Business
What Every Cannabis Business Should Know about Disability-Friendly Products and Services
Medical marijuana is widely being used as treatment for numerous illnesses that render patients disabled.
Some of these conditions include chronic pain, arthritis, cancer, nerve pain, back pain, Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and many more. But while marijuana manufacturers and the laws have forced businesses to create packaging that is childproof, not disability-friendly. On top of that, seniors are one of the fastest-rising demographics to use cannabis, although the way cannabis is commonly manufactured in many forms, most of it isn’t disabled-friendly by any means.
Cannabis businesses should also know that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has a mandate for all companies to get rid of any feature that makes it difficult for disabled persons to get access to their services or goods online. It can make them look like they are discriminating against disabled persons when there are “architectural, transportation, and communication barriers” which make access for the disabled to use their services like normal people would. Cannabis companies can be taken to court for these purposes, and several already have, in the past.
Child-safe packaging makes it extra difficult for seniors and others with disabilities to access their medicine. Imagine suffering from a severe episode of pain and not being able to open a container of your edibles or other medication? These types of packaging can require up to 10 minutes to open even if it’s already in your hands.
Dispensaries and businesses should make it a priority to allow all customers to easily enter their establishment. Here’s what dispensaries can do to make medicine more accessible for people with disabilities:
Wheelchair accessibility: In the United States, mobility problems are some of the most common types of disabilities affecting people. Constructing ground-level entrances or ramps will greatly benefit your customers. If the main entrance is far or is another floor, you can offer a handicapped parking where disabled persons can go get and pay for their medicine.
Store signages: Each area of your dispensary should be properly labeled. Be sensitive about the language that you use whenever referring to persons with disabilities, and don’t call people with wheelchairs as wheelchair-bound.
Website accessibility: Customers should easily be able to look for and buy products when they visit your website. Are you making it easy for those with visual impairments to see all the content and information on your site? Are there numerous obstructions in the form of flashing banners that can cause seizures? Are all visitors given ample time to read the content with appropriate calls to action? It may be time to redesign your website to make it more disabled-friendly.
Staff education: Educating your dispensary employees is a critical step to making your business more friendly for those with disabilities. It will have a significant impact in how they treat disabled customers, and you will always want to ensure that everyone – especially those with impairments – leave with a positive experience. It’s an unfortunate fact that people with disabilities are unfairly prone to poor treatment and treated as second-class citizens.
Disability-Friendly Cannabis Products
Disabled consumers and their loved ones need to find ways to make it easier for those who need their medicine to access it right away. Oftentimes, it requires a little time-saving preparation such as putting flower and edibles in an easy-to-open reusable container so that when the need hits, you can medicate immediately without any struggles.
Those who medicate with flower also have the option of using automatic grinders and joint rolling machines that can do the job much faster for you. Keep your blunts and joints stored safely in a container which you can easily reach for when you need it. On the other hand, those who are visually impaired may benefit from using cannabis flower stored in medicine containers, which make it easy to tell one apart from the other by merely using your sense of smell. Vape cartridges and oils are not ideal for the visually impaired.
Using sublingual products is also ideal for disabled persons provided that the dropper bottles are easy to open. Simply place a few drops underneath your tongue for immediate relief.
Child-resistant packaging such as jars with caps, push down & turn vials, reversible cap vials, and tubes are all a no-no. These are only frustrating to deal with for people who struggle with using their hands or have other mobility problems.
Cannabis edibles and beverages are also excellent choices primarily because you don’t have to keep topping up your medication throughout the day. Infused food and drinks can last the whole day. In addition, they offer the extra benefit of being easy to dose since the packaging already indicates exactly how much you should be taking.
Conclusion
While there is still a lot that should be done in the medical marijuana industry for accommodating disabled persons, continuing this conversation can ensure that those who don’t have a voice are given one. It’s up to disabled patients and their families to do what’s possible with the resources available in your area so that people don’t have to struggle medicating at the time you need it.
After all, marijuana should be inclusive: it’s medicine at the end of the day, so businesses should always consider the obstacles faced by the people who need it the most. Thankfully, there are solutions and choices available for people who have difficulties with product packaging or their method of consumption.
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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