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Legislative Report Projects $72 Billion Cannabis Industry By 2030
A new report delivered to Maryland lawmakers this week shows the national market for legal cannabis growing to $72 billion per year by 2030.
A new legislative report delivered to Maryland lawmakers this week projects that the nationwide market for legal cannabis could climb to $72 billion per year by 2030, more than double the current market estimation of $32 billion annually. But the report also shows that some states that have legalized cannabis have failed to set clear social equity goals and that the regulated marijuana market nationwide lacks a proportionate representation of Black-owned businesses.
Lawmakers in Maryland are exploring how legalized adult-use cannabis would impact the state, where voters will decide on recreational marijuana legalization in this month’s general election. On Tuesday, the Maryland House of Delegates’ Cannabis Referendum and Legalization work group met virtually to assess a report on the nationwide cannabis regulation climate.
A $75 Billion Industry
The report, which was prepared and presented to the work group by Mathew Swinburne, associate director of Network for Public Health Law-Eastern Region of Baltimore, includes information from New Frontier Data that projects steady growth of the nationwide market as current markets mature and new states are added to the roster of legal cannabis states. Growing from $32 billion in 2022, the projection estimates a total market nationwide of $72 billion by 2030.
“We know that the cannabis industry is a profitable industry,” said Swinburne. “This is a new industry that is filled with economic opportunity and that opportunity is only growing,” he added. “Although this industry presents some significant economic opportunities, communities of color are missing out on this cannabis boom.”
Swinburne told the work group that jobs in the cannabis industry rose from about 321,000 in 2020 to approximately 428,000 a year later. However, the report also notes that 81% of cannabis businesses are owned by white people and 58% of businesses have no employees who are members of minority groups.
Efforts to address the lack of diversity in the cannabis industry have been inconsistent, the report notes. Of the 19 states that have legalized recreational marijuana, Alaska, Maine, Montana, and Oregon do not have social equity measures in place to help improve equitable representation in the cannabis industry.
Swinburne highlighted some states’ approach to social equity, noting that Connecticut provides financial incentives for medical cannabis business owners to partner with new small or minority-owned businesses to provide assistance over a specified timeframe. Massachusetts provides accessible opportunities to enter the market by allowing courier and delivery operators to provide cannabis products directly to consumers. And in New York, regulators have created a $200 million fund to support social equity businesses and have prioritized those with past convictions for marijuana offenses for the state’s first 100 recreational cannabis dispensary licenses.
Delegate C.T. Wilson of Charles County, chair of the House Economic Matters Committee, asked Swinburne how taxation in other states with legal cannabis has impacted the illicit market and illegal marijuana sales.
“That’s a definite challenge states are confronted with,” Swinburne replied. “If your goal is to decrease the share of the unlicensed market, you have to keep your licensed market competitive. It’s important to highlight with the tax revenue you get, there’s a moral obligation to use some of that for addressing the harms that were caused [in low-income communities].”
Senator Melony Griffith of Prince George’s County asked if any states that have legalized recreational marijuana had implemented policies, such as a disparity study, that was required “to produce evidence of their race concise remedies,” but Swinburne said the report did not assess that issue in its analysis.
Maryland Voters To Decide On Legalizing Weed
In next week’s midterm election, voters in Maryland will decide on Question 4, a referendum that would amend the state constitution to legalize marijuana for adults 21 years of age or older beginning in July 2023. The measure also directs the state legislature to pass laws for the use, distribution, regulation, and taxation of marijuana.
Currently, marijuana is legal for medicinal use in Maryland under a 2013 law, while possession of 10 grams or less of cannabis was decriminalized in 2014. Question 4 is overwhelmingly supported by Maryland voters, with a recent poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland showing 73% in favor of the proposal.
Voter Tamara McKinney of Prince George’s County told Maryland Matters that she plans to vote in favor of Question 4, but said she hopes the launch of the state’s recreational marijuana program will provide resources for Black and brown communities and those who have been incarcerated for cannabis-related offenses.
“De-criminalizing it helps keep our men out of the [criminal justice] system,” she said. “But if it helps to keep them out the system, what are we doing to keep them out [of jail]? I want them to have more resources than just the ability to get high.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/business/legislative-report-projects-72-billion-cannabis-industry-by-2030/
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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