Tag: legalized marijuana

Colleges In States That Legalize Marijuana See Spike In Applications From Higher Achieving Students, Study Finds

Colleges in states where recreational marijuana became legal over the past decade saw a significant but short-term boost in applications from top-notch students. They also got more applications overall. Those were the key findings of a new study our team published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Contemporary Economic Policy.

In the year that a particular state legalized recreational marijuana, the number of applications for that state’s colleges grew by about 5.5 percent more than colleges in states that did not legalize. This means that colleges in legal-marijuana states received a temporary boost in applications. We didn’t detect any increase beyond the initial spike. Our results control for school quality, tuition prices and labor market conditions that may affect student application decisions.

At a more detailed level, the gains were strongest for the largest schools, which observed a nearly 54 percent increase in applications compared with similarly sized schools in nonlegal states. Public colleges and universities benefited more than private ones, though applications for private schools rose in states where recreational marijuana became legal as well.

In addition, schools got more applications from high-achieving students. Standardized test scores for the top 25 percent of applicants spiked along with the quantity of applications.

Keep reading

New Colorado Marijuana Hospitality Rules Take Effect As Regulators Tout Earlier ‘Successes’ Like Online Sales

Colorado marijuana regulators are promoting new rules for the industry that take effect on Monday—including increased sales limits for cannabis hospitality businesses that allow on-site use. They are also touting “successes” from the past year such as opening up online sales.

The state Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) shared a list of rules that have been enacted under legislation passed by lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis (D) last year.

At the top of the list is the online sales development, which took effect last August. Customers must still physically pick up the marijuana products from retailers, but now they can browse and electronically purchase cannabis online ahead of visiting the store.

As of January 8, other key regulations are being implemented, too. That includes increasing the amount of cannabis that can be sold at licensed marijuana hospitality businesses to one ounce of flower and eight grams of concentrate.

The new rules will also require hospitality businesses to provide patrons with information about transportation options and establish standards to prevent overconsumption, while exempting them from certain requirements related to video surveillance at certain areas of spas.

Regulations that have already taken effect this past year that MED highlighted include new authorizations to seize and destroy regulated marijuana products that pose a threat to public health, a rule that allows new cannabis businesses to maintain and renew state licensure even if they’re rejected by local governments and empowering regulators to promulgate rules allowing or banning “chemical modification, conversion, or synthetic derivation of cannabinoids.”

“As we approach the new year, we are committed to leveraging the unique opportunity we have to reflect on our successes and lessons learned as one of the most mature adult-use cannabis markets in the nation,” Dominique Mendiola, senior director of MED, said in a press release. “We look forward to continuing our work together to demonstrate a model for responsible regulation as directed by the voters of Colorado and the General Assembly.”

The regulatory update comes days after Colorado’s governor, advocates and stakeholders celebrated the 10th anniversary of the first legal cannabis sales nationally and globally in the state.

Keep reading

Colorado Governor’s Office Slams DeSantis’s Marijuana Stance, Pushing Back Against Claim Legalization Led To ‘Bigger’ Illicit Market

If Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) needs some advice on how to promote “economic and personal freedom,” the state of Colorado is “happy” to explain the advantages of marijuana legalization, Gov. Jared Polis’s (D) office said after the Republican presidential candidate doubled down on his opposition to cannabis reform.

On Friday, DeSantis peddled a dubious claim that Colorado’s illicit market is “bigger” today than it was before legalizing adult-use cannabis in 2012, justifying his own personal opposition to the reform.

In response, a spokesperson for the Colorado governor’s office offered to correct the record for the 2024 GOP presidential hopeful in a statement to Marijuana Moment.

“The facts are that Colorado voters approved the legalization of marijuana which is curbing the illicit market, getting dealers off the streets, reducing youth use, funding school construction, supporting jobs and Colorado’s economy,” the governor’s spokesperson said. “Colorado is happy to provide the Florida governor advice on how to increase economic and personal freedom like we have in the free state of Colorado.”

In an interview on the radio station KCPS that aired on Friday, first noted by Florida Politics, DeSantis had challenged the idea that regulating marijuana sales puts illicit operators “out of business,” stating that it’s an “interesting” concept that he says hasn’t played out in Colorado, despite evidence to the contrary.

“There have been states like Colorado who’ve done things like legalized marijuana and the argument was, well, you want to have a black market? It will be above-board, taxed and all that stuff,” DeSantis said during the interview. “Yet Colorado has a bigger black market of marijuana since they’ve legalized it.”

It’s well-understood that enacting legalization doesn’t fully eliminate the illicit market, and states have had varying degrees of success to that end. But research indicates that Colorado has been among the most effective at transitioning people to the legal marketplace.

Keep reading

Ohio GOP Governor Pushes Lawmakers To Allow Marijuana Sales ‘Very Quickly’ And Ban Intoxicating Hemp Products

Ohio’s Republican governor is adamant that lawmakers must pass legislation as soon as possible to expedite regulated recreational marijuana sales and also ban purchases of intoxicating hemp products.

With the legislature coming back into session for the new year, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said “we just need to get something done” to address the adult-use sales rollout timeline under a voter-approved legalization law that took effect last month.

It’s a “strange situation” the state has found itself in, he said, with sales currently set to open up in late summer or early fall. DeWine said he supports a bill the Senate passed last month, which would provide for sales through existing medical cannabis dispensaries within 90 days of enactment. However, he acknowledged the House has a differing version and pushed for lawmakers to “work together and make sure that we can deal with with this problem.”

“Our bill that we would prefer would allow us to start selling this marijuana in a controlled basis. The people who said they were for this said, ‘Let’s do it the same way we do with liquor—control how it’s done,’” he said. “Under our bill, we would be able to sell that very quickly now, early in this year, through the facilities that now do the medical marijuana.”

Keep reading

Washington Bill Would Roll Back New Marijuana-Related Employment Protections For Drug Treatment Professionals

As a new law in Washington State took effect this week to shield most job applicants who legally use cannabis from facing employment discrimination during the hiring process, two lawmakers have filed legislation to roll back those protections for workers in the drug treatment industry.

HB 2047, sponsored by Reps. Tom Dent (R) and Lauren Davis (D), would add to the new law’s list of exemptions, which already include law enforcement, jobs requiring a federal background investigation or security clearance, fire departments, first responders, safety-sensitive positions, corrections officers and those in the airline or aerospace industries.

Specifically, the bill would allow employers to deny people who test positive for cannabis a position “as a substance use disorder professional or trainee, or any position as a health care professional licensed or certified…where the person will be providing services directly to clients or patients receiving treatment for substance use disorder.”

While the legislation would not require employers to screen job applicants for marijuana, they would no longer be subject to the newly effective provision making it “unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person in the initial hiring for employment if the discrimination is based upon” the use of marijuana off the job and away from the workplace or a positive drug test for cannabis metabolites.

Notably, the new anti-discrimination cannabis law applies only to job applicants. Employers can still maintain drug-free workplaces or prohibit the use of cannabis by workers after they’re hired.

Davis, who’s long said she supports an end to criminal cannabis prohibition but has concerns about the dangers of legalization, filed two marijuana-related bills in 2023 during the first part of the two-year session. One, HB 1641, would place various restrictions on marijuana products with more than 35 percent total THC, including banning advertising and prohibiting sales of the products to people under 25. The other, HB 1642, would ban the production and sale of concentrates with more than 35 percent THC unless the products were intended for medical patients.

In 2020, she sponsored legislation that would have banned all concentrates with more than 10 percent THC.

Keep reading

New York Local Governments Could Shut Down Unlicensed Marijuana Businesses Under New ‘SMOKEOUT Act’ Bill

As New York works to significantly expand the state’s regulated marijuana market, a new bill would empower individual municipal governments to shut down unlicensed cannabis businesses and seize their products.

The legislation from Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar (D) aims to address the proliferation of illegal operators that have emerged throughout the state amid the protracted rollout of New York’s legalization law.

Currently, state regulators with the Cannabis Control Board (CCB) hold enforcement authority to close unlicensed businesses. The newly filed Stop Marijuana Over-proliferation and Keep Empty Operators of Unlicensed Transactions (SMOKEOUT) Act would expand that authority to local governments by giving municipal officials the power to “order the immediate closure of any business” found to be illegally marijuana and to seize its merchandise.

“The lack of authority for municipalities to interdict unlawful retailers, combined with limited resources from the Board, has resulted in the proliferation of so-called ‘smoke shops’ openly selling illegal, unregulated cannabis and other contraband with near total impunity,” a justification memo attached to the bill says.

“The vast amount of contraband and loose cash in these smoke shops have made them tantalizing targets for robberies and hotbeds of crime. This has put communities, shop employees, and their customers in extreme danger,” it says. “These shops are also unfair competition to licensed dispensaries, who cannot afford to sell their rigorously tested and regulated cannabis at the prices smoke shops offer.”

The bill’s introduction comes as New York regulators move to process hundreds of marijuana business license applications. Over a dozen new cannabis retailers opened in December alone following a settlement agreement lifting an injunction that had imposed a months-long licensing blockade.

“Our top priority is to grow and expand New York’s legal cannabis industry while cracking down on the illicit storefronts that continue to plague communities,” Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) had said at the time.

Keep reading

Why fears about Biden’s marijuana moves are overblown

President Joe Biden’s administration is poised to make the biggest shift in federal drug policy in decades by loosening marijuana restrictions, but the move is sparking blowback from an unlikely constituency: legalization advocates.

They argue that moving marijuana to a lower classification would do nothing to address the federal-state divide in marijuana laws, fail to address the impacts of criminalization, disrupt existing state-regulated cannabis markets, lead multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies to dominate the medical cannabis industry and spur a potential federal crackdown.

Howard Sklamberg, an attorney and former top official at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, argues those fears are alarmist and misguided. He doesn’t believe the cannabis industry needs to worry about a crackdown if the drug is moved from Schedule I to III under the Controlled Substances Act, as recommended by the Food and Drug Administration after a review of the scientific evidence.

“If you’re going to launch an enforcement initiative against cannabis, why would you start off with saying, ‘Oh, by the way, it’s less of a risk than we thought,’” Sklamberg said in an interview with POLITICO. “You would use your power under Schedule I and go after it.”

Keep reading

Nevada Marijuana Possession Limit More Than Doubles Under New Law Taking Effect Monday

Effective Monday, the marijuana possession limit for adults in Nevada will more than double to 2.5 ounces. Recreational retailers will also become authorized to serve medical cannabis patients as well, without having to get a separate license.

The policy changes are coming into effect under a large-scale marijuana reform bill that Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) signed into law in June. The legislation also broadens eligibility for participation in the market by people with prior felony convictions.

One of the key provisions of the law increases the possession and purchase limit for cannabis from one ounce to 2.5 ounces. The amount of cannabis concentrates that adults can possess is also being doubled from one-eighth of an ounce to one-quarter of an ounce.

Also, it makes it so adult-use marijuana retailers will no longer need to have a separate medical cannabis license to serve patients. Recreational retailers will automatically serve as dual licensees, and existing medical cannabis licensees can apply to dually serve adult consumers.

Regulators will no longer be able to issue or renew medical marijuana licenses after Monday—unless the applicant is located in a jurisdiction that has opted out of permitting adult-use facilities. Medical cannabis patients would be exempt from the state excise tax at recreational retailers.

Fees for licensing applications and renewals will also be reduced under the new law.

Another major change will give regulators discretion when considering the issuance of marijuana business licenses to people with prior felony convictions.

Keep reading

Broken promises: How marijuana legalization failed communities hit hardest by the drug war

In the long and contentious fight for marijuana legalization, lawmakers across the country won over skeptical colleagues by promising social justice: The economic benefits of cannabis sales would be targeted at communities marred by decades of racist drug enforcement policies.

New York’s plan would be “transformative” for afflicted communities, said Majority Leader Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes of the state assembly.

Los Angeles, California, would “level the playing field” for the downtrodden, vowed Councilmember Curren Price.

Illinois would “right the wrongs of the past,” proclaimed state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth.

The result, almost a decade since the start of the legalization movement, has been a series of increasingly elaborate programs designed to ensure that the spoils of legal marijuana sales — which are projected to hit $35 billion this year, and double again by 2030 — would benefit the communities hardest hit by the war on drugs.

But a POLITICO investigation found that those efforts have failed to deliver the promised economic justice, while overwhelmingly white and wealthy investors seek to benefit from the cannabis boom.

Keep reading

Ohio GOP Governor Pushes Lawmakers To Fix ‘Ridiculous’ Marijuana Sales Delay And Send Tax Revenue To Police

The governor of Ohio is pushing lawmakers to take action as soon as possible to address the “ridiculous situation” the state has found itself in, where marijuana is now legal to possess and use but without any place for consumers to purchase regulated products from.

Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said that the Senate passed a “good bill” to make various changes to the legalization law that voters approved at the ballot last month, but the House didn’t act before lawmakers adjourned for the year. He said he’s spoken with House Speaker Jason Stephens (R), who assured him that the chamber would work to “fix these problems” when they return.

While DeWine opposed the legalization initiative that voters overwhelmingly approved, he said “what’s important is we go forward,” starting with enacting reforms to provide legal access to cannabis sooner than later. The Senate bill, for example, would allow existing medical marijuana dispensaries to begin sales to adult consumers within 90 days of enactment, rather than licensing retailers in nine months under the current timeline.

“I don’t think anybody who voted for [legalization] thought that we would have a situation like we do today,” the governor said, adding that he doesn’t want Ohio to experience the same issues that New York has faced throughout its protracted legalization rollout, with illicit retailers proliferating.

“The legislature needs to take action now so that we could actually start selling it in Ohio legally and control how it is being sold—and so that the person who’s buying it knows exactly what in fact they’re they’re getting,” DeWine told WSYX in an end-of-year interview that aired on Thursday.

Keep reading