Cultivation
You Can Now Grow Your Own Medical Cannabis in Brazil after Historic Supreme Court Ruling
Recently, medicinal cannabis programs have been adopted by more than 50 countries (Brazil inclusive) while other countries like Uruguay, Mexico, South Africa, and Canada have their recreational use legalized. Other countries have laws that are more restrictive and only allow the use of certain Cannabis-derived pharmaceuticals which include, Marinol, Sativex, and Epidiolex.
Brazil decided on Tuesday, June 14th, 2022, that cannabis can be cultivated by sick people in a bid to extract its component into oil as a means of treating patients with chronic pain. The case is considered to be domestically important. Personal usage of cannabidiol was contemplated in the decision thereby allowing the cultivation of marijuana only for medical purposes followed by a prescription.
A legal precedent is given to home growers which might lead to more complex legislation using Argentina as a case study where the production of medicinal cannabis and hemp are being carried out legally.
Due to this decision, rules and regulations must be set by the Ministry of Brazilian Health to serve as a guide. This is the main intention of the judges. It was said by Judge Rogério Schietti that the government has refused to take a scientific approach to the issue and this has caused the court to act in that manner. He claimed that the debate against the possibility is proper. It is usually religious, based on false truths, stigmas, and dogmas. He affirmed by saying that moralism and prejudice that slows down the growth of the issue in the judiciary should be stopped.
What he forgot to mention was the fact that the issue has clouded the minds of both the legislators and judges in other countries as well. The concept of patient home grow is an issue that is very controversial almost everywhere. Notwithstanding, this right has fueled the movement of cannabis reform in lots of countries with Canada being the first.
For instance, patients in Germany were deprived of the right to grow their cannabis in 2017 almost immediately after it was allowed by the court decision after the legislature made it legal for medical use. The refusal rate at which insurers failed at covering sick people was recorded as 50% by some analysts made the country consider such legislative changes for further reforms. Nonetheless, Germany is not the only country wrestling with these legal challenges.
Why does it matter?
The medical use of marijuana was legalized in Brazil in 2015, but not until recently, all kinds of domestic cultivation is prevented by the law and all medicines that are cannabis-based must be imported with stern authorization from National Sanitary Surveillance Agency, even though Brazil is presently struggling with ways to proceed with more advance domestic reform.
Brazil became the third country after Uruguay and Columbia to regulate medical marijuana product sales in 2019. The semi-finished products can only be imported by the manufacturers after a special certificate is received from ANVISA. This is because there are still prohibitions on the importation of the whole plant.
In 2022, the cannabis-based drug was approved by ANVISA, Cannabis Sativa Extract Ease Labs, joining the other ten drugs that have been approved by ANVISA in the same sector. Six of them contain only CBD while the other six are extracted from the whole plant.
Why Home grow is seen as treasonous
Legalized cannabis industries are one of the largest antagonists to home grow. On the commercial side of this discussion are many others including the medical practitioners who strongly oppose home grow. The basis of their arguments was the lack of standards and their introduction to the black market or children.
While these situations were considered not to be ideal, the repeal of rights of chronically sick people, in particular, has always been the answer in any jurisdiction. Furthermore, as the implementation of recreational reform has been a major challenge for some countries in Europe, this is fast becoming a fairly secure half step. This has also been a burning question for some countries like Italy, Luxembourg, and Malta which has not been answered by the debate on recreational reform currently ongoing in Germany.
Looking from an industry’s perspective, human rights deliberately become less active towards profit. This is one of the reasons why constitutional rights are being trumped by commercial ones. This is why the industry lobby directly opposes the right to grow cannabis for either recreational or medical use. This is another reason why the cultivation of plants at home for medical use still remains a crime in many legalized countries. As a result of this, the laws are challenged by patients, not an industry on a case-by-cace basis.
Most people are not willing to be remembered as “cannabis gandis” for attempting to address the awful outcome of being both poor and sick. But the truth is, this is exactly the situation every country which does not allow patient home grow puts their severely sick populace in. Causing a change to this cruel reality is long overdue and already on an international level.
Peradventure the same philosophy would be applied to the topic by Germany which is the next country to experience this on a federal basis. After all, it was said by the government to the former President of the United States, Donald Trump that there are limits to capitalism, when he tried cornering the market on a covid vaccine that is German-made. In Brazil, that principle has just been affirmed by the Superior Court of Justice
Cannabis companies already in business in Brazil
In September 2021, it was confirmed that MediPharm Labs Corp is in partnership with a distributor based in Rio de Janeiro, XLR8 BRAZIL. The delivery services of the company to the biggest medical cannabis market in Latin America would be strengthened by this move.
The product’s authorization would kick start the two-year deal. By it, a wide range of cannabis concentrate formats would be provided by MedPharm Labs for the products that would be formulated by XLR8 BRAZIL.
Bottom line
What do you think of the latest developments in the cannabis space in South America? Is the global cannabis industry trending upward? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
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/
New Mexico cannabis operator fined, loses license for alleged BioTrack fraud
Marijuana companies suing US attorney general in federal prohibition challenge
Alabama to make another attempt Dec. 1 to award medical cannabis licenses
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