Business
Oklahoma Senate Passes Bill Targeting Illegal Weed Industry
The Oklahoma state Senate has passed legislation that limits the number of medical marijuana businesses that can be located at a single location or physical address.
The Oklahoma Senate on Tuesday approved legislation that targets the illicit weed industry by requiring medical marijuana businesses to provide proof that they are legally occupying the property where their operations are located. The measure, Senate Bill 806, was approved by the state Senate by a vote of 41-1 on Tuesday and now heads to the state House of Representatives for consideration.
The legislation is one of dozens of bills designed to reign in Oklahoma’s medical marijuana industry that have been introduced following the defeat of a ballot initiative to legalize adult-use cannabis earlier this month. Senator Brent Howard, the author of Senate Bill 806, said that the bill is designed to help law enforcement regulate medical marijuana, which was legalized in 2018 with the passage of a statewide ballot measure. If passed by the House and signed into law by Governor Kevin Stitt, the legislation would limit the number of medical marijuana businesses that can list the same physical address on their license applications.
“Those who regulate our medical marijuana industry are running into problems when they raid a facility only to learn that there are numerous licensees who utilize that one address and all have product stored there,” Howard said about Senate Bill 806. “This makes it nearly impossible for law enforcement to know what product is actually illegal and to properly investigate the case. This measure would limit the number of licenses that can be listed under one address to help improve regulation and shut down illegal business activity.”
Under the bill, applicants for medical marijuana business licenses would be required to provide proof that they own or rent the property at the address listed on the application. Such proof could consist of a copy of an executed deed of conveyance or a signed lease for the property. An address or physical location would not be permitted to have multiple licenses within the same medical marijuana license category. The bill is designed to help the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) and the state Bureau of Narcotics (OBN) identify medical marijuana businesses that are operating without a required license from the state.
“By requiring full disclosure of possessory right, OMMA and OBN will be able to ensure no illegal operations or bad foreign actors are abusing Oklahoma lands and citizens,” Howard said. “This bill would also ensure we know that there are no straw purchasers for illegal foreign owners coming in after the initial application.”
Recreational Weed Measure Failed This Month in Oklahoma
Senate Bill 806 is one of several bills that have been introduced to help regulate medical marijuana, which was legalized in Oklahoma with the passage of State Quest 788 in 2018. With low barriers to entry including license fees for cannabis businesses of only $2,500 and no limit on the number of cannabis dispensaries, Oklahoma’s medical marijuana industry quickly grew to become one of the largest in the nation.
State Question 788 also had few restrictions to qualify for a medical marijuana card, and the number of registered patients now equals nearly 10% of the state’s population. As of November 2022, Oklahoma had more than 2,300 medical marijuana dispensaries, more than the number of gas stations in the state, according to a report from local media.
Earlier this month, the state’s Republican governor said the state of Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program is largely responsible for the failure of a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana at a special election on March 7. The proposal, State Question 820, was rejected by nearly 62% of voters.
“There’s enough marijuana, I’ve been told, grown in Oklahoma to supply the entire United States. That’s not what this was supposed to be,” Stitt said after State Question 820 failed at the polls. “This was supposed to be about medical use in the state of Oklahoma, and it’s gotten way out of control.”
“As I was traveling the state, I knew Oklahomans didn’t want it,” Stitt added. “They were so tired of a dispensary on every single corner.”
Since then, state lawmakers have filed dozens of cannabis-related bills for this year’s legislative. This week, state Attorney General Gentner Drummond praised Oklahoma lawmakers for passing three of the measures, including Senate Bill 806.
“Oklahoma’s illegal marijuana grow operations pose a serious threat to public safety, particularly in rural communities invaded by organized criminals from China and Mexico,” Drummond said in a statement on Tuesday. “As the state’s chief law enforcement officer, I am committed to working arm-in-arm with Oklahoma’s law enforcement agencies to deliver justice and restore peaceful order.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/oklahoma-senate-passes-bill-targeting-illegal-weed-industry/
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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