Tag: legalized marijuana

California Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Marijuana Cafes Where People Could Smoke, Eat Food And Watch Events Such As Concerts

A California Senate panel has approved a bill to legalize cannabis cafes in the state, months after the governor vetoed a previous iteration of the proposal.

The Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee passed the legislation in a 9-2 vote on Monday, about three weeks after it cleared the full Assembly.

Assemblymember Matt Haney (D) is again sponsoring the proposal, which would allow on-site marijuana consumption at licensed businesses that could also offer non-cannabis food and non-alcoholic drinks and host live events such as concerts if they get permission from their local government.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed the prior version, saying that while he appreciated that the intent was to “provide cannabis retailers with increased business opportunities and an avenue to attract new customers,” he felt “concerned this bill could undermine California’s long-standing smoke-free workplace protections.”

“Protecting the health and safety of workers is paramount,” the governor said at the time. “I encourage the author to address this concern in subsequent legislation.”

Speaking to senators on Monday, Haney clarified that his bill this bill does not legalize consumption lounges but instead would let marijuana businesses add new streams of revenue to those facilities that are already in operation.

“Consumption lounges currently exist throughout the state of California if authorized by the local government, and people are actively consuming cannabis at these lounges,” he said. “However, what is currently not allowed under existing law, completely prohibited, is the ability for cannabis retailers to diversify their business by selling food, drinks and an experience.”

“The cannabis industry is struggling. Issues like an oversaturation, high taxes and a still-thriving black market are hurting cannabis businesses who follow the rules and pay taxes,” Haney said. “By authorizing cannabis retailers to diversify their businesses, we are boosting revenue for California’s small businesses.”

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GOP Congressman Will Attempt To Remove Marijuana Banking Protections From Spending Bill Due To ‘Overwhelming’ Concerns

A GOP congressman says he’s “overwhelmingly concerned” with a provision of a spending bill that would provide limited protections for banks that work with state-legal marijuana businesses, and he’s threatening to file an amendment to strip the language as the underlying measure advances.

During a markup of the Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations measure on Wednesday, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) spoke out against the cannabis banking section, which subcommittee chairman Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) secured in the base bill.

“I understand it’s not in order to propose amendments at this level, but I certainly intend to raise that issue at the appropriate time,” Edwards said, signaling that he will propose an amendment to remove the section in the full committee or on the floor.

He said that the proposal is not germane to an appropriations bill because, he argues, it is “an affirmative authorization disguised as a limitation” on the spending of funds. But his primary contention is with the policy substance of the measure, which would prevent federal regulators covered under the FSGG bill from using their funding to penalize financial institutions that service state cannabis businesses.

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College Enrollment Increases In States That Legalize Marijuana Without Hurting Graduation Rates, Study Finds

A newly published study of college enrollment data found that states’ adoption of recreational marijuana legalization (RML) “increases enrollments by approximately up to 9%, without compromising degree completion or graduation rate.” Increases in out-of-state enrollments further suggest the policy shift “boosts college competitiveness by offering a positive amenity,” the report says, with “no evidence that RML affects college prices, quality, or in-state enrollment.”

The findings by University of Oklahoma graduate student Ahmed El Fatmaoui were published last month in the journal Economic Inquiry. They build on past research, such as a 2022 study that found that schools in states that legalized marijuana saw larger application pools, with no apparent decline in the quality of student applicants.

As in the earlier study, El Fatmaoui used data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which come from surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. He supplemented that in the new research with county-level data “to construct a panel dataset of colleges and their characteristics from 2009 to 2019.”

The main results of statistical significance, the latest study says, “indicate that RML increases enrollment by 4.6%–9%.” Increases in enrollment rates were seen in both men and women and, notably, took place after a delay following legalization.

“The results indicate that both women’s and men’s enrollments rose significantly after the fourth year of the first dispensary opening,” the report says, noting that the delay could be due to a number of factors. Among them may be “the slow and gradual development of a marijuana consumption culture,” the time it takes for students to decide on and apply to college as well as the sometimes sluggish rollout of marijuana retail markets.

Another possible explanation El Fatmaoui acknowledges is that “states may use the additional tax revenue from marijuana sales to subsidize their higher education sector,” which itself could draw higher enrollment.

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Adding CBD Or THC To Food Or Drinks Is Illegal, Massachusetts Officials Say In New Memo

Massachusetts agencies have declared that intoxicating hemp-based products can not be sold outside of licensed dispensaries and have tasked local boards of health to enforce what they say is federal law.

On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Department of Agricultural Resources released a joint notice in order to address the recent influx of hemp-based products like gummies and drinks that contain the same active ingredient as cannabis products. The notice made explicit that the “addition of CBD and/or THC to food manufactured or sold in Massachusetts is illegal.”

This action by the two state agencies reflects what they have been saying about the legality of these products. Now, with the advisory, they have made the guidance explicit and have charged local boards of health to enforce it.

Following the notice, the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission warned its licensees that their licenses could be suspended or revoked if they are caught selling hemp-derived products.

“This is a big win for both the cannabis and the hemp industry, specifically those who are licensed by the CCC and MDAR,” said Ryan Dominguez, the head of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition. “This is a step in the right direction for us to be able to now enforce what was already on the books so there’s no kind of gray area.”

Intoxicating hemp products have been showing up in liquor stores, gas stations and smoke shops across the state because of a 2018 federal law that removed hemp from the definition of marijuana. There are many companies that have popped up to sell hemp products.

The hemp products, which are often marketed very similarly to cannabis products, are not regulated in the same way. Whereas cannabis products face strict regulations around testing, packaging, labeling, taxation and age restrictions, the hemp products have none of these requirements in Massachusetts.

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Video Of NYC Cops’ Marijuana Raid Raises Questions About Mayor’s Enforcement Offensive

As a new mayoral task force conducts sweeps of hundreds of shops suspected of selling illegal weed, a video of a raid on a Staten Island store obtained by THE CITY captures how enlisting police to conduct regulatory inspections can lead to criminal charges, igniting concerns about potential due process violations.

The 90-second clip taken from a store surveillance camera on May 18 shows seven uniformed law enforcement officers, most of them in NYPD gear, cursing, jumping over the store counter and charging at a shopkeeper after he asked them for a court order before opening the door to the back of the store.

Instead, the man was cuffed—before any unlicensed cannabis products were found—and taken to a local precinct where he was charged with obstruction of justice, records show.

“When a cop tells you to do something, you fucking do it,” one officer told the shopkeeper.

The surveillance video was shared with THE CITY on the condition that the identity of the shopkeeper be protected. The arrest and criminal charge was confirmed by police records.

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Ohio Officials Will Begin Accepting Recreational Marijuana Sales Applications This Week, But The Market Won’t Launch Immediately

Ohio’s top marijuana regulator says that while the state will open up applications for medical cannabis dispensaries to start selling to adult-use consumers by Friday, the exact timing for when they’ll be able to launch depends on whether they’ve satisfied a list of conditions.

Ohio Division of Cannabis Control (DCC) Superintendent James Canepa has previously suggested that businesses with dual licenses approved could begin selling to patients and recreational consumers as early as this month. That’s still a possibility, but he declined to commit to any specific timeline in a new interview with Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer.

He said it’s likely there will be a “trickle in the beginning,” with a limited number of hybrid shops that are able to meet requirements to open their doors, such as enhanced security and updated point-of-sale systems to differentiate between medical and adult-use purchases.

Most dual dispensaries are expected to launch later, he said, “not that they’re not ready but that they’re a little more thoughtful about the scale for a new customer base.”

“Everybody keeps trying to get me to circle a day, and it’s impossible because like with liquor, you have to process the applicants as they are,” Canepa, who previously served as the state’s top alcohol regulator, said in the new interview. “You have to take them as they come to you. And there’s a whole checklist that they have to meet.”

In addition to the security and sales system updates, the superintendent also noted that businesses will need to ensure that their employees are properly badged. Their medical cannabis licenses must also be up-to-date in order to apply for a dual license.

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Minnesota Marijuana Regulators Destroy Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars’ Worth Of Illegally Sold Hemp Flower

Since Minnesota began cracking down on the illegal sale of raw cannabis flower in many registered hemp retailers, its agents have confiscated a lot of product worth a fair amount of money.

According to numbers released by the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), inspectors have confiscated and destroyed 12,094 units of flower—such as bags, jars or pre-rolled joints—with an estimated retail value of $278,000. The illegal products were taken from 58 different retail locations and amounted to nearly 73 pounds of raw cannabis flower.

While it has been legal to possess and use cannabis in Minnesota since last August, it is not yet legal to sell it and won’t be until sometime next spring. And while many hemp-derived low-potency products like gummies and beverages have been legal to sell since the summer of 2022, raw cannabis flower falls into a gray area. That is, if it has low THC content, it could be legal. But most of what has been sold exceeds the potency levels that separates hemp from marijuana.

If the confiscated products have likely been illegal under both the 2022 hemp-derived products law and the 2023 recreational cannabis law, why did it take this long for the state to crack down? Blame an inadvertent gap in the 2023 law that attempted to provide temporary state regulation of hemp products while the new Office of Cannabis Management was being set up.

The Office of Medical Cannabis was given temporary say over the two-year-old hemp-derived market but was not given control over raw flower, only products made from the plant like gummies and drinks.

That gap identified by regulators late last year allowed some stores to sell the flower that looks, smells and intoxicates like marijuana. At the same time, other retailers who wanted to follow the new law were left at a competitive disadvantage.

The raw flower was often sold as a hemp plant with high concentrations of THCA (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid). The same products are offered for sale from out-of-state businesses and mailed to customers where cannabis is not legal, or not yet legal as in Minnesota.

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Another Missouri Judge Approves Stacking City And County Marijuana Taxes

Buchanan County can collect a special marijuana sales tax on dispensaries within St. Joseph city limits, a judge ruled Wednesday in the second decision granting counties the right to stack taxes on top of city levies.

Circuit Judge Daniel Kellogg wrote in his two-page ruling that provisions in the recreational marijuana constitutional amendment passed in 2022 do not limit the taxing power of counties within corporate limits of towns and cities.

“To put it bluntly, the court cannot accept [the] plaintiff’s interpretation of ‘Local Government’ to prohibit the power of the county to impose such tax within the Saint Joseph city limits,” Kellogg wrote. “The definition of ‘Local Government’ includes both the city and the county. As such, both are authorized to impose and collect the tax.”

Vertical Enterprises, which is licensed for retail sales, cultivation and marijuana product manufacturing in St. Joseph, sued the Buchanan County Collector’s office, the Missouri Department of Revenue and the Buchanan County Clerk’s office to block enforcement of the tax.

Along with regular sales taxes—which in some locations approach 12 percent—people purchasing marijuana for recreational use also pay a special 6 percent state tax and a local tax of 3 percent if approved by voters.

The ruling will cost Vertical’s customers about $30,000 a month, said Chris McHugh, CEO of the company. There are two other dispensaries in St. Joseph and he estimated their tax payments would be comparable to his.

“Consumers should be outraged,” McHugh said. “They’re paying this.”

Statewide, consumers purchased $1.1 billion worth of marijuana in the first year of recreational use sales.

“This is millions and millions of dollars that never, never should be taken from consumers,” McHugh said. “It’s nothing but an anti-marijuana tax.”

McHugh said he will appeal Kellogg’s decision.

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Massachusetts Marijuana Delivery Rule Requiring Two Drivers Per Vehicle Remains In Force Despite Vote To Repeal It

Last December, after months of deliberation, the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) voted to eliminate its so-called two-driver rule—which requires all marijuana deliveries to be handled by two drivers.

The vote was 3–1, with Commissioner Bruce Stebbins the lone holdout. He was concerned about dropping a safety requirement to make the delivery license more lucrative. His fellow commissioners, however, wanted to reduce overhead costs for the delivery companies, which are headed by social equity licensees. “Ample security measures are already in place,” said Commissioner Nurys Camargo, referring to body cams and GPS tracking.

Five months later, the two-driver rule remains in place. Delivery operators are still waiting for relief, and the commission has no timetable for when the rule will be modified. At the commission’s public meeting on May 9, the commission’s general counsel shared that it would be months before the two-driver rule is removed. The CCC attributed the delay to an effort to consolidate a number of regulatory changes dealing with deliveries in a single rewrite.

In the meantime, the two-driver rule remains in place, which is not sitting well with the delivery companies.

“The two-driver rule is a hurdle and a handcuff that companies like mine are facing,” said Gyasi Sellers, the owner of cannabis delivery company Treevit. “There are a lot of companies like mine that are running out of time. Some have gone under already, and that rule is one of the primary causes of that.”

The two-driver rule requires that any cannabis delivery have two drivers in the vehicle so that when one person leaves the vehicle to actually make the delivery, the other person can stay and guard the vehicle. According to the delivery companies, the rule doubles the cost of each job because two people have to be paid for work that can be done by a single person. Plus, if one driver is out, the other driver can’t make the delivery.

Cannabis delivery operators have been speaking out against the two-driver rule for a long time. “[Back] in 2020 and 2021, we were telling the commission that the two-driver rule is gonna really hurt businesses,” said Chris Fevry, the co-owner of Dris Delivery. “We’ve told them multiple times it’s literally just gonna hurt equity. And come to find out it’s still 2024 and the two-driver rule is in place, and companies have gone out of business because of the two driver rule.”

Ulysses Youngblood, the owner of cannabis company Major Bloom, which has a dispensary in Worcester and also a delivery arm, expressed frustration that the CCC wasn’t prioritizing this issue.

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Ted Cruz Suggests Marijuana Rescheduling Might Lead To More People Dying In Car Crashes From Impaired Driving

U.S. Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticized the Biden administration’s planned move of cannabis to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) during comments Wednesday at a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing, citing increases in vehicle injury and fatality rates that he attributed to the legalization of adult-use marijuana.

Delivering remarks to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freight and Ports, Cruz brought up a number of transportation-related concerns before pivoting to marijuana legalization and federal rescheduling.

“Another notable issue is drugged driving,” he said, reading from a prepared statement. “A 2022 research paper found that from 2009 to 2019, legalization of recreational marijuana was ‘associated with a 6.5 percent increase in injury crash rates and a 2.3 percent increase in fatal crash rates.’”

“And yet the Biden administration, rather than working to keep our families safe on the roadways, has instead decreed that it will reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I substance to Schedule III,” he continued. “The American Trucking Association quickly followed this news with a letter highlighting that rescheduling marijuana without an explicit allowance for a test for its use would create confusion and result in ‘serious safety impacts to safety-sensitive industries.’”

Though little else of the hearing involved marijuana, a representative of the American Automobile Association (AAA) testified that a small proportion of drivers appeared to have increased their dangerous driving behavior during the past few years, including driving after recently consuming cannabis.

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