Tag: cannabis

New Congressional Amendments Would End Marijuana Tests For Federal Job Applicants And Encourage Psychedelic Research

New marijuana and psychedelics amendments have been filed by bipartisan congressional lawmakers as part of large-scale spending bills—including proposals that would end the practice of drug testing job applicants at certain federal agencies for marijuana.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced two versions of the same cannabis measure for separate appropriations bills, one covering Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies (MilCon/VA) and another on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies. It would prevent the use of funds to drug test most applicants for cannabis at the agencies covered by the legislation.

There’s also an amendment to the MilCon/VA bill from Reps. Jack Bergman (R-MI) and Lou Correa (D-CA) that’s meant to encourage the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to carry out “large-scale studies” into drugs like psilocybin and MDMA that have been designated as “breakthrough therapies” by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The sponsors are also the founding co-chairs of a congressional psychedelics caucus that promotes research into entheogenic substances.

The cannabis measures from Garcia would prevent THC drug testing for job applicants in the relevant federal agencies, except for “positions listed as Presumptive Testing Designated Positions by the Selection of Testing Designated Positions Guidance under Federal Drug-Free Workplace Program.”

The proposals also curiously only cover select states, including some such as Tennessee and Texas that have extremely limited low-THC medical cannabis programs while excluding others such as Ohio and Pennsylvania that have more comprehensive medical marijuana laws.

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Immigrants Can’t Naturalize if They Own a Marijuana Dispensary, Court Says

Running a state-legal marijuana dispensary is grounds to deny a legal resident’s application for U.S. citizenship, a federal appellate court ruled earlier this month.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that Maria Elena Reimers’ application for naturalization could be denied because she operates a licensed marijuana business in Washington state. While her business is legal under Washington law, marijuana remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

The court affirmed that violating the CSA “categorically precludes her from qualifying for naturalization” since it demonstrates a lack of “good moral character.” The ruling rejected Reimers’ claim that she is treated differently than marijuana business owners who are U.S. citizens. Washington has licensed almost 500 marijuana dispensaries since legalizing recreational sales in 2012.

Reimers has no criminal record, yet in a letter announcing the denial of her naturalization application, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) described her as an “illicit trafficker of a controlled substance.”

“We have a legal business and pay taxes, tons of taxes to the government. And yet they say I’m not morally fit to be a citizen,” Reimers tells Reason.

Reimers immigrated legally to the U.S. from El Salvador in 2004 with her now-husband Rick, who was born in the United States. Rick started Cannarail Station, a recreational dispensary in Ephrata, Washington, in 2014. Reimers submitted her naturalization application in May 2017, fully disclosing her involvement with the business.

After her initial interview in August 2017, Reimers says she passed the naturalization test and was scheduled for an oath ceremony. Then USCIS changed her application to pending. In June 2018, she appeared for a second interview, where immigration officers extensively questioned her about the business. Reimers testified honestly that she was a co-owner and employee of Cannarail Station.

In July 2018, Reimers received a denial letter from USCIS. In May 2019 she had an appeal hearing with USCIS, but a year later they reaffirmed the decision. Reimers filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington in December 2020, which granted summary judgment to USCIS in February 2022 solely on the basis of her marijuana business. She appealed the decision to the 9th Circuit, which heard the case in April 2023.

Her attorney, Alycia Moss, tells Reason, “She’s qualified in every other way. The only denial reason was based on lack of ‘good moral character.'”

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Ron DeSantis Says He Would Not Decriminalize Marijuana If Elected President

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, said he would not federally decriminalize marijuana if elected to the White House—arguing that cannabis use hurts the workforce, inhibits productivity and could even lead to death if contaminated.

At a campaign event in South Carolina on Thursday, a person who said they were representing wounded veterans asked DeSantis if he would “please” decriminalize cannabis as president.

The governor responded directly: “I don’t think we would do that.”

He then talked about Florida’s medical marijuana program that was enacted by voters, saying veterans are “actually allowed access” to cannabis under that model. But he said the issue is “controversial because obviously there’s some people that abuse it and are using it recreationally.”

DeSantis rattled off a number of concerns he has about cannabis use, starting with the potency of marijuana that “they’re putting on the street” and his understanding that illicit products are being laced with other drugs such as fentanyl.

“If you do something with that, it could be goodnight right then and there,” he said. “You could die just by ingesting that, so I think that that’s problematic.”

Experts and advocates have questioned law enforcement claims about the prevalence of fentanyl-tainted cannabis in the illicit market. In any case, DeSantis also didn’t acknowledge that creating a regulatory regime where marijuana is subject to testing before consumers can buy it could mitigate instances of contamination.

“I think that we have we have too many people using using drugs in this country right now. I think it hurts our workforce readiness. I think it hurts people’s ability to prosper in life,” he said, adding that people he knew in high school who used marijuana “suffered.”

“All their activities, all their grades and everything like that—so particularly for the youth, I just think we have to be united,” the candidate said. He also plugged a Florida program overseen by his wife that involves sending athletes to schools to warn students about “the stakes of using some of these drugs nowadays, and this is not something you want to mess around with.”

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Philadelphia Considers Zoning Restrictions on Still-Illegal Recreational Pot Shops

Recreational marijuana isn’t legal yet in Pennsylvania. That hasn’t stopped Philadelphia politicians from trying to future-proof their zoning ordinances to block recreational sales.

Philadelphia Councilmembers Brian O’Neill and Curtis Jones have proposed amendments to the city’s zoning code that would preemptively prohibit existing medical marijuana businesses in two overlay districts they represent from participating in recreational sales.

The prohibition would affect five existing medical marijuana stores, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported on the zoning amendments earlier today.

The immediate practical impacts of the amendments are minimal, given that recreational marijuana is still illegal in Pennsylvania. State lawmakers are nevertheless working on various proposals for legalizing recreational sales. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has endorsed legalizing (and heavily taxing) recreational sales.

Industry advocates say this will unfairly penalize existing medical marijuana businesses when recreational sales are eventually legalized, all because they opened up in the wrong part of town.

“If you set up a system where four or five stores can’t sell adult use and then 16 can, people are going to go to the ones” that can sell to recreational customers, says Jamie Ware, president of the Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition (a trade association).

Ware is also a senior vice president with Holistic Industries which operates one of the Philadelphia dispensaries that would be affected by O’Neill and Jones’ zoning amendment.

Existing businesses, she notes, are locked into longer-term commercial leases, so they can’t easily move to avoid the restrictions. If the current medical system is any guide to how future recreational businesses will be regulated, transferring a license to a new location would require state approval and could take years.

O’Neill did not immediately respond to Reason‘s request for comment. Jones told the Inquirer that while medical sales haven’t created problems, recreational sales will bring a less desirable crowd, necessitating the restrictions.

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Perceived Stigma of Cannabis Patients

A June 2022 study entitled “Perceived Stigma of Patients Undergoing Treatment with Cannabis-Based Medicinal Products” that was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health explored the potential impact of stigma on medical cannabis patients.

The study’s authors noted that “it is well documented that stigma can reduce utilization of healthcare services and can negatively impact treatment.” They reported that stigma can also lead to chronic stress and anxiety, “in addition to subsequent mental and physical problems that can cause individuals to feel isolated and withdrawn.”

Perceived Stigma of Cannabis Patients. “While there is a growing body of evidence on the associated effects of cannabis-based medicinal products on health-related quality of life in several health conditions, there is a paucity of knowledge on the prevalence and subsequent effects of stigma on current and prospective patients” in the United Kingdom, reported the study.

The study observed that “evidence from countries which have greater experience with medical cannabis therapies shows stigma to be a factor in both prescribing practice and patient perception.”

The study observed that “evidence from countries which have greater experience with medical cannabis therapies shows stigma to be a factor in both prescribing practice and patient perception.” Interviews of Canadian patients revealed that the most common sources of stigma were “health care providers, law enforcement, and close relatives.”

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It’s the Summer of 2023, and Cannabis Remains Federally Illegal. What’s Happening?

It was big news last fall when President Joe Biden pardoned federal offenders who had been charged and convicted of federal cannabis possession.

For over 50 years, since President Richard Nixon signed the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, cannabis has been a Schedule I federally controlled illegal drug, classified just like heroin and LSD.  Yet, Biden’s pardon proclamation did not make cannabis federally legal. However, tucked into Biden’s 2022 executive order was something no president to date has done: Biden directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to “review” the legal classification of cannabis.

No formal announcement on the status of that review has been made since then.

Just two months after issuing the 2022 pardon proclamation, Biden also ramped up cannabis research expansion by signing into law the 2022 Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act. This legislation opened up even more federal research by finally streamlining the approval process for the federal scientific studies. For the first time in American history, there now exists a cannabis medical study law that requires the U.S. attorney general to review medical study proposals within a 60-day period or request that applicants provide additional information. As of yet, though, there’s no real sense of the impact this legislation has had on actual medical cannabis research.

Before these presidential moves, the medical research of cannabis’s health benefits was almost solely the province of the states. In fact, Pennsylvania, which legislatively legalized in 2016, was the first state to require medical cannabis research as part of its medical legalization regime. Since then, other states like California and Colorado have established state-sponsored research programs, but Pennsylvania remains the nation’s first to select and pair state universities with cannabis producers to collect data and study cannabis’s efficacy. 

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More than 90% of Calif. pot farms infected with ‘severe’ pathogen

An infectious pathogen inside California’s pot farms is attacking cannabis plants and growing invisibly for months only to spoil a crop just as a farmer is ready to harvest. Scientists believe that it’s in nearly every pot farm in the state and could be causing billions of dollars in damages to the national weed economy.

Hop-latent viroid, or HLVd, shrivels pot plants and reduce how much weight they produce by as much as 30%. It also destroys the amount of THC, pot’s most common active compound, that a plant produces, greatly reducing the value of affected plants. 

HLVd was first documented in cannabis in a pair of scientific studies published in 2019, including a study that confirmed the viroid’s presence in samples from a Santa Barbara pot farm. It’s now infected at least 90% of California’s cannabis grows, according to a 2021 estimate. It’s spreading globally, and a recent scientific paper declared the pathogen was the “biggest concern for cannabis” growers worldwide.

But one Bay Area startup has a new tool that they think will stop the pathogen’s spread in its tracks.

Oakland’s Purple City Labs released a new HLVd test earlier this year that can be conducted on site and deliver results to pot farmers in just a few hours. That’s much faster than the current methods for finding HLVd infections, which are predominantly done by farmers mailing samples to labs and waiting days or even weeks to get a result.

The company said this new at-farm testing could be pivotal in slowing the spread of this global pathogen, as it allows farmers to quickly identify infected plants.

“We didn’t just identify a great test that is accurate, but it’s [also] easy to use and it doesn’t require a high level of expertise,” said Luke Horst, director of business development for Purple City Genetics. “You can take microbiology to the public and put it in their hands. … It’s important for people to have this type of testing.”

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Minnesota Will Be the 23rd State To Legalize Recreational Marijuana

Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, today reiterated his promise to sign a marijuana legalization bill that arrived at his desk on Saturday. That will make Minnesota, which legalized medical marijuana in 2014, the 23rd state to allow recreational use.

The Minnesota House and Senate, both of which are controlled by Democrats, had previously approved slightly different legalization bills. H.F. 100, which both chambers passed last week, reconciles those differences.

Adults 21 or older will be allowed to possess two ounces or less of marijuana in public, share that amount with other adults, keep two pounds or less at home, and grow up to eight plants, four of which are mature. Those provisions take effect on August 1.

The bill also establishes an Office of Cannabis Management to license and regulate commercial production and distribution. Marijuana products will be subject to a 10 percent retail tax, in addition to standard state and local sales taxes (which total about 8 percent in Minneapolis, for example). Local governments will be allowed to regulate retailers and cap their number but will not be allowed to ban them entirely. Rep. Zack Stephenson (DFL–Coon Rapids), a co-author of the bill, said licensed sales should begin in 12 to 18 months.

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Pot Legalization Is a ‘Big Mistake’ Only If You Ignore the Value of Freedom and the Injustice of Prohibition

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat thinks “legalizing marijuana is a big mistake.” His argument, which draws heavily on a longer Substack essay by the Manhattan Institute’s Charles Fain Lehman, is unabashedly consequentialist, purporting to weigh the collective benefits of repealing prohibition against the costs. It therefore will not persuade anyone who believes, as a matter of principle, that people should be free to decide for themselves what goes into their bodies.

Douthat recognizes that his case against legalization “will not convince readers who come in with stringently libertarian presuppositions.” Lehman, a self-described “teenage libertarian” who has thought better of that position now that he is in his 20s, likewise makes no attempt to argue that the government is morally justified in arresting and punishing people for peaceful conduct that violates no one’s rights. They nevertheless make some valid points about the challenges of legalization while demonstrating the pitfalls of a utilitarian analysis that ignores the value of individual freedom and the injustice of restricting it to protect people from themselves.

Douthat and Lehman are right that legalization advocates, who at this point include roughly two-thirds of American adults, sometimes exaggerate its impact on criminal justice. All drug offenders combined “account for just 16.7 percent” of people in state and federal prisons, Lehman notes, and perhaps one-tenth of those drug war prisoners (based on an estimate by Fordham law professor John Pfaff) were convicted of marijuana offenses. People arrested for violating pot prohibition usually are not charged with production or distribution and typically do not spend much, if any, time behind bars.

Still, those arrests are not without consequences. In addition to the indignity, embarrassment, inconvenience, legal costs, and penalties they impose, the long-term consequences of a misdemeanor record include barriers to employment, housing, and education. Those burdens are bigger and more extensive than Douthat and Lehman are willing to acknowledge.

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The origins of weed: How the plant spread across the world

Cannabis has grown and evolved with humans for thousands of years. Many separate cultures cultivated the plant, using its seeds for food, its fibers to make textiles, rope, and other materials, and its buds as a medicine and psychoactive substance in spiritual ceremonies. Cannabis proved to be a very useful plant for our ancestors and it continues to be today.

If there was one thing our ancestors knew, it was the healing properties of cannabis. While the wonders of cannabis medicine may feel like a new discovery in the West, cultures in the East have used and documented it for thousands of years. 

Check out the story of cannabis—where it originated, how it spread across the globe, and which cultures used it. Learn how important the plant was to ancient humans and how it continues to be important to humans today. 

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