Tag: legalized marijuana

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and anxiety, “in addition to subsequent mental and physical problems that can cause individuals to feel isolated and withdrawn.”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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NY farmers with 300K pounds of weed fume over state’s slow shop roll-out

New York’s weed farmers are fuming over the snail’s-pace rollout of legal cannabis shops in the Empire State — complaining they are sitting on mountains of spoiling marijuana crops.

The state’s failure to follow through on OK’ing dozens of dispensaries for legal marijuana as predicted by Gov. Kathy Hochul last year has thwarted the roughly 200 New York farmers who grew 300,000 pounds of cannabis — the equivalent of more than 272 million half-gram joints.

The farmers say their product, most of which is eventually converted into CDB oil, has been going nowhere fast, worrying them that it could soon become too old to peddle.

And this season’s new crop is already on the horizon.

“We’re really under the gun here,” New York marijuana farmer Seth Jacobs told The Associated Press. “We’re all losing money. Even the most entrepreneurial and ambitious among us just can’t move much product in this environment.”

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ATF: Marijuana users in Minnesota can’t own firearms despite new law

Just one day after Minnesota legalized the recreational use of marijuana, an agency that regulates the use of firearms warned that any current user of marijuana is prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition.  

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT) field office in St. Paul, Minn., issued the clarification Tuesday shortly after Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed a bill legalizing recreational marijuana. The clarification states that under federal law, current users of marijuana are prohibited from possessing, receiving, transporting or shipping firearms or ammunition.  

“Until marijuana is legalized federally, firearms owners and possessors should be mindful that it remains federally illegal to mix marijuana with firearms and ammunition,” Jeff Reed, ATF’s acting special agent in charge of the St. Paul Field Division, said in a statement.

“As regulators of the firearms industry and enforcers of firearms laws, we felt it was important to remind Minnesotans of this distinction as the marijuana laws adjust here in the State of Minnesota.” 

According to an analysis by the RAND Corporation, nearly 40 percent of residents in Minnesota reported owning a gun between 2007 and 2016. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 18 percent of Americans reported using marijuana in 2019.

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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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Cops Raid LEGAL Cannabis Farm and Execute Man’s Leashed Dog

In an infuriating and utterly horrifying incident that lays bare the problematic reality of America’s drug war, law enforcement authorities with a search warrant on a state-licensed cannabis farm in rural Trinity County near Hayfork, fatally shot the cultivator’s dog on May 2. 

This glaring display of militarized policing in response to what is essentially a civil code violation is a chilling reminder of the inhumane costs of enforcing an immoral law about a plant that is legal in most parts of the country. Despite the victim having a valid state license, the county permit was a bone of contention that led to this brutal incident. The video of this appalling act has gone viral, leading to widespread outrage and backlash — especially since the dog was chained up.

The raid was part of several (between six to nine, depending on who you ask) conducted over the first two days of May in remote areas of western Trinity County, notorious for cannabis cultivation. According to the Trinity County Sheriff’s Department, these raids resulted in the seizure of over 16,000 marijuana plants, 7,500 pounds of processed marijuana, 25 firearms, and $64,566 in cash. The horror.

Police argue that their actions were justified when they executed the dog because it was allegedly trained to attack and lunged at an officer. They failed to mention the part where the dog was on a chain.

What’s more, this account ignores the fact that five of the raided farms were state-licensed — including this one. The grower, Nhia Yang, a 64-year-old Hmong man, had taken necessary steps to legitimize his operations and was waiting on the county license due to administrative lag. Furthermore, Yang had received a CDFW Qualified Cultivator grant and passed an inspection just a week prior to the raid, which affirmed his compliance with state regulations.

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New York’s Heavy Hand Keeps Illegal Marijuana and Tobacco Dealers in Business

While I have fond memories of life in New York, many of them involve defying some stupid rule or regulation. It’s a pleasure to now live in Arizona where government, while still idiotic, generally has a lighter touch. Unfortunately for friends and family I left behind, Empire State officialdom still hasn’t learned its lessons, as evidenced by the heavy regulatory hand stifling sort-of-legalized marijuana, and proposals to similarly reinforce the black market with an outright ban on cigarette sales.

“Governor Kathy Hochul today signed new legislation to increase civil and tax penalties for the unlicensed and illicit sale of cannabis in New York as part of the FY 2024 Budget,” the New York governor’s office announced this week. “The legislation, first proposed by the Governor in March, provides additional enforcement power to the Office of Cannabis Management and the Department of Taxation and Finance to enforce the new regulatory requirements and close stores engaged in the illegal sale of cannabis.”

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This California Bill Would Mandate Punishment of Marijuana Debtors Without a Hearing

California’s cannabis industry, which includes state-licensed growers, manufacturers, testing companies, distributors, retailers, and event organizers, has a deadbeat problem. In a business that generated $5.3 billion in sales last year, bills for marijuana products and services frequently go unpaid, leaving creditors in the lurch and compounding the financial difficulties created by federal prohibition.

According to an estimate cited by Assembly Member Phil Ting (D–San Francisco), “the unpaid debt bubble is over $600 million across California’s supply chain.” But Ting’s solution—a bill that would inject state regulators into debt disputes between marijuana businesses—could create new problems by interfering with freedom of contract and penalizing licensees without due process.

A.B. 766, which Ting introduced in March, would require cannabis licensees to pay bills for goods or services totaling $5,000 or more within 15 days of the final date listed on the invoice. That date could be no more than 30 days after the goods were delivered or the services were performed.

When a buyer misses that state-prescribed deadline, the seller would be required to file a report with the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC). The DCC would then be required to notify the buyer of the violation and “commence a disciplinary action,” which could lead to suspension or revocation of his license if he fails to “pay the outstanding invoice in full” within 30 days of the notice. In the meantime, the buyer would not be allowed to “purchase goods or services from another licensee on credit.”

Griffen Thorne, an attorney at the Los Angeles office of Harris Bricken, a firm that specializes in cannabis law, says the problem that Ting describes is real. But Thorne is troubled by the implications of dictating contract terms, requiring businesses to report collection issues, and imposing a penalty based on nothing more than a report, which might be based on disputed facts.

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New York Legalized Marijuana, but a Legal Typo Is Hindering Implementation

The cannabis legalization bill that New York enacted in 2021 included a provision that was supposed to help people convicted of marijuana felonies by downgrading their records in line with current law. But a typographical error made that relief harder to obtain than legislators promised.

The section of the law dealing with prior marijuana convictions describes two situations. Paragraph 2(a)(i) refers to a person convicted of a marijuana offense that “would not have been a crime” had the 2021 changes been in effect. Paragraph 2(a)(ii) refers to a person who “would have been guilty of a lesser or potentially less onerous offense” under current law.

Paragraph 2(b) says a court that receives a petition from someone convicted of a marijuana offense that no longer exists “shall….grant the motion to vacate such conviction.” It adds that a court “may substitute, unless it is not in the interests of justice to do so, a conviction for an appropriate lesser offense” when “the petition meets the criteria in subparagraph (i) of paragraph (a).”

Whoops. That clearly should have been “the criteria in subparagraph (ii) of paragraph (a),” since it makes no sense to substitute “a conviction for an appropriate lesser offense” when no such offense exists. Because of that mistake, people with marijuana felony convictions cannot use the streamlined relief process the law was supposed to provide.

Under prior law, someone caught with eight ounces to a pound of marijuana was guilty of a felony. Under current law, possessing that amount in public is a violation punishable by a maximum fine of $250, while possessing five pounds or less at home is legal. Public possession of one to five pounds, which used to be a felony, is now a misdemeanor.

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