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Tennis Star Catches Wind of Pot Smell at US Open
“The smell, oh my gosh,” Maria Sakkari said.
The US Open is not played on grass, but there was apparently still plenty of green on Monday as the year’s final tennis grand slam began in New York.
On the women’s side, the eighth-seeded Maria Sakkari lost in an opening round upset to the unseeded Spaniard Rebeka Masarova in straight sets –– a match that the Greek Sakkari let slip away.
Leading 4-1 over Masarova in the first set, Sakkari reportedly complained to the chair umpire about a distinct smell that lingered over the court.
“It was weed,” Sakkari said after the match, as quoted by the Associated Press.
Sakkari never won another game in that set, ultimately losing in straights, 6-4, 6-4, to Masarova.
“The smell, oh my gosh,” Sakkari said. “I think it’s from the park.”
The US Open, held annually in Flushing, Queens, unfolds in a very different setting than most tennis tournaments. Nearby subway trains can be clearly heard inside the venues, and the area –– also home to the New York Mets’ stadium and a park –– attracts plenty of revelers.
Since 2021, when recreational marijuana was legalized in New York, the familiar odor of cannabis has also become part of the US Open experience.
At last year’s Open, Australian men’s player Nick Kyrgios also noted the aroma during his second-round match.
“You don’t want to remind anyone not to do it or anything?” Kyrgios said to the umpire in the match, which he won in four sets.
After the match, Kyrgios said that the smell is a hindrance for him on the court.
“People don’t know that I’m a heavy asthmatic so when I’m running side to side and struggling to breathe already, it’s probably not something I want to be breathing in between points,” Kyrgios said at the time.
CNN reported at the time that the umpire in Kyrgios’ match “reminded fans to refrain from smoking around the court as play got back underway.”
Sakkari, for her part, did not have many complaints about the smell, and downplayed its role in her loss on Monday.
“You don’t really think about it, because all you care is just to win the match,” Sakkari said, as quoted by the Associated Press. “I smelled it, but that was it. Like, it wasn’t something that I paid attention to.”
“Sometimes you smell food, sometimes you smell cigarettes, sometimes you smell weed,” she added. “I mean, it’s something we cannot control, because we’re in an open space. There’s a park behind. People can do whatever they want.”
The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, which plays host to the US Open every year, has a strict policy against smoking on the grounds.
“Refrain from smoking, as this is a smoke free environment,” reads the venue’s code of conduct.
Adult-use marijuana was made legal in the Empire State in 2021, when then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law ending the prohibition. The law immediately enabled adults aged 21 and older to toke up wherever smoking is prohibited.
But Cuomo’s successor, current New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, signed a bill into law last year that limits where New Yorkers can get high.
The bill explicitly prohibited smoking “in all state-owned beaches, boardwalks, marinas, playgrounds, recreation centers, and group camps.”
“Smoking is a dangerous habit that affects not only the smoker but everyone around them, including families and children enjoying our state’s great public places,” Hochul said in a statement after signing the bill. “I’m proud to sign this legislation that will protect New Yorkers’ health and help reduce litter in public parks and beaches across the state.”
Hochul’s office explained at the time that many “municipalities and local governments already have restrictions or bans on smoking in public spaces. This additional penalty will enforce a statewide prohibition and includes a fine that will be collected by localities,”
“In addition to the health risks posed by secondhand smoke, cigarette butts are a major environmental hazard due to the non-biodegradable filters that are discarded. They are the leading item found during cleanup projects. Through this prohibition, parks and beaches will be kept cleaner and safer as will our local ecosystems,” the governor’s office explained in the press release issued at the time.
Under the new law, which applies both to smoking tobacco and cannabis, violators will be subject to a fine of $50.
New York’s legal cannabis market officially launched late last year, with the opening of a dispensary in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan.
Under the state’s marijuana law, the first 100-200 dispensary license holders will be individuals with prior pot-related convictions.
“New York State is making history, launching a first-of-its-kind approach to the cannabis industry that takes a major step forward in righting the wrongs of the past,” Hochul said last year. “The regulations advanced by the Cannabis Control Board today will prioritize local farmers and entrepreneurs, creating jobs and opportunity for communities that have been left out and left behind. I’m proud New York will be a national model for the safe, equitable and inclusive industry we are now building.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/sports/tennis-star-catches-wind-of-pot-smell-at-us-open/
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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