was only legal to those who suffered from severe medical conditions (such as Parkinson’s disease, cancer, or glaucoma), the expansion allows doctors to certify a patient with any debilitating condition.
It wasn’t until June 2021 that the state finally allowed patients to consume smokable forms of cannabis. By August 2021, the state ended jail time for possession of small amounts of cannabis. Anyone in possession of up to 14 grams of cannabis would receive a misdemeanor crime, with a fine of $100.
Later in January 2022, cannabis flower sales finally began, but only products cultivated by state affiliated university programs would be allowed for distribution. At the time, only nine dispensaries were licensed for legal medical cannabis sales.
In July 2022, the University of Louisiana Monroe’s School of Pharmacy was given approval to conduct cannabis research and testing, which includes the construction of a 20-acre facility.
August 2022 brought the launch date for a number of other cannabis bills, which included improving affordability for cannabis dispensaries, preventing law enforcement from using cannabis scent as cause to search a person’s home, and making consuming cannabis and driving illegal. It also addressed positive drug test discrimination, and allowed patients from other states to access medical cannabis in Louisiana.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/legalization-bills-prefiled-in-louisiana/
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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