Business
Nebraska Medical Pot Initiative Fails To Qualify For Ballot
A bid to get a medical cannabis proposal on the Nebraska ballot this year officially came up short on Monday.
Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana said that the Secretary of State Bob Evnen “announced that our effort to relieve the pain of so many suffering Nebraskans did not meet the minimum qualifications of verified signatures to end up on the November ballot.”
“To say we are devastated would be an understatement,” the campaign said in an announcement on Facebook. “Suffering Nebraskans should never be faced with having to move themselves or their families out of the state they call home just to have access to health care.”
The group turned in more than 184,000 signatures to the Nebraska secretary of state’s office last month, less than an hour before the deadline for submission.
In fact, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana pursued what it described as “two complementary initiatives” for the state ballot: the Patient Protection Act would have enshrined protections for patients with “serious health conditions and their caregivers from arrest for the use of medical cannabis as recommended by a health care provider,” while the Medical Cannabis Regulation Act would have established “the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission to regulate private businesses that provide medical cannabis to qualified patients.”
Neither will be on the Cornhusker State’s ballot this November.
The Associated Press reports: “Each proposal needed nearly 87,000 signatures — or a total of 7% of registered voters — as well as 5% of registered voters in at least 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties to put the proposals to a vote of the people. The Patient Protections initiative collected 77,843 valid signatures, and the 5% threshold was met in only 26 counties, Evnen said. That proposal would have legalized the use of up to 5 ounces of marijuana for qualifying medical reasons. The Cannabis Regulation initiative collected 77,119 signatures, and the 5% threshold was met in 27 counties. It would have legalized the possession, manufacture, distribution, delivery, and dispensing of marijuana for medical reasons and would have established a commission to regulate a state medical cannabis program.”
The news on Monday marks an expected conclusion to what has been a turbulent campaign for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana.
In March, the group said it was scrambling for donations after two individuals who were expected to be major contributors were unable to support the campaign due to extenuating circumstances.
“I’d say devastating is an understatement,” Crista Eggers, one of the group’s spokespeople and leaders, said at the time. “We’re pleading with you to help.”
“If what we needed was grit, and drive, and determination, we have that,” Eggers added. “Our campaign would be done and over if that’s what we needed. But unfortunately, the one thing our campaign doesn’t have – and has to have – is money.”
Eggers was involved in the campaign for personal reasons: her son, Colton, has epilepsy but can’t receive medical cannabis treatment in their home state.
“We’ve received so much encouragement from individuals all across the state, who support the many patients like our son Colton, who desperately need access to this medicine. No matter what your political background is, we should all agree that criminalizing a medicine that has the potential to alleviate suffering, is both cruel and inhumane,” Eggers said during the campaign launch last year. “The current policy doesn’t reflect our family values here in Nebraska, and we’re going to change that. We need everyone who believes in compassion for suffering individuals like my son to be part of this movement and help us win in 2022.”
Despite the fundraising setback, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana managed to round up thousands of signatures and submit its petitions just before the deadline last month, which the group hailed as a testament to the organizers’ resilience.
But that feeling of triumph was short-lived. Now, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana says it’s setting its sights on 2024.
“When we receive the results from the Secretary of State’s office, we will analyze the data and then we will immediately get to work on qualifying for the 2024 ballot,” the group said on Monday.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/nebraska-medical-pot-initiative-fails-to-qualify-for-ballot/
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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