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U.S. Secret Service Investigating Cocaine Reportedly Found in White House
Under federal law, technically, cocaine is labeled as less dangerous than pot.
The White House is putting a new meaning to its name. A white substance found in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue reportedly tested positive for cocaine, according to a preliminary field test, The Guardian reports. From fast food chain bathrooms to childhood bedrooms over Christmas, the infamous “white powder” (and we’re not talking about snow) tends to show up where authorities, whether it’s the federal government or someone’s parents, are going to make a stink about it. This time it landed in the Executive Mansion.
The U.S. Secret Service is investigating how the drugs got into the President’s home. Mind you, although Biden may be open-minded to psychedelic research, before you start any rumors, the alleged cocaine was found in a reference library “in an area accessible to tour groups, not in any particular West Wing office,” The Associated Press reports. So, most likely, some tourist ballsy (or stupid) enough to snort a line in the White House is responsible rather than anyone in the federal branch of government.
The discovery of the substance led to an elevated security alert and a brief evacuation of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after authorities discovered it during a routine inspection. At the time of its discovery, President Joe Joe Biden was at Camp David, a country retreat for presidents hidden in the woods of Maryland. The president and first lady Jill Biden returned to the White House on Tuesday morning shortly after the discovery.
A spokesman for the Secret Service, Anthony Guglielmi, told The Washington Post that there is “an investigation into the cause and manner” of how the substance entered the White House. Authorities note that it did not pose a threat. Another official familiar with the investigation said that the amount found was of small quality. So, anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of drug use can deduce that the alleged cocaine was for personal use, not distribution. This gives credibility to the explanation that a tourist probably thought it would be cool (but dangerous) to do some white lines in the White House.
If so, it’s certainly not the first time a civilian used a visit to the White House as an opportunity to get high. The British actor Erkan Mustafa said he did a line of cocaine and smoked some cannabis while visiting the presidential resident during first lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti-drugs campaign, The Guardian reports. Considering that The War on Drugs was a generally minor component of federal law-enforcement efforts until Ronald Reagan’s presidency, in part fueled by Nancy’s “Just Say No” campaign, which was a privately funded effort to educate children on the dangers of drug use, it’s hard to be too mad at Mustafa for seeking the thrill of doing drugs in the White House at the time (although please do not try it yourself, we don’t want you to go to prison). The feds have locked up enough people for drugs; after Reagan moved into the White House in 1981, his focus on drug penalties led to increased incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997.
Iconic stoner Snoop Dogg said he’d smoked weed in a bathroom in 2013, and fellow famous cannabis enthusiast Willie Nelson smoked a joint on the White House roof during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Late last year, Biden announced he will pardon people with federal convictions for simple possession of cannabis in addition to directing General Merrick B. Garland and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra to begin the process of reviewing the classification of cannabis at the federal level. As a reminder, according to the Feds, the branch of government associated with the White House, cocaine is a Schedule II drug, while cannabis is still Schedule I. Meaning, despite all we know about the benefits of marijuana, under federal law, it’s more dangerous than white lines.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/u-s-secret-service-investigating-cocaine-reportedly-found-in-white-house/
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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