Government
Pennsylvania Bill Gives Medical Cannabis Patients DUI Protection
A Pennsylvania bill approved last week by a legislative committee would protect registered medical cannabis patients from prosecution under the state’s zero-tolerance policy for THC.
Pennsylvania medical cannabis patients would receive some protection from being convicted for driving under the influence if a bill making its way through the state legislature is passed and signed into law by Governor Tom Wolf. The measure, Senate Bill 167, was approved last week by the Senate Transportation Committee with a vote of 13-0.
If approved, the legislation sponsored by state Senator Camera Bartolotta would eliminate Pennsylvania’s zero-tolerance policy for THC, which has been used without proof of impairment to penalize drivers who are registered medicinal cannabis patients.
“Senate Bill 167 is critically needed to protect the medical cannabis community as the penalties for a controlled substance significantly escalate,” Bartolotta told the Transportation Committee before last week’s vote.
Pennsylvania has more than 700,000 registered patients who have qualified to use medicinal cannabis since the medical marijuana program launched in 2018. However, the state’s zero-tolerance drug law puts patients at risk, whether they are under the influence of cannabis or not.
“Under current law, medical cannabis patients can be arrested, prosecuted, and convicted – even if they’re not impaired,” said Bartolotta. “SB167 will treat the medical cannabis patient similarly to one using a prescription narcotic by requiring proof that the motorist or patient is impaired and unable to safely operate a motor vehicle.”
Jailed for a Broken Taillight in Pennsylvania
State Senator Wayne Langerholc, the chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, said that under the state’s current DUI legislation, medicinal cannabis patients who are pulled over by police for something as innocuous as a broken taillight could be given a ticket simply because they have a medical marijuana identification card.
“I’ve read through a lot of different law review articles on this and … I think this kind of takes a novel approach, maybe a groundbreaking approach to address this,” Langerholc said.
Pittsburgh criminal defense lawyer Patrick Nightingale told lawmakers at a legislative hearing held in September that medical cannabis patients are in jeopardy of losing their driver’s license or being put behind bars simply by getting behind the wheel.
“We’re only three years into this [medical marijuana] program and these patients presumably are going to be using medical cannabis for the rest of their lives,” he said. “They’re going to have a number two DUI come up pretty soon and a number three DUI where they are looking at a year incarceration for using medication that the state said is 100% fine to use.”
Bartolotta noted that the state’s zero-tolerance policy is not typical around the country. She said that 33 states, including some that have not legalized access to medical cannabis, require proof of impairment for a DUI conviction. Only 12 states, including Pennsylvania, have zero-tolerance laws for specific substances including THC.
At the committee hearing, Bartolotta emphasized that the legislation does not “give patients a free pass to drive while impaired by medical cannabis. The impaired motorist or patient shall, if convicted, suffer the most serious consequences under our DUI laws.”
Langerholc, a former prosecutor, agreed, noting that “they will be held accountable the same way an individual that was using [cannabis] without any proper prescription would be.”
In a departure from the usual law enforcement stance on legislation to reform cannabis laws, the state police are not opposed to the bill being considered by lawmakers.
“The Pennsylvania State Police remains committed to removing impaired drivers from our commonwealth’s highways to reduce crashes, and the injuries and fatalities that they cause,” Maj. Robert J. Krol Jr., director of the PSP Bureau of Patrol, told the Transportation Committee. “That said, we believe from our review of SB167, that it generally does not have a negative impact on highway safety as it relates to providing an exception for medical marijuana.”
With last week’s approval by the Transportation Committee, the legislation now heads to the full Senate for consideration.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/pennsylvania-bill-gives-medical-cannabis-patients-dui-protection/
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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