Business
Shooting Sours Copenhagen’s Open Hash Market Haven
Mayor Sophie Hæstorp Andersen urged tourists not to buy weed on Pusher Street in Copenhagen’s Christiania due to rising violence.
Copenhagen, Denmark’s autonomous neighborhood commune of Christiania (or Freetown Christiania) has tolerated soft drug use for decades on Pusher Street, its main market, but a recent shooting might complicate things for its open hash trade.
On Sept. 4, the mayor of Copenhagen on Monday urged foreign tourists not to buy cannabis in the city’s Christiania neighborhood after a man was killed. Instead of selling cannabis in a regulated retail model as seen in legal U.S. states, cannabis is sold from unregulated dealers like a street drug there. A “bloody feud” between the Hells Angels and Loyal to Family erupted in the culmination of turf wars over cannabis and drug trade.
“The spiral of violence at Christiania is deeply worrying,” Copenhagen Mayor Sophie Hæstorp Andersen said. She called on “the hundreds of thousands of visiting tourists and the many new foreign students who have just moved to Copenhagen to stay away and refrain from buying weed or other drugs at Pusher Street.”
ABC News reported that on Aug. 26, two masked gunmen opened fire inside a building in Christiania, Copenhagen police spokesman Poul Kjeldsen told the media. One man, age 30, was killed in the shooting and four others were injured. As of Tuesday, one of those injured was in critical but stable condition, while the others had minor injuries.
On Friday, a 28-year-old man, affiliated with the Loyal To Family gang was arrested in relation to the shooting. The Hells Angels have been active in the area, taking advantage of the drug trade freedoms, since the ‘80s.
Earlier this year, the mayor threatened to close Pusher Street’s drug trade if the 1,000 or so people living in the Christiania commune comply with her plan to reduce violence. (The neighborhood’s population fluctuates between 700-1,000.) Hæstorp Andersen told local paper Ekstra Bladet last May that growing violence has to end or she will shut down cannabis and drug trade in Christiania. The mayor’s warning, however, doesn’t seem to be working.
Christiania remains one of Copenhagen’s top tourist attractions, with major hippie appeal, and many of the visitors are from foreign countries, wanting to get a taste of tolerated hash trade. It’s the Danish Amsterdam in many senses.
High Times writer Snake Blissken reported in 2017 that the going rate on Pusher Street is 100 kroner—about $15 USD—for 1.5 grams of hash and/or cannabis flower. That’s close to the common $10 per gram price for flower in some U.S. states. Most of the stalls were reported to have various forms of pre-rolls for sale. In that person’s experience, one stall tried to get 200 kroner for a 1.5 gram sack, before quickly backing down to the standard going price.
“It may seem innocent to buy weed for a festive night out but think about the fact that your money ends up in the pockets of criminal gangs who shoot in our streets and put innocent people in danger,” Hæstorp Andersen said.
One particular shooting in 2016 led to public outcry because it involved a police officer who was gravely wounded with a head shot. Before this, the entire nation had not seen a police shooting since 1995. Violence is particularly uncharacteristic of the country.
What is Christiania?
Christiania was transformed from a Naval base on the island of Amager in Copenhagen into a hippie commune when they began squatting in the former military barracks of Bådsmandsstræde in 1971.Squatters began taking upon a more serious anarchist agenda and gathered to establish their own laws, autonomous to the Danish government. On Sept. 16,1971, Christiania was declared to be free by Jacob Ludvigsen, a journalist and provo anarchist. You merely have to walk over bridges over Copenhagen’s canals to get there.
Christiania banned cars from the neighborhood, though there are now a few parking spots for a limited number of vehicles. You can also find alternative architecture, free from housing codes, such as a house made entirely of glass. The neighborhood was once peaceful, but violence has increased in recent years. In 2021, a man was shot and killed at the entrance to Pusher Street. Then last October, a man selling cannabis from booths on the same street was shot and killed.
While Denmark is one of the most liberal places on the planet, implementing LGBTQ rights since 1933, cannabis is illegal. Christiania is another story, however, and the law is rarely, but occasionally enforced there.
Per Denmark’s Euphoriants Substances Act—it is illegal to import, export, sell, purchase, deliver, receive, produce, and process cannabis in Denmark. While personal use is not illegal, as of 2016, with the passing of the Consolidated Act on Controlled Substances, possession of cannabis in Denmark is illegal. As with most European countries, hashish is a popular form of cannabis and it’s often mixed with tobacco.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/shooting-sours-copenhagens-open-hash-market-haven/
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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