Business
New Hampshire Commission To Study Cannabis Legalization
A New Hampshire bill signed into law last week establishes a new commission to study cannabis legalization, with state-run shops serving as the only retailers of recreational marijuana.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu last week signed legislation to create a commission to study legalizing recreational marijuana via a plan that restricts adult-use cannabis sales to state-run retailers.
Previously opposed to legalizing recreational marijuana, Sununu changed his position earlier this year after an adult-use cannabis legalization bill failed in the New Hampshire Senate after receiving approval from the state House of Representatives.
“Knowing that a majority of our residents support legalization, it is reasonable to assume change is inevitable. To ignore this reality would be shortsighted and harmful,” Sununu wrote in a statement in May. “That is why, with the right policy and framework in place, I stand ready to sign a legalization bill that puts the State of NH in the driver’s seat, focusing on harm reduction — not profits. Similar to our Liquor sales, this path helps to keep substances away from kids by ensuring the State of New Hampshire retains control of marketing, sales, and distribution — eliminating any need for additional taxes.”
Sununu said that he would sign a recreational marijuana legalization bill if it included provisions to make state-run shops the only retail outlets for adult-use cannabis purchases. New Hampshire uses a similar system for spirits sales, with the state’s 67 Liquor and Wine Outlet stores being the sole retailer of hard alcohol in the state. The governor added that he would not approve an adult-use cannabis legalization bill that did not include such a state-run model for retail sales of recreational weed.
“I am supportive of legalizing marijuana in the right way – with this legislature – rather than risk a poorly thought out framework that inevitably could pass under future governors or legislatures,” Sununu said. “Should the legislature pass future legalization bills without these provisions in place, they will be vetoed.”
New Commission Will Study Cannabis Legalization
The measure passed last week, House Bill 611, establishes a commission to study legalizing recreational marijuana in New Hampshire. The legislation tasks the study commission with examining a number of issues and policy proposals, including how the state should approach cannabis sales and marketing, keeping marijuana products away from young people and preventing oversaturation of weed shops in local communities. The commission will also explore ways to allow local governments to ban or limit state-run cannabis retailers in their jurisdictions.
The new commission will meet through the summer and fall months to study and develop a model that allows the state to control the distribution and sales of adult-use cannabis. The commission’s findings and recommendations must be submitted in a report by December 1.
New Hampshire’s 18-member cannabis legalization study commission will include five senators, five members of the House of Representatives and representatives of the Attorney General’s Office, the Governor’s Office, the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police, the New Hampshire Bankers Association, the New Hampshire Liquor Commission, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New Hampshire Medical Society and Communities for Alcohol and Drug-Free Youth. Additionally, the commission will be required to consult with the state’s Alternative Treatment Centers, which currently dispense therapeutic medical marijuana in the state, and the New Hampshire Cannabis Association, an industry group that has advocated for legalization.
If the commission succeeds and is able to submit recommendations that result in a successful cannabis legalization bill, New Hampshire, the only state in New England that has not legalized recreational marijuana, will join the 23 states that have legalized marijuana for adult use. Democratic state Representative Wendy Thomas, a sponsor of House Bill 611 and a medical marijuana patient, said that she hopes to be appointed to the state’s cannabis legalization commission.
“All of the states who have legalized cannabis are getting all of our money,” Thomas told New Hampshire Public Radio on Wednesday. “We’re just throwing money away that could help our state.”
In order to be approved by Sununu, the commission’s recommendations will have to be developed into a bill that can be passed by the legislature during the 2024 legislative session. Sununu has said he will not run for re-election in 2024, making next year the last opportunity for the governor to sign a legalization bill into law.
Critics of Sununu’s plan say it will establish a state-run monopoly on cannabis sales that restricts the power of growers to set their own prices. Others say the state-run approach limits opportunities for members of communities disproportionately impacted by decades of cannabis prohibition.
House Bill 611 also includes provisions to ease restrictions on the use of medical marijuana, which was legalized in New Hampshire in 2013, by patients with chronic pain. Under the previous regulations, patients could only receive a recommendation to use medical cannabis for chronic pain if they had first tried other options without success. The new law eliminates that restriction, effective on October 8, and allows patients to receive a medical marijuana recommendation without trying other, potentially more dangerous, options such as opioids.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/new-hampshire-commission-to-study-cannabis-legalization/
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/
New Mexico cannabis operator fined, loses license for alleged BioTrack fraud
Marijuana companies suing US attorney general in federal prohibition challenge
Alabama to make another attempt Dec. 1 to award medical cannabis licenses
Pot Odor Does Not Justify Probable Cause for Vehicle Searches, Minnesota Court Affirms
New Mexico cannabis operator fined, loses license for alleged BioTrack fraud
Alabama to make another attempt Dec. 1 to award medical cannabis licenses
-
Business8 months agoPot Odor Does Not Justify Probable Cause for Vehicle Searches, Minnesota Court Affirms
-
Business7 months agoNew Mexico cannabis operator fined, loses license for alleged BioTrack fraud
-
Business7 months agoAlabama to make another attempt Dec. 1 to award medical cannabis licenses
-
Business8 months agoWashington State Pays Out $9.4 Million in Refunds Relating to Drug Convictions
-
Business8 months agoLegal Marijuana Handed A Nothing Burger From NY State
-
Business8 months agoCan Cannabis Help Seasonal Depression
-
Business7 months agoMarijuana companies suing US attorney general in federal prohibition challenge
-
Blogs9 months agoCannabis Art Is Flourishing On Etsy