Government
North Dakota Will Vote on Recreational Weed Legalization in November
A proposal to legalize recreational cannabis for adults will appear on the November ballot in North Dakota, state officials announced on Monday.
State officials in North Dakota announced on Monday that an initiative to legalize cannabis for adults has qualified for the ballot and will appear before voters in the November general election. New Approach North Dakota, the group spearheading the recreational marijuana ballot measure, submitted 26,048 petition signatures in July. On Tuesday, the office of Secretary of State Al Jaeger verified 23,368 signatures as coming from registered voters, far exceeding the 15,582 signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.
If passed by voters in this year’s general election, the ballot measure would legalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and small amounts of cannabis concentrates by adults 21 and older. The initiative also establishes a regulatory framework to govern commercial cannabis production and sales, which would be administered by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services or another agency designated by lawmakers.
Regulators would be given until October 1, 2023 to draft regulations governing cannabis labeling, packaging, testing standards and advertising as well as security for marijuana facilities. The initiative limits the industry to seven production facilities and 18 cannabis retailers, with caps on the number of licenses held by any one entity.
Initiative Modeled After House Bill
Supporters of the initiative effort say the proposal was written largely following recreational cannabis legalization legislation that was passed by the North Dakota House of Representatives but failed to gain the approval of the state Senate.
“There is no public safety benefit from arresting adults for small amounts of marijuana,” Mark Friese, an attorney and former police officer who serves who is the treasurer of New Approach North Dakota, said in a statement. “It is a waste of taxpayer resources and a distraction from serious public safety concerns. Cannabis causes far less harm than alcohol. Many people find therapeutic benefits from it. The government shouldn’t be in the business of punishing adults who use cannabis responsibly.”
The news that the cannabis legalization initiative has qualified for the November election drew praise from activists including the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
“North Dakota has long had one of the highest marijuana arrest rates in the nation, despite having among the lowest reported marijuana use of any state,” NORML executive director Erik Altieri said in a statement from the cannabis advocacy group. “Legalization will not only bring justice to thousands of North Dakotans, but it will also provide a new, booming industry that will help local businesses and the countless family farms in the state. We expect that come November, North Dakotans are going to send a loud and clear message that they reject the failed policy of prohibition and that they want to take a new and more sensible approach forward by legalizing and regulating marijuana.”
“This measure will ensure that North Dakotans have safe and regulated access to cannabis products, thereby creating jobs, bolstering the agricultural community, and reprioritizing law enforcement’s priorities away from marijuana arrests to focus on violent crime,” added NORML state policies Manager Jax James.
Brian Vicente, founding partner at the cannabis law firm Vicente Sederberg LLP, noted that passage of the initiative would likely have political ramifications for the state’s lawmakers and could impact national cannabis reform efforts.
“North Dakota qualifying legalization for the November ballot is a big step towards national legalization,” Vicente wrote in an email to High Times. “Not only will this vote allow patients who don’t qualify under the current medical law to have safe access, but it will also force a robust discussion on adult-use marijuana policy in a traditionally conservative state.”
“Importantly, if this vote passes, the state’s Republican senators will have a decision to make in D.C.— do they support the will of their state’s voters, or do they continue supporting federal laws that criminalize cannabis consumers in their state?” he added. “North Dakota is the sixth state slated to vote on legalization this November, which is sure to make fun election night viewing.”
In 2016, North Dakota voters approved a ballot measure legalizing the medicinal use of cannabis but voted down a measure that would have legalized recreational marijuana.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/north-dakota-will-vote-on-recreational-weed-legalization-in-november/
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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