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The 70,000 People Trapped at Burning Man by Weather Can Finally Leave
But despite the mud, some Burners want to party on.
The tens of thousands of people stranded at Burning Man began their mass exodus on Monday after a massive storm and flooding kept Burners stranded. Burning Man is an annual event in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, typically unfolding during the final days of August and the commencement of September. Burning Man is all about fun self-expression, self-reliance, communal effort, and art and costumes, although this year, such ethos came with water rationing and mud. Usually it’s sandstorms that Burners have to deal with; this year came the floods.
The roughly 70,000 people on-site at the counterculture festival (actually, you’re not supposed to call it a festival) that became a household name were ordered by officials to stay put for days. No vehicles could leave; attendees were asked to remain indoors (or in tents) and ration food supplies and water due to persistent heavy rainfall on Friday night, which led officials to shut down the road that leads in and out of the makeshift town, Black Rock City, the Nevada desert site on federal lands where the annual celebration occurs.
While they didn’t say why, organizers also asked attendees not to walk out of the Black Rock Desert, roughly 110 miles north of Reno, as others did this weekend to escape, such as Diplo and Chris Rock, whose departure went viral. “I legit walked the side of the road for hours with my thumb out,” Diplo wrote.
Others stayed. “Everyone has just adapted, sharing RVs for sleeping, offering food and coffee,” Rebecca Barger, a photographer from Philadelphia, at her first Burning Man, told AP News. “I danced in foot-deep clay for hours to incredible DJs.”
Organizers stopped allowing vehicles in after Friday saw more than a half-inch of rainfall. The “burn,” the ceremonial torching of the giant wooden effigy known as “the Man,” a wooden temple, is lit up to burn down during the final two nights. This symbolic zenith of the event is meant to help attendees let go of what no longer serves them and mark the impermanence and simultaneous permanence of community and love. Many Burners integrate into related communities in their home town, celebrating Burning Man all year round through parties, smaller events such as Love Burn, and other camaraderie.
However, the ritual burn of The Man was postponed to Monday night as authorities worked to reopen exit routes by the end of the Labor Day weekend.
So far, at least one fatality has been reported of a man in his 40s. However, organizers say that the death was unrelated to the weather. Nearby Pershing County sheriff said he was investigating but has not identified the man or a cause of death. AP News reports that President Joe Biden is aware of the situation at Burning Man, including the death, and the White House was in communication with local authorities.
By Monday, the lake bed where Burning Man is held began to dry out and harden. However, the roads are far from ideal; drivers say they must dodge foot-deep puddles and epic mud along the five-mile trek from Black Rock City to the paved road, The New York Times reports. Even on a year sans torrential rain, leaving the Playa can take 12 hours.
As a result, organizers encourage folks to consider waiting until Tuesday to avoid a traffic jam of epic proportions.
And some Burners, eager to enjoy the whole experience, even if it does come with mud and heavy rain, are more than ready to stay a bit longer. There may even be more rain due to a low-pressure system predicted to bring showers to the Playa by Monday night into Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service said.
“We are a little bit dirty and muddy but spirits are high. The party still going,” Scott London, a Southern California photographer, told AP News, noting that the disruption and departure offered “a view of Burning Man that a lot of us don’t get to see.”
Burning Man adheres to a “gift economy” model that frowns upon using money. The Burn is all about gift-giving and communal sharing. Attendees are encouraged to arrive self-sufficient with essential provisions like food, water, and shelter (life support that, this year, they had to ration), in addition to the adventurous and often unusual gifts of art or experiences.
Burning Man began as a small gathering of friends who ignited a wooden figure on a San Francisco beach in 1986 and has graduated into a celebrity-riddled and Instagram-able global phenomenon. However, for many attendees, the core messages of art and community remain and provide a welcome thread that laces through their entire lives (no matter how much non-Burners like to give their Burner friends a hard time).
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/the-70000-people-trapped-at-burning-man-by-weather-can-finally-leave/
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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