Government
Why Do Virginia Lawmakers Want to Make over 4 Ounces of Weed Illegal, Again?
Virginia is looking to make cannabis a crime again after approving recreational weed!
Lawmakers in the state of Virginia are segregated on the issue of when and how cannabis should be made legal in the state.
The lawmakers have issued a budget proposal that would see possession of cannabis that weighs over four ounces in public as a criminal misconduct offense. The lawmakers of Virginia state are looking to bring back a bill that makes such possession a crime once more, not up to a year following the vote for the legalization of recreational marijuana for adults by the legislature.
A year ago, the General Assembly of Virginia gave approval to a bill that made possession of up to an ounce of weed for personal use legal. According to the bill, possessing cannabis between an ounce and a pound in weight was said to be a civil infraction, carrying a twenty-five dollars fine at worst, but possessing an excess of one pound of pot is still a felony.
Now, under this new budget proposal issued by the state lawmakers during the weekend, the crime of possessing more than four ounces of cannabis in public will be a Class 3 misconduct criminal offense carrying a fine of as much as 500 dollars. And if caught a second time, the offense will be charged as a Class 2 misconduct, which, if convicted, could lead to a six months jail time sentence and as much as a thousand dollars fine.
According to a report obtained from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the two-party budget compromise is backed by the Democratic Senate Finance and Appropriations Chair Janet Howell, as well as the Republican House Appropriations Chair Barry Knight.
Following the release of the budget proposal on Sunday evening, Republican House Appropriations Chair Barry Knight stated they did not achieve all that they wanted to, but that he thinks they are quite content given what they got. He added that he does not believe it was either a case of the House prevailing over the Senate or the Senate prevailing over the House.
In the previous year, it was suggested by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission that Virginia should follow the footsteps of other states in making possession of higher amounts of marijuana misconduct, a change he claimed to be wanted but the police.
The statement from Barry Knight was that it is further in conjunction with the actions of other states, so they are not standing alone out there and that they know their law enforcement desires it.
A Few Lawmakers And Virginia Activists Are Against The Recriminalization
With the lawmakers making moves to pass the bill, marijuana activists and a few lawmakers, as well as the state Senator L. Louise Lucas, are against the alteration in the budget proposal. Senator Lucas stated via a tweet that he voted against the criminalization of cannabis before. He is working to end this recent effort to criminalize cannabis once more.
He went on to say that this is aimed at brown and black people who have always been overcharged with these crimes in the past and that the state does not need these laws to return them to the past.
The Executive director of the group Marijuana Justice Virginia, Chelsea Highs Wise, teamed up with other activist groups in an email sent on Sunday evening to Howell. She wrote in the email that lawmakers should stop looking for more ways to make Virginians criminals and that everyone should work on making right the wrongs from the destructive and failed prohibition.
Highs Wise also added that officials in Virginia must not let the budget proposal become a lawful workaround to enforce what the administration wants while excluding the will and the people’s voice. The legislative director for the ACLU of Virginia, Ashna Khanna, spoke up saying Virginia should also take the same approach as New Jersey as they passed their legitimate cannabis plan just this week, which not just fines and charges underaged people but sets up intervention services for them.
The Budget Deal Also Includes Provisions for Hemp
The budget compromises also include the wording to create new labeling of hemp products and requirements for laboratory testing. The proposal would prohibit the sale of products that contain THC to anybody younger than 21 years old. It, however, includes an exception for patients who require medical marijuana. The plan would as well ban products sold in specific child-like forms or are fake products.
Virginia Cannabis Business Association lobbyist Dylan Bishop praised the legislature and Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration for drafting a proposal in collaboration with the cannabis industry.
Dylan Bishop, in a statement, said it appropriately addresses the justified public concerns on safety over products that are labeled and packed irresponsibly without unjustly putting Virginia’s farmers, small businesses, and retailers at a disadvantage. But J.M. Pedini, the executive director of The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in Virginia, who supported legislation that would have seen delta-8 products regulated, claimed that the compromise on the budget will still not change the existing loopholes.
This budget proposal is not the first time Virginia lawmakers have made attempts to abolish the cannabis legalization law passed last year. During the regular session of this year’s General Assembly, Senator Adam Evin submitted a bill to regulate the sale of cannabis, which would lead to a new misconduct possession crime. And then, in April, the State Senate declined yet another proposal, this one from Youngkin, which was to criminalize possession of more than two ounces of weeds under the hemp industry bill.
A decision might be made after the General Assembly meets in a special session to contemplate the budget proposal, as well as the provision for re-criminalization of possession of over four ounces of weed.
Bottom Line
Although the bill to recriminalize the possession of cannabis of more than four ounces has support from both the Democrats and the Republicans, there are still individuals in the legislative, as well as cannabis activists, who see the bill as a step backward and in the wrong direction.
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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