Tag: legalized marijuana

State Marijuana Legalization Has ‘Not Really Impacted’ Teen Use, Federal Official Says As New Youth Survey Shows Stable Trends

Teen marijuana use has not increased “even as state legalization has proliferated across the country,” a federal health official said on Wednesday in announcing the latest data from an annual survey that again showed prohibitionist concerns about youth cannabis access have “not played out.”

The 2022 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey—which is conducted by the University of Michigan with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)—found that rates of past-year cannabis use “remained stable for all three grades surveyed,” remaining below pre-pandemic usage levels even as more state marijuana markets opened and expanded for adults.

“There have been no substantial increases at all,” Marsha Lopez, chief of NIDA’s epidemiological research branch, said in response to a question from Marijuana Moment during a webinar on Wednesday. “In fact, they have not reported an increase in perceived availability either, which is kind of interesting.”

“So whatever is happening with adult-use [legalization] across the country has not really impacted the younger people according to the data here,” she said.

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Ohio House Lawmakers Take Up GOP Bill To Amend Voter-Approved Marijuana Law As Alternative To Senate Overhaul

Ohio House lawmakers held another committee hearing on a bill to revise the state’s newly enacted marijuana legalization law, hearing additional testimony ahead of an expected vote on Wednesday.

After taking public input on the legislation from Rep. Jamie Callender (R) last week, the House Finance Committee met again on Tuesday to hear from additional advocates and stakeholders as Senate Republicans work to advance a separate revision package that’s sparked significant pushback.

The House bill is considered more palatable to reform supporters, as it’d make less sweeping changes to what voters approved on the November ballot—especially compared to the Senate legislation that initially called for the elimination of home cultivation and an indefinite delay on basic legalization provisions. That latter measure was significantly altered amid criticism last week, but it’s still facing sizable opposition.

Senate President Matt Huffman (R) originally aimed to pass the bill under an emergency prior to legalization taking effect last week, but that didn’t happen according to his timeline. House Speaker Jason Stephens (R), meanwhile, has said he doesn’t see the need to rush amending the initiated statute given that sales won’t begin until later in 2024.

The GOP House and Senate leaders have disagreed on certain procedural issues related to amending the marijuana law such as the timeline for enactment, but they’ve both generally expressed support for the idea of making changes such as revising the tax structure, preventing public consumption and deterring impaired driving.

In the House Finance Committee, members took additional public testimony on Tuesday, hearing from interested parties who expressed concern about issues such as the bill’s continued criminalization of sharing marijuana between adults and the redirection of tax revenue away from equity and toward law enforcement.

“My concern is that, through some of the reforms that I’m seeing being introduced in this legislature, we would be moving from puff-puff-pass to puff-puff-police and that is in total contradiction to what Ohio voters voted in support of,” Cat Packer, vice chair of Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC) and director of drug markets and legal regulation at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), said in testimony to the committee.

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Massachusetts Marijuana Retailer Encourages Package Recycling With Discounted $4 Joint Offer

One of the state’s cannabis retailers is encouraging customers to recycle the plastic that encases certain cannabis products by offering them a $4 pre-rolled joint for every piece of packaging they return.

In the heavily regulated cannabis industry, nearly every product is required to come in child-resistant packaging that is typically made of plastic. Most of that plastic is not recyclable and ends up in the trash or tossed on the ground.

“Living in the city of Boston, I saw these [pre-roll] tubes all over the streets, they’re everywhere,” said Ture Turnbull, who with Wes Ritchie owns Tree House Craft Cannabis dispensaries in Pepperell and Dracut. “So we looked at what needed to be done, what the industry was doing to address this, what the policies around this were, and what opportunity there was for us to do right.”

Tree House’s recycling program incentivizes consumers to bring back their used packaging to the dispensary. Specifically, customers can return the plastic pop-top tubes that hold pre-rolled joints and the square-lidded containers that hold marijuana flower. For each piece of packaging customers return, they can buy a pre-rolled joint for $4—a price that yields savings ranging from $4 to $8 depending on what joint is on offer.

The brand of the pre-roll currently being offered is the company’s own Yellow Brick Road. Since May, when Tree House started the program, customers have returned more than 6,000 pieces of packaging and the company has offered an equivalent number of $4 pre-rolls.

“We literally had to put our money where our mouth is to create this incentive program because it has a monetary hit to us, but a benefit to the consumer, and that’s the only way we could actually see it taking off, to incentivize it,” said Turnbull. “This is the first try at a serious program that says: Let’s take the plastic and recycle it. Let’s take this environmental concern seriously.”

Tree House uses the recycled packaging in two ways. If the packaging is intact, it’s reused to package new products. If not, the company commissions artwork for its dispensaries that incorporates the plastic.

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Advocate Thinks ‘Marijuana Bomb’ Will Hit Ohio Because of Legal Weed

An anti-weed advocate believes a “marijuana bomb” will hit Ohio as the state proceeds with legalizing weed. 

Ohio already has legal medical weed but voters recently passed a measure legalizing possession, growing, and sales for anyone over 21. 

Despite the fact that Ohio is following in the footsteps of nearly two dozen other states, Aubree Adams, director of anti-weed organization Every Brain Matters, had some rather creative doomsday predictions about the impact of the new policy. 

“Ohio voters were fooled into thinking marijuana was less harmful than alcohol. It’s not. One swallow of alcohol can’t induce psychotic behaviors, but one swallow of a marijuana edible can. One hit off a potent THC vape can. And two hits from a marijuana bong can,” she said, speaking to a Senate General Government Committee meeting earlier this week. 

“Thankfully, members of this committee are the gatekeepers that can lessen the impacts of this marijuana bomb before it’s detonated on Ohio families.” 

While a marijuana bomb sounds scary—or fun, depending on your stance—Adams’ claims are misleading at best. 

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Marijuana Is Now Legal In Ohio As Voter-Approved Law Takes Effect, But Lawmakers Are Considering Some Changes

Ohio’s voter-approved marijuana legalization initiative took effect on Thursday, and despite ongoing wrangling by state lawmakers to modify significant portions of the law, some provisions—including legal use, possession and home cultivation of cannabis—have immediate impacts.

Voters solidly approved the legalization ballot measure, Issue 2, on a 57–42 margin last month. But soon after, Republicans in the state Senate indicated their plans to gut the bill by eliminating home grow, reducing legal possession and allowable THC limits, raising sales tax, criminalizing the use and possession of marijuana obtained outside of a licensed retailer and steering funding away from social equity programs and toward law enforcement. Stakeholders said the overhaul would devastate the market, with ACLU of Ohio calling the measure a “demolition of Issue 2.”

As of Wednesday, however, the GOP-controlled Senate abruptly reversed course, and the full chamber instead approved a revised bill that in some ways would expand the voter-approved law. Among other changes, it would allow all adults 21 and older to buy cannabis from existing medical dispensaries in as soon as 90 days, maintain home cultivation rights and provide for automatic expungements of prior convictions.

The bill now goes to the House, where an alternative measure has been introduced. But regardless of how the proposed changes pan out, some reforms have already taken effect with Issue 2 kicking in on Thursday. Here’s a brief rundown of what’s new and what’s still to come in the months ahead.

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Ohio Senate Committee Approves Bill To Allow Marijuana Sales From Dispensaries ‘Immediately’, Keep Home Grow And Expunge Records

In a stunning reversal, an Ohio GOP-controlled Senate committee has unanimously approved a revised bill that in many ways would expand the voter-approved marijuana legalization law that goes into effect on Thursday— by allowing adults to start buying marijuana from existing medical cannabis dispensaries in as soon as 90 days, maintaining home cultivation rights and providing for automatic expungements of prior marijuana convictions, among other changes.

Just days after the Senate General Government Committee advanced legislation to fundamentally undo key provisions of the cannabis initiative voters passed at the ballot last month—proposing to eliminate the home grow option and delaying legalization for at least one year until adult-use retailers started sales, for example—the panel dramatically walked back the measure and passed it in a unanimous bipartisan voice vote on Wednesday.

It’s now been referred to the Senate Rules and Reference Committee before potentially advancing to the floor as early as Wednesday evening. That said, it is not clear that the House is ready to make any changes on an expedited basis to the legalization measure that’s set to take effect on Thursday.

The overhaul of the measure comes one day after the Senate panel held a hearing and received public testimony on the initial proposal, with many advocates and stakeholders expressing frustration with the seeming undermining of voters’ decision and recommending changes such as freeing up medical cannabis dispensaries to start servicing adult consumers while regulators develop rules to license recreational retailers.

Sen. Rob McColley (R) detailed the latest changes following negotiations during an extensive recess in committee on Wednesday, stating that lawmakers’ focus “needs to be stamping out the black market” and also “protecting the access that the people of Ohioans voted for,” while ensuring that the administrative implementation “runs as efficiently as it possibly can, while protecting opportunities for for Ohioans to engage in this new industry.”

Committee Chairman Michael Rulli (R) said that over “the last three or four days, a lot of the public has reached out to probably every single one of our senators with thousands of emails and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of calls.”

“I think the people have spoken,” he said.

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Six Governors Push Biden To Ensure Marijuana Is Rescheduled By The End Of This Year

The governors of six U.S. states—Colorado, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Louisiana—sent a letter to President Joe Biden (D) on Tuesday urging the administration to reschedule marijuana to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act by the end of this year. The move, they say, will provide economic and tax benefits for cannabis businesses, protect public health and more closely align government policy with public opinion.

“Rescheduling cannabis aligns with a safe, regulated product that Americans can trust,” says the governors’ letter, which points to a poll that found 88 percent of Americans support legalization for medical or recreational use. “As governors, we might disagree about whether recreational cannabis legalization or even cannabis use is a net positive, but we agree that the cannabis industry is here to stay, the states have created strong regulations, and supporting the state-regulated marketplace is essential for the safety of the American people.”

The governors noted that the recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommendation to reschedule marijuana “comes on the heels of 38 states creating their own state markets” and regulatory systems.

“In some cases, these state regimes have thrived for more than a decade,” the letter says, calling the rescheduling recommendation “a signal that FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services have faith in state regulators and the regulations that they have promulgated to keep citizens safe.”

Many of the benefits of rescheduling, the governors told the president, are economic. “Rescheduling to Schedule III will alleviate restrictions of Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code,” they noted, “allowing cannabis-related businesses to take ordinary business deductions—just like every other American business. Economists estimate that this will save $1.8 billion per year by shifting cannabis companies to a standard federal corporate rate of 21% versus the up to 80% effective tax rate they face now.”

The office of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D), who led the group letter, said in a separate press release that rescheduling “will not only alleviate the financial and safety concerns for businesses but allow a thriving industry to play a full role in the American business environment.”

Demand for marijuana in the United States isn’t going away anytime soon, the governors told Biden, arguing that regulated products are far safer than those sold on illicit markets.

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Ohio Senators Take Testimony On Controversial Marijuana Legalization Overhaul As House Republican Files Alternative Bill

Ohio senators held a second meeting on a bill to significantly change the state’s marijuana legalization law that’s set to take effect this week, hearing public testimony amid sharp criticism of the GOP-led effort. In other chamber, meanwhile, a Republican representative has filed alternative legislation that would largely preserve what voters approved at the ballot, with certain exceptions such as a proposed ban on sharing cannabis between adults.

One day after the Senate General Government Committee gave initial approval to the cannabis overhaul measure, voting to attach it to an unrelated House-passed bill, the panel reconvened on Tuesday to take testimony, hearing from business owners, advocates and legalization opponents.

The legislation—which Senate President Matt Huffman (R) hopes to advance to the floor as early as Wednesday, before legalization takes effect on Thursday—would make fundamental alternations of the voter-passed initiated statute.

For example, it would eliminate a home grow option for adults, criminalize the use and possession of marijuana obtained outside of a licensed retailer, reduce the possession limit, raise the sales tax on cannabis and steer funding away from social equity programs and toward law enforcement. The bill also contains substantive amendments related to THC limits, public consumption and changes to hemp-related rules that stakeholders say would “devastate” the market.

Advocates have sharply criticized the GOP-controlled chamber over the proposal, arguing that it disrespects the will of voters, especially as it concerns the elimination of home cultivation and changes to possession rules.

Top Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine (R), have insisted that voters were only supportive of the fundamental principle of legalizing marijuana without necessarily backing specific policies around issues such as tax revenue.

The committee chairman, Sen. Michael Rulli (R), told the packed room of testifiers on Tuesday that he “strongly” suggested they “lower the temperature,” offering his assurances that lawmakers “understand the problems with homegrown and with taxes and how do we fix that and how do we get the people’s wishes.”

Rulli and other members asked several witnesses about how to most effectively mitigate the illicit market, including the possibility of allowing existing medical cannabis dispensaries to start selling to adult consumers before recreational retailers are licensed.

The chairman also expressed interest in addressing the lack of regulations around hemp-based intoxicating products, though he said it was unlikely to be tackled under the bill at hand given the expedited timeline they’re working with.

The panel heard testimony from several representatives of advertising companies who expressed opposition to the bill’s outright ban on billboard media for cannabis businesses, saying the industry should be subject to the same rules as alcohol.

“Discounting that the voters know about things I think is always a bad decision,” Sen. Bill DeMora (D) said at the hearing, pushing back on his colleagues pushing for major changes. “Voters spoke—and in my district voters [there was a] 70 percent approval rating—and for me to say that ‘voters be damned because they didn’t know what they’re talking about’ is a bit egotistical on my part.”

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Ohio ACLU Slams GOP Plan To Gut Voter-Approved Marijuana Law

Less than a month ago, Ohio voters approved marijuana use, possession, and sales for adults. It was a 57 percent to 43 percent vote, a considerable landslide in voting terms. The margin was not a surprise. Legalization is popular across numerous demographics and, apparently, across the state.

Issue 2 also passed as an initiated statute, not a constitutional amendment. The difference is the initiated statute process, by design, invites some level of input from state legislators. In fact, because it was state law—not the Ohio Constitution—that was changed, legislators have the power to tinker with, improve or entirely scrap all of Issue 2 anytime they want.

No one expects legal sales to start when Issue 2 is officially enacted this week, 30 days after its passage. Understandably, there is a regulatory framework that takes a little time to put together. This is true even if Statehouse politicians were 100 percent on board with every word of Issue 2.

However, “on board” is the opposite of what Senate Republicans have in mind. Before this week, House Bill 86 was a non-controversial bill tweaking state liquor laws. It passed the House 85–6. On Monday, with very little notice, it became the vehicle for the Senate GOP’s planned demolition of Issue 2.

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Former Michigan GOP House speaker surrenders to serve marijuana bribery sentence

Former Michigan House Speaker Rick Johnson has surrendered at a minimum-security federal prison camp in Minnesota to serve a 55-month sentence for pocketing bribes and corrupting the state’s marijuana industry, according to an inmate database updated Saturday.

The database shows Johnson, 70, among the 433 inmates at FPC Duluth near the western edge of Lake Superior. The prison is about 700 miles northwest of Lansing where Johnson was one of the most powerful Republican lawmakers in the state before becoming a lobbyist and chief regulator of Michigan’s marijuana industry.

That career ended in scandal after the politician from LeRoy received more than $110,000 in bribes from marijuana lobbyists and a businessman while serving as chairman of the medical marijuana licensing board from May 2017-April 2019. The illegal payoffs included repeated trysts with a sex worker who called him “Batman.”

Johnson had been ordered to surrender by Saturday after losing a last-ditch attempt to shorten his time behind bars and serve part of the sentence under house arrest as he recuperates from heart bypass surgery.

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