Business
NBA to allow players to promote, invest in and consume cannabis
A groundbreaking bargaining agreement between the National Basketball Association and its players association would allow players to invest in and promote cannabis companies.
The tentative deal – which must be ratified by the union and team governors – would also allow players to consume marijuana given that the substance would be removed from the league’s drug testing program, according to The Athletic sports media site.
The National Basketball Players Association confirmed that a tentative collective bargaining agreement had been reached.
“Specific details will be made available once a term sheet is finalized,” the group said in a statement.
The proposed labor agreement would offer players another investment opportunity, NBA and WNBA teams, The Athletic reported.
The tentative agreement would provide a major endorsement for the cannabis industry and would open up a new source of funds for marijuana companies, which have been struggling in the face of a tight funding market.
The proposed seven-year agreement would also mark a first for the NBA, which has previously penalized players for consuming marijuana and barred them from participating in cannabis sponsorships or business opportunities.
That hasn’t stopped a growing number of former NBA players from joining the cannabis industry, such as Al Harrington, a co-founder of Los Angeles-based Viola Brands; Chris Webber of Players Only Holdings; Carmelo Anthony, an investor in California cannabis brand Leune; and Shawn Kemp, a marijuana store owner in Seattle.
In a recent appearance on NPR, Harrington talked about what basketball and marijuana have in common.
“Sports definitely heals,” he said.
“Every time it seems like our country goes through something, sports is the kind of thing that brings it back together.
“And I feel the same thing about the cannabis plant. I really feel like the cannabis plant is a natural healer, and it fosters community.”
Is tide turning in pro sports?
As an increasing number of states have legalized medical and adult-use marijuana, professional sports leagues have been gradually easing their once-zero tolerance attitudes toward the substance.
The NBA stopped random drug testing for marijuana in recent years, checking for the banned substance only if there was probable cause to do so.
Suspensions would occur if a player tested positive three times in a row.
The National Football League donated $1 million last year to research into pain management and cannabis.
In October, Colorado-based Charlotte’s Web CBD became Major Baseball League’s first official cannabidiol sponsor.
WNBA star Brittney Griner was imprisoned in Russia last year after authorities found vape cartridges containing hash oil in her luggage.
Despite marijuana still being federally illegal in the United States, the White House classified the player as “wrongfully detained.”
Griner was freed in December through a prisoner exchange for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
NBA shift reflects public opinion
Paul Haagen, co-director of the Center for Sports Law and Policy at Duke University, said the NBA’s former drug policy was created to counter public perception that basketball players abused recreational drugs.
“Assuming that the rumors are true, and that the new (collective bargaining agreement) will remove cannabis from the list of prohibited substances, it would constitute a belief by the League that public attitudes toward cannabis have changed enough that it is no longer a sufficient issue for the League that it is worth any continued conflict with the players over it,” he told MJBizDaily via email.
The players union could have advocated for the change on behalf of players, but Haagen said he hasn’t seen evidence of that.
“It seems more likely that the League believes that continuing to test for cannabis and otherwise restrict players in relation to it, both created unnecessary conflict with the players and may even have made the League seem out of touch with changing social norms,” he said.
And because marijuana prohibition has disproportionately impacted people of color in some communities, Haagen said, there are “especially strong reasons for the NBA to decide not to be part of those efforts.”
Harrington has previously said that lifting the ban was important to players.
On Saturday, sports and culture web show The Shift posted a clip on Twitter from a previously recorded interview with the cannabis entrepreneur and former NBA player in which he predicted the ban would be lifted because so many players are already using marijuana.
“I think it’s very important for the players, I think with this next collective bargaining agreement that’s coming up in the next year or so, I think it’s going to be a very big point that the players are going to push across the line,” he told The Shift.
“Most players are now using openly. I’ve seen players walk into dispensaries, which I never thought that I would see.”
The Phoenix Suns’ Kevin Durant is likely the best-known example.
In May, Durant – who has a content partnership with California-based cannabis platform Weedmaps – appeared on the Netflix show “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman” and talked about the misunderstandings involving marijuana.
“To me, it clears the distractions out of your brain a little bit, settles you down,” he said. “It’s like having a glass of wine.
“I’m actually high right now.”
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/nba-to-allow-players-to-promote-invest-in-and-consume-cannabis/
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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