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Minnesota Sets Home Limit at 2 Pounds
At home, Minnesota residents can possess up to 2 pounds of pot, much higher than the limit in most other states.
Weeks ago Minnesota legalized cannabis for adult use, and at the same time, set the home limit at 32 ounces or 2 pounds.
Out of the 23 states that have legalized cannabis for adult use, the limit for personal amounts at home ranges from 1-10 ounces—with the exception of one state, Minnesota, where the personal limit for cannabis is 32 ounces or 2 pounds. But given the state’s four-plant limit for growing at home, some people say even 2 pounds is not enough.
Minnesota allows adults to have up to 2 pounds of cannabis at home, no grower’s license needed, but once they leave home, they will only be allowed to carry 2 ounces of cannabis in public.
It’s a more generous system than what we typically see. Some states—including California, Washington, and Nevada—allow one ounce of cannabis at home. Colorado sets the limit at 2 ounces. Michigan, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts allow much more at 10 ounces.
“The vast majority of adult use states that allow home cultivation don’t have any explicit limit,” says NORML Political Director Morgan Fox. “And most of them explicitly say that you can keep whatever you grow in your own home. There are four states aside from Minnesota that actually have set limits. Massachusetts has 10 ounces, Michigan has 10 ounces, or you’re going to is eight ounces and New York is 5 pounds.”
“If you’re gonna put a limit on it, I think it’s a good idea to have it towards the higher end of the spectrum and possible so that you can avoid potentially criminalizing people that are growing their own medicine or growing cannabis for their own purposes, but who are trying not to transfer to anybody else, you know, they’re not trying to gift it out, and certainly don’t want to be selling it.”
Fox continued, “But they also don’t want to be arrested, if they happen to be a little bit over the limit based on whatever their their harvest is. And in a lot of these states, you know, once you get over whatever the the adult use, possession limit is whether it’s, you know, out on the street or at home. In some cases, you’re getting back into pre prohibition, criminal penalties, and in some cases, like felonies if you’re talking about pounds.” So, you know, I think it’s a really good idea to have that possession limit be or the the home production possession limit be as high as possible if you’re going to limit it at all just to avoid re criminalizing people that are cultivating cannabis at home.”
Lawmakers in Minnesota said they set high limits to simplify the program, allowing for the same limit to grow and possess.
Sen. Lindsey Port led the State Senate’s version of the adult-use cannabis bill, and supports the state’s personal limit. “We wanted to decriminalize as much as possible, but we also wanted to make sure that we had an ability to control the illicit market,” Port told CBS News affiliate WCCO News. “We wanted to make sure you were allowed to possess the amount that you could grow.”
“We’ve looked at other states and what we’ve learned is it’s not so much how much you can possess that really allowed the illicit market to continue,” Port said.
Is the Limit High Enough?
Local business owners in the area, however, said that they predict 99% of consumers in the state aren’t going to have a need for 2 pounds of cannabis at home, and if they do, they will probably sell it illegally.
Despite having the higher limit, industry insiders say it’s not enough for the state’s four-plant home grow limit.
The Minnesota Hemp Growers Cooperative wrote in a letter to the committee that the state’s cannabis law allows individuals to have up to four mature cannabis plants at one time, which can yield potentially more pot than the individual possession limit of 2 pounds.
“With proper cultivating techniques, you could harvest well over 6 pounds of material from four plants,” wrote Shawn Weber, president of the Minnesota Hemp Growers Cooperative. “On what planet does this make any sense?”
Paving the Way for the Adult-Use Market in Minnesota
On May 30, Gov. Tim Walz signed Minnesota’s adult-use cannabis bill into law, officially making Minnesota the 23rd state in the nation to legalize recreational cannabis.
At the signing ceremony, Walz recognized that prohibition does not work, and said that he and fellow lawmakers are looking to start the expungement process for qualifying Minnesotans. Walz also indicated that adults should be able to make their own decisions “around these types of choices.”
Additionally, the bill legalizes possession of up to two pounds of cannabis in a private residence and limited home cultivation by adults over 21. Out in public, Minnesota adults are allowed up to two ounces. The legislation allows adults to grow up to eight cannabis plants at home, including four mature, flowering plants.
Possession for adults 21 and older will officially be legal in the state starting Aug. 1.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/minnesota-to-have-highest-home-limit-in-history-2-pounds/
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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