Business
Scotland’s Government Calls For Drug Decriminalization
The Scottish government has unveiled a plan to decriminalize possession of personal quantities of drugs, a proposal that was quickly rejected by the U.K. national government.
The Scottish government last week called for decriminalizing possession of personal quantities of drugs in a bid to address the alarming rate of overdose deaths in the country, which is among the highest in Europe. In a policy proposal, the semi-autonomous Edinburgh government, led by the pro-independence Scottish National Party, said that eliminating criminal penalties for drug possession would “allow for the provision of safe, evidence-based harm reduction services.”
“The war on drugs has failed,” Scottish drugs minister Elena Whitham said at a news conference alongside fellow drug policy reform advocates Helen Clark, the former New Zealand Prime Minister, and ex-Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss.
“Our current drug law does not stop people from using drugs, it does not stop people from experiencing the harm associated and, critically, it does not stop people from dying,” Whitham added. “In fact, I would say today here, that criminalization increases the harms people experience. Criminalization kills.”
Europe’s Highest Overdose Death Rate
The death rate from drug overdoses in Scotland is three times the rate for the United Kingdom as a whole and the highest in Western Europe. Last year, there were 1,330 fatal drug overdoses in Scotland, a country of only 5.5 million people, according to government figures cited by the Associated Press.
“Every single drug death is a tragedy, behind each statistic is a grieving family and community,” the Scottish government wrote in a policy paper published on Friday. “The scale of the drug deaths emergency in Scotland requires us to use every lever at our disposal, and we are clear that our actions to resolve this crisis must be comprehensive. This government’s position has consistently been that tackling the drugs emergency requires a concerted and radical public health approach.”
The Scottish government cited the drug policy in Portugal, where criminal penalties were eliminated in 2001 in favor of health-focused reforms that focus on drug treatment for those experiencing problematic use. The Scottish government said a similar decriminalization plan would free “individuals from the fear of accessing treatment and support, reducing drug-related harms and, ultimately, improving lives.”
Whitman also said that the government would like to see the law changed to allow for the establishment of supervised drug consumption sites, which have been shown to save lives and encourage those with substance misuse disorders to seek help. Other proposals include introducing a regulated supply of drugs to promote consistency and safety.
Whitman said that without a radical change in drug policy, the situation would continue to worsen, adding that Scotland was “facing down the barrel of a storm in terms of synthetic opioids and new and novel street benzodiazepines that are heading to our shores.”
“If we are not prepared for that arriving here, with 21st century drug laws in place, I’m terrified as to what that could look like,” she said.
U.K. Government Quickly Nixes Decriminalization Bid
But the drug decriminalization proposal is opposed by conservatives in both Scotland and the U.K. national government. Current policy in Scotland allows those caught possessing drugs to be released with a police warning, but full decriminalization would require the approval of the U.K.’s conservative government in London. Max Blain, spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, said that approval would not come.
“There are no plans to alter our tough stance on drugs,” he said.
“Illegal drugs destroy lives and devastate communities. We are committed to preventing drug use by supporting people through treatment and recovery and tackling the supply of illegal drugs, as set out in our 10-year drugs strategy,” the U.K. Home Office wrote in a statement after Scotland’s decriminalization plan was proposed. “We have no plans to decriminalise drugs given the associated harms, including the risks posed by organised criminals, who will use any opportunity to operate an exploitative and violent business model.”
Russell Findlay, justice spokesman for the Scottish Conservative Party, said “It is madness to try and solve Scotland’s drug death crisis, the worst in Europe, by essentially legalising heroin, crack and other class-A drugs. This would put more drugs on our streets. It would put more lives at risk.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/scotlands-government-calls-for-drug-decriminalization/
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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