Tag: indiana

Indiana Lawmakers Approve Bill To Regulate Hemp Products

Contentious regulations for marijuana-like products advanced through the Indiana House of Representatives on Tuesday, but will have to survive closed-door negotiations before crossing Gov. Mike Braun’s (R) desk.

“I filed a dissent,” Sen. Travis Holdman, the measure’s author, told the Capital Chronicle.

“We’ve got some clean-up to do,” the Markle Republican said. “We’ll be working on it.”

Products with legally low concentrations of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol have proliferated in Indiana, alongside those containing delta-8 THC and other isomers. Attempts to regulate the nascent industry, which is booming on shaky legal footing, have failed repeatedly—but are nearing law, in the form of Senate Bill 478.

“These products, being legal under federal law, but having no regulatory structure here in the state, means that technically, it’s not illegal to sell these products to minors [or] to target youth with advertising or packaging, and that there’s no testing requirements to protect consumers from potentially dangerous adulterants,” said Rep. Jake Teshka, the House sponsor, on the chamber’s floor Tuesday.

The measure sets out advertising, age-limit, licensing, packaging, testing and other requirements over the currently unregulated substances. It authorizes the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission to oversee the industry, including approving up to 20,000 retail permits.

Lawmakers have put it through a whopping seven rounds of edits. But critics—including Indiana’s attorney general and anti-marijuana groups—still have objected, arguing the language would expand existing loopholes.

“With Senate Bill 478, I think we finally have an opportunity to rein in this market,” Teshka, R-North Liberty, said. “We have the opportunity to provide real clarity to law enforcement, to protect Hoosier youth, to empower our farmers and to protect our consumers.”

Members of Teshka’s own caucus remained skeptical.

“I recognize that…the General Assembly should take action on the current state of this product,” said Rep. Tim Wesco, R-Osceola. “[But] I don’t feel like this is the appropriate action.”

Instead, it’s “moving us further down a path of increasing—dramatically increasing—access to these products that are known to have adverse and negative effects,” Wesco continued. “We’re setting up a framework that we’re likely not going to go back on, that is just going to expand from here.”

Lawmakers from both parties crossed sides in the 60-37 vote.

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Indiana GOP Senators Block Another Attempt To Legalize Marijuana Through Budget Bill

Indiana Republican senators have rejected another attempt to legalize marijuana in the state.

On Monday, the Senate considered numerous amendments to a two-year budget, defeating many Democratic-led proposals including one from Sen. Rodney Pol (D) to create a regulated adult-use cannabis market.

Pol stressed that Indiana is “losing out” to neighboring states such as Illinois and Michigan that have already enacted legalization, with tax revenue from marijuana sales being diverted to those states as Indianans patronized their licensed businesses.

He said it’s “frustrating” to watch Indiana “lose on an opportunity to keep our dollars in our state and provide relief to those individuals that are dealing with cancer, PTSD, chronic pain and other ailments that prefer cannabis for needed relief, as opposed to pharmaceuticals.”

“We have hundreds of people in the hallway that are concerned about money that we are spending,” he said. “And this is an easy way to turn what is in an illicit market that is funding more crime right now into a regulated and safe taxed market that we reap the benefits of.”

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Top GOP Senator In Indiana Says It’d Be A ‘Smart Move’ To Decriminalize Marijuana

Indiana’s top Senate leader says that decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana would be a “smart move” in his view, though he remains “unconvinced” that broader legalization of cannabis is in the state’s best interest.

In a wide-ranging interview published by The Indiana Lawyer this week, Senate Pro Tempore Rodric Bray (R) said he knows marijuana reform is “becoming more and more popular, of course, across the state of Indiana, and also in this building.”

“We can’t exist in a vacuum,” acknowledged the lawmaker, who has historically opposed both medical and adult-use legalization. “More than 30 states have legalized marijuana in some capacity, including those states around us.”

While Bray said he was speaking personally—”just Rod Bray talk, and not our caucus”—he described marijuana decriminalization as a better path forward, taking a more moderate approach to reform.

“I think that it would be a smart move, based on where we are in that space right now, that we decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. I don’t think that needs to be criminal at this point,” he said. “Maybe it’s an infraction or something like that, because people are obviously buying it legally in other parts of the country [and] can’t possess it when you come back here. But should that be a jailable offense at this point? Maybe not.”

Decriminalization is “something I would consider,” he added. “But we have to do that as a body.”

Lawmakers in Illinois have been eyeing various cannabis reforms recently, including both medical and adult-use cannabis legalization. In January, Gov. Mike Braun (R) said he’s “amenable” to legalizing medical marijuana but noted that he wasn’t sure whether Republican lawmakers would even take up the matter.

“When it comes to medical marijuana, I’m clear on record that I’m going to be amenable to hearing a case for it,” Braun said at the time.

Other lawmakers have been studying nearby Michigan and Illinois as guides for how to eventually legalize marijuana more broadly.

Bray, for his part, said at a December event that he doesn’t support any form of marijuana legalization.

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Indiana Lawmakers Weigh Widespread Ban On All Marijuana Advertising, Not Just On Billboards

Indiana lawmakers could ban all marijuana advertising within state lines under an amendment adopted Monday in a transportation-focused committee. It goes beyond the billboard-specific prohibition taken in a Senate panel last week.

Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie) said his community is “inundated” with billboards advertising illegal marijuana. The district is near Michigan, which has legalized it.

But that’s not all.

“My constituents, myself included, receive up to two—what would look like political mailers—a week advertising an illegal substance” at dispensaries in nearby New Buffalo, per Pressel. He chairs the House Roads and Transportation Committee.

He commandeered Senate Bill 73, dealing with utility trailer sales, for an amendment outlawing the advertising of marijuana and other drugs on Indiana’s list of Schedule I controlled substances. Indiana’s attorney general could sue for injunctions, civil penalties of up to $15,000 and “reasonable costs” incurred throughout the investigation and lawsuit.

“I’ve heard about [how] the First Amendment, I’m trampling on it. I don’t believe that to be true,” Pressel told the committee. He cited a federal appeals court decision that, “basically, if it’s a criminal activity, you have no First Amendment right to advertise. That’s my understanding.”

The ban would take effect upon the bill’s passage. Advertising from contracts entered into or renewed before the approval date would be exempt.

The committee accepted the edits by consent.

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FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.

Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles. He was the associate dean for research at Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. According to his employer, he has served as principal investigator on research projects totaling nearly $23 million over his 21 years there.

He has also co-authored scores of academic papers on a diverse range of research fields, including cryptography, systems security, and data privacy, including the protection of human genomic data. I have personally spoken to him on three occasions for articles here, here, and here.

“None of this is in any way normal”

In recent weeks, Wang’s email account, phone number, and profile page at the Luddy School were quietly erased by his employer. Over the same time, Indiana University also removed a profile for his wife, Nianli Ma, who was listed as a Lead Systems Analyst and Programmer at the university’s Library Technologies division.

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Transgender inmate arrested for strangling 11-month-old daughter allowed to receive gender reassignment surgery

An inmate claiming to be a transgender woman who allegedly strangled her 11-month-old daughter to death is set to receive state-funded gender transition surgery.

Autumn Cordellione, born Jonathan Richardson, was sentenced to 55 years behind bars in 2001 in Indiana for killing her stepchild while her partner was at work.

In 2023, she requested but was denied gender transition surgery — leading her to file a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

A federal judge found she was at risk of harm if she did not get surgery and granted an injunction — a legal order requiring someone to do something — to have Cordellione undergo an orchiectomy, to remove testicles, and a vaginoplasty, to invert the penis into a vagina. Overall, these surgeries typically cost about $27,000 in total.

The decision to allow the surgeries to move forward came despite the opinion of a psychologist, who said Cordellione did not have gender dysphoria and did not need the operations, but rather was seeking attention.

But the ACLU said refusing to organize the surgeries violated the eighth amendment — that no punishment be excessive.

The Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC), which had refused the surgeries, argued, however, it could not fund them because of an Indiana state law that bars the use of taxpayer funds for gender transition procedures for inmates.

Despite that, it has now been ordered to arrange them, and find a surgeon for Cordellione — who was rejected as a patient by the state’s only gender-transition clinic because it said it did not operate on inmates.

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Indiana Lawmakers Approve Bill To Ban Marijuana Advertising On Billboards

Tuesday discussion around a Bureau of Motor Vehicle (BMV) bill descended into impassioned debate over marijuana advertising, which Republican lawmakers said should be restricted.

In contention was House Bill 1390, authored by Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie). The underlying legislation originally just dealt with BMV agency matters, like insurance verification, specialty license plates and registration stickers.

But among multiple changes adopted by the Senate Homeland Security and Transportation Committee on Tuesday—including a significant amendment addressing “predatory” towing—was a ban on “outdoor” marijuana advertising, notably on highway billboards.

Specifically, the amended bill language seeks to prohibit outdoor advertisements for products containing marijuana or a variety of other controlled substances, including heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

The bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Pressel, whose district extends to Indiana’s northern border, described “billboards all over the place that say, ‘Come to my store and buy this,’” referencing dispensaries in Michigan, where recreational marijuana is legal.

“And we have trucks—mobile billboards—that drive around and sit in front of our parks. That’s unacceptable, and it sends a mixed message to the consumer that this product is legal in Indiana, which it is not,” said Pressel, who unsuccessfully attempted to add the provision to a separate House bill earlier in the session.

“I think that’s an unfair message,” he continued, “and I believe that we should get in front of this to say that if it’s an illegal substance, listed on our illegal substance list in the state of Indiana, you should not be able to advertise for that.”

Multiple advertisers pushed back.

Ron Breymier, executive director of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Indiana, cited First Amendment issues. He argued that policymakers can dictate the size and placement of billboards, but “not the actual advertisement itself.”

Phones and internet searches, Breymier said, are a “greater threat” than billboards.

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Federal Judge In Indiana Dismisses Hemp Industry Lawsuit Over Legality Of Delta-8 THC

A nearly two-year-old legal battle is over—for now—after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit over the legality of delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) goods and other low-THC hemp products.

Judge James R. Sweeney II, of the U.S. District Court for Indiana’s Southern District, wrote the suit is “fundamentally” a “question for consideration by Indiana’s courts.”

Delta-8 is an isomer of delta-9 THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

Plaintiffs 3Chi, Midwest Hemp Council and Wall’s Organics filed suit in 2023, several months after an opinion from Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) found the products are illegal.

The opinion was a direct response to a request by now-former Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter and the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council. Local law enforcement agencies took note, with some notifying retailers they could get in trouble or even raiding retailers, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs argued that Rokita’s opinion violates the 2018 federal Farm Bill—which removed hemp from the definition of marijuana—and similar provisions in Indiana law by “unilaterally” reclassifying their products as Schedule I controlled drugs. They also sought an injunction.

The judge determined the plaintiffs had standing to sue. But in an order filed Tuesday, Sweeney found they “have not met their burden of demonstrating that their alleged injury is redressable by the Court.”

The “problem,” Sweeney wrote, is that Rokita’s opinion isn’t binding and isn’t law.

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Bar That Threw Out MAGA Customer Proves Again That Leftists Are the Most Intolerant People on Earth

On March 16, I wrote here about Chatterbox Jazz, a club in Indianapolis where a bartender of the he/she/it variety petulantly grabbed a baseball bat and threatened a MAGA hat-wearing customer to get out of the bar, or else. The place was inundated both with patriots noting the “tolerant” left’s hypocrisy and intolerance, and with leftists cheering on the boneless bartender’s courageous stand against MAGA “fascism.” 

Now, the club itself has issued a statement about the incident, but it’s not what it should have been: an apology and an affirmation that the club welcomes anyone. Instead, Chatterbox doubled down, and also seems to be stretching the truth a good deal beyond the breaking point. “On Friday, March 14th,” it says, “a group of individuals” — yeah, Chatterbox, that’s what the word “group” means, you didn’t have to add “of individuals” at all — “visited Chatterbox and intentionally misgendered and harassed a Chatterbox employee, resulting in them being asked to leave by our staff. They then continued verbally assaulting our patrons and staff, threatened our establishment, and returned to record a video which has now been posted on multiple social media platforms.”

Is that so? It could be, as the video of the incident begins after there has clearly already been friction between the bartender and the woman who is videoing. However, in the video, the bartender tells the woman wearing the MAGA hat to get out of the bar, and after she repeatedly asks him why, he finally says: “Because you’re a Trump supporter.” Later, she asks again why she is being thrown out: “Because I’m wearing a Trump hat.” The bartender immediately replies with enthusiasm: “Yes!” The woman says: “That’s wild!,” to which the bartender replies: “I don’t care. Get out.” 

You’ll notice that even though he/she/xe had several opportunities to do so, the bartender doesn’t give the slightest hint of any intentional “misgendering” or harassment. Instead, he affirms twice that he is throwing the woman out, and threatening her with a baseball bat despite looking as if he had never touched one before in his entire miserable existence, solely because she is wearing a MAGA hat, not, as Chatterbox now claims, because she and her friends had been causing trouble in the bar before the video started.

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Clinton-Appointed Judge Rules Inmate Who Murdered Baby Must Be Provided Taxpayer-Funded Sex Change at ‘Earliest Opportunity’

Clinton-appointed Judge Richard Young has ordered the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) to provide sex change surgery for a “transgender” inmate who murdered a baby.

The inmate, Jonathan Richardson, who now goes by “Autumn Cordellioné,” is in prison for the reckless homicide of a baby.

Richardson was convicted in 2001 for strangling his then-wife’s 11-month-old daughter to death.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections seeking a sex change on behalf of Richardson in 2023, three years after the baby-killer decided to begin identifying as a woman.

Currently, there is a law in Indiana banning taxpayer-funded sex change procedures for inmates.

According to a Fox News report, the ACLU argued that the law violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Judge Young sided with the ACLU on March 5 and ordered taxpayers to foot the bill for the murderer’s vanity surgery.

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