Tag: legalized marijuana

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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Lawmakers Argue that Weed Must Be Kept Illegal to Protect the Jobs of Police Dogs—Seriously

 In a stunning display of misplaced priorities, some Minnesota politicians appear to be more concerned about the jobs of drug-sniffing dogs than the lives of humans impacted by cannabis prohibition. As the push for cannabis legalization in Minnesota gains momentum, it seems the well-being of these K-9s has somehow become a primary argument against it.

Minnesota’s House of Representatives recently passed a bill to legalize non-medical marijuana for individuals 21 and older, with a vote of 71-59. However, Republican state Rep. Brian Johnson voiced his concern over the costs associated with retiring police dogs trained to sniff out cannabis. Apparently, the default state of unemployment for dogs is a problem that should hold priority over human freedom and well-being.

“I did not see anything reading through the bill dealing with our K-9 units,” Johnson said. “Can you tell me how much money is in this bill to help defer the cost to our counties and police departments for the cost of the retirement of the dogs?”

This K-9-centric mindset isn’t new. Minnesota State Sen. John Jasinski, also a Republican, previously raised the “police dog discussion” during a committee hearing, lamenting the “thousands and thousands of dollars” spent on training these furry narcs, who will now have to retire due to cannabis legalization.

It’s worth noting that the legal cannabis industry has already created hundreds of thousands of jobs for humans. Yet, it seems the careers of drug-sniffing dogs are held in higher regard by some politicians.

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Delaware Just Became the 22nd State To Legalize Recreational Marijuana

Delaware just became the 22nd state to legalize recreational marijuana. On Friday, Gov. John Carney, a Democrat, said he will allow two legalization bills to take effect without his signature, notwithstanding his continued concerns about the consequences of lifting Delaware’s ban on recreational use.

“After years of advocacy, collaboration, and grassroots organizing, we are thrilled to see cannabis legalization become a reality in our state,” Laura Sharer, executive director of the Delaware chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said in a press release. “This victory is a result of the tireless work of thousands of volunteers, dozens of lawmakers, and with the support of a huge majority of our Delaware community. So many have championed this righteous cause and recognized the need for sensible cannabis policy reform.”

Delaware has allowed medical use of marijuana since 2011, and in 2015 legislators decriminalized possession of an ounce or less, making it a civil offense punishable by a $100 fine. Carney supports both of those policies but has previously resisted efforts to go further. Last year he vetoed recreational legalization. The Democrat-controlled Delaware General Assembly recently approved essentially the same legislation that Carney blocked last year, this time by larger margins, making it more likely that a veto would be overridden.

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HOW CALIFORNIA COPS EXPLOIT LEGAL GRAY AREAS TO CONTINUE THEIR WAR ON CANNABIS

Years after legalization, the state’s growers say police are taking a “seize first, ask questions later” mentality toward marijuana enforcement, sometimes with heavily militarized operations that allegedly violate their rights.

Zeke Flatten was driving southbound on Highway 101 in Northern California in December 2017 when he was pulled over by an unmarked SUV with flashing emergency lights.

Two officers clad in green, military-style garb and bulletproof vests approached Flatten’s vehicle but didn’t identify themselves. After asking Flatten if he knew how fast he was going, one of the men told him they suspected he was transporting cannabis, according to court documents. Flatten was immediately suspicious.

“He never mentioned anything else about the reason, probable cause, why he stopped me,” Flatten said in an interview with The Appeal.

The officers were correct, however: Flatten, a film producer and former undercover cop who’d temporarily relocated to Northern California, had three pounds of marijuana, including a few rolled joints, in the car—worth over $3,000 at the time. Flatten says he was working on a number of cannabis-related projects and was driving to a lab to test the weed, which he’d hoped to sell legally.

Just over a year before the stop, California had voted to legalize the personal cultivation and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana with the passage of Proposition 64. Under the measure, possession of larger amounts of cannabis was reduced from a felony offense to a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months of incarceration and a maximum $500 fine.

But marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, classified as a Schedule 1 substance alongside drugs like heroin, LSD, and MDMA, known as Ecstasy. When the officers identified themselves as members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a federal agency, Flatten said he started to realize something was off.

“There’s no patches, there’s no badges, there’s no name tags,” Flatten said.

Flatten says he offered to show the officers his medical marijuana card, which should have allowed him to have the cannabis. But they didn’t want to look at the card. He figured if the agents believed the marijuana was illegal, they’d take it and provide him a receipt for the seizure, which would give him a chance to argue his case in court, Flatten said.

Instead, they proceeded to confiscate the cannabis from the back of Flatten’s car without running his name for warrants, or issuing a traffic ticket, court summons, or even documentation of the seizure, Flatten said. The officers did tell him that he might be getting a letter from the federal government. But he never did.

Flatten said he felt like he’d been robbed. He started looking for a lawyer, and a few days later, went to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department to report the incident. The next week, after returning to his home state of Texas, he made an official report at the FBI field office in San Antonio.

He would soon find out that the officers who seized his marijuana weren’t actually ATF agents. Flatten alleges one was a member of the sheriff’s department. The other was from the Rohnert Park Police Department, and has since been indicted on federal charges including extortion and conspiracy in connection with cannabis seizures.

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New York City Should Have Always Smelled Like Pot

“​​The degree to which Manhattan air is now just saturated with the aroma of marijuana is frankly absurd,” tweeted writer Thomas Chatterton Williams back in January. “New York Smells Like a Declining City,” declared The Wall Street Journal last month. “It’s like everybody’s smoking a joint now,” New York City’s own mayor, Eric Adams, commented last year.

Though New York state legalized recreational weed in 2021, it’s taken two years for the cannabis industry to actually get it off the ground. Just a few dispensaries have opened up in the city so far, but much has been made about its alleged transformation into either a Reefer Madness hellscape or a stoner Xanadu, depending on who you ask.

“Let’s be blunt—legal weed is turning New York workers into zombies,” wrote Steve Cuozzo for the New York Post just days ago, complaining of worse customer service than he encountered yesteryear. “the weed / garbage / piss cocktail of smells in parts of manhattan is truly nauseating,” one Twitter user chimed in. “The biggest change is the smell of marijuana. It’s EVERYWHERE. Inescapable. It’s made the city a lot grimier, and much more unsafe,” added another.

Now that they no longer have to fear arrest, more people may indeed be lighting up in public. As with many things in New York, private behavior—a couple’s fight, a parent disciplining their child, a group of friends who are too boisterously drunk—spills into public spaces. We’re tasked with learning how to tolerate, or at least look past, the low-grade deviancy and etiquette missteps we encounter in streets and subway stations, shared hallways and stoops. “For the record, I don’t care if people smoke (or drink!), but the imposition of the odor all over public spaces is weird and feels deeply unserious,” Chatterton Williams (one of the more reasonable pot critics) added.

Still, many of the tweets and articles in this genre clumsily attempt to underscore the same idea: New York is getting worse by the day—and pot must be to blame.

But the aroma of weed in the air ought to be interpreted as people relishing their newfound freedom, a sign that tolerance toward people’s mind-alteration preferences has rightfully prevailed.

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The United States of Weed

IF IT SEEMS like a new state is legalizing cannabis nearly every week, don’t worry, you’re not high — states are indeed allowing adult-use of the drug at an unprecedented pace. If the wave of green legislation is slowing to some degree now, that’s only because so many states have already taken action. That doesn’t mean the wave will stop. Since our last update two years ago, numerous states have passed recreational or medical laws. At the same time, setbacks have come as ballot initiatives have been rejected. In other instances, lawmakers and certain governors remain steadfast in their opposition to pot. 

It’s now a question of when, not if, politicians in Washington, D.C., will get with the program and decide to do what the majority of Americans support by passing legislation to end federal prohibition once and for all. In 2022, Politico reported that over 155 million Americans lived in a legal cannabis state after the November 2022 Election Day results — inching closer to 50 percent of the population. In the meantime, states are continuing to prime themselves to legalize the drug, either for medicinal use, recreational use, or both. Here’s where things stand is all 50 of them.

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How ‘equity’ ruined cannabis legalization in New York

New York’s legal weed experiment is going about as poorly as possible.

Earlier this week, the state finally signed off on a handful of new dispensary licenses, a full two years after legalization.

Illegal pot shops, meanwhile, have gotten so common — and so attractive to criminals — that Gov. Hochul has asked Albany to approve five-figure fines and tough enforcement powers to help shut them down.

It remains to be seen whether any state can legalize marijuana without serious downsides.

But New York’s attempt has been particularly disastrous.

This is in large part because rather than prioritizing tax revenue or public health in the legalization process, Albany put progressive-tinged “social justice” strategies front and center in its policy design.

They admit as much.

Hochul has emphasized that New York State’s marijuana industry will benefit those who committed crimes under prohibition.

The state’s Office of Cannabis Management has said that “social and economic equity” is a “major focus” of legalization.

And the New York City Mayor’s Office promised to put equity “at the center” of the budding industry. You get the idea.

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NBA Takes Steps to Ease Cannabis Restrictions: This Week in Cannabis Investing

The NBA took a major step forward this week by allowing players to invest in and promote cannabis brands. 

Michele Roberts, a former executive director of the NBA Players Association and now a member of the board of directors at Cresco Labs (CRLBF(opens in new tab)), previously predicted that NBA would consider changing its policies around cannabis. 

As of the terms listed in the leagues’ new collective bargaining agreement, cannabis will also be removed from the banned substances list for players. This is a welcome change for a cannabis industry seeking additional sources of capital while it continues to erode the old-world stigmas created by previous generations. 

We’ve seen a number of professional athletes getting involved in the cannabis industry after their sports careers. They are a group that is keen on the benefits cannabis provides for pain and inflammatory management, and many are also passionate about making a difference. Former NBA veteran Al Harrington’s Viola Brands(opens in new tab) immediately comes to mind as a trailblazer here. We’re excited to welcome more athletes, especially those as passionate about building their brands and business ventures as they are about their active profession.

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Michigan Republican admits to taking bribes while overseeing state medical cannabis board

A former Michigan House speaker was indicted along with two lobbyists and a medical marijuana business owner as part of a bribery scheme.

Rick Johnson, the Republican former House speaker and chairman of the state medical marijuana licensing board from 2017 to 2019, was charged with accepting bribes, while registered lobbyists Brian Pierce and Vincent Brown were charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and John Dalaly, who had sought a business license, was charged with payment of bribes, reported the Detroit Free Press.

“Unfortunately, a small percentage (of public officials) abuse the public trust,” said James Tarasca, special agent in charge of the FBI in Michigan. “Public corruption is a top criminal priority for the FBI. Public corruption erodes confidence and undermines the strength of our democracy.”

James Totten, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, said a five-year investigation determined that Johnson was the “heart” of the bribery scheme that involved more than $100,000 in cash payments from companies and lobbyists seeking licenses from the board he led.

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