Business
Oregon Aims To Crack Down on Illegal Cannabis by Holding Landowners Responsible
If passed, Oregon landowners will be responsible for the environmental and human damage caused by screwed-up grow sites.
If cannabis growers in Oregon don’t clean up their act, literally, soon landowners will pay the price as their migrant workers risk deportation. Oregon is an oasis for cannabis growing. According to AP News, a leader of the state’s cannabis and alcohol regulatory agency has said southern Oregon is to marijuana what Bordeaux is to wine.
However, some folks with less-than-ideal ethics risk ruining the land for everyone. The state is facing a crisis of illicit growers who offer large amounts of cash upfront to lease or buy land. However, giving cannabis a bad name, it seems they are only growing for profit and not considering other factors such as the fate of the land or their workers. Such growers are leaving behind a drained water table, pollution, and garbage scattered everywhere. Now, Oregon Legislature is trying to pass a new bill to curtail such adverse effects by making the landowners themselves directly responsible.
If passed, the bill would stop using groundwaters and rivers — and seize documents of the migrant workers who take care of the plants, thereby reporting them for deportation, AP News reports. And, if the landowner, regardless if they caused it, does not pay for any cleanup, then the government would be allowed to file a claim of lien against property used for illicit cannabis.
So far, the bill has passed in the Senate and House, with Speaker Dan Rayfield signing the measure on Wednesday, despite protests from some Republicans. “This is just an assault on property rights here in the state of Oregon,” GOP Sen. Dennis Linthicum said on the Senate floor.
If all goes as planned, Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek will sign the bill next week. “The governor supports cracking down on illegal cannabis operations that have been prevalent in southern Oregon,” said Elisabeth Shepard, Kotek’s spokesperson.
In this economy, it’s understandable why some landowners transferred their land to sketchy buyers or leasers. AP News describes buyers handing over backpacks with thousands of dollars in cash and, sometimes, more than one backpack of bills to choose from. “We pay CASH and offer a fast close,” says one letter received by a landowner last year in one of three offers.
But not everyone is sympathetic to the appeal of fast cash. Democratic Sen. Jeff Golden said property owners should know something wrong if they are “approached at the beginning of the growing season with requests to lease their property for tens, sometimes hundreds of thousand dollars for a single year.”
According to Oregon police, part of the problem is that the lush land brought in an influx of foreign criminals from everywhere, from Russia to Mexico, looking to profit in America’s cannabis market. So many hoop houses (cheaply built greenhouses) began popping up that local authorities didn’t have the workforce to shut them all down. The farms in question are known for putting up their workers in horrid conditions, with open latrines, and will often dock their pay.
And, according to Jackson County Sheriff Nathan Sickler, when the growers wrap up, no one bothers to clean up any of the waste, whether it’s from an outhouse or greenhouse. “Frankly, it’s an eyesore for our community, with no means to deal with it,” Sickler said.
While the prospect of the bill stresses many landowners out, others welcome it, AP reports. At least most of the landowners knew what they were doing was wrong. I believe this measure will help to stem the tide,” said Jack Dwyer, a homeowner near Selm, Oregon. Back in 2021, Dwyer said a large illicit nearby grow siphoned all the water from a creek that runs through his property, causing it to run dry. And Christopher Hall, whose job it is to engage the public in water stewardship, believes the bill will finally address the problem. Hall says that these cash-bought illegal grow farms “not only turn streams into gravel roads but also lead to serious human rights violations and dumping of trash, sewage, chemicals, and other waste into ditches, riparian areas, and streams.”
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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