Tag: police state

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.

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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.

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Retired NYPD captain shoots man in leg during New Year’s Eve road rage feud: sources

A recently retired NYPD captain shot another man in the leg during a road rage feud in Brooklyn on New Year’s Eve, police sources said. 

The retiree, who was driving a Toyota Corolla, clashed with a 22-year-old man behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz on Coney Island Avenue near Brighton Beach Avenue around 2:15 p.m., the sources said. 

Both drivers got out of their vehicles and started to argue, according to the sources. 

The confrontation took a violent turn when the former cop fired off a gun, hitting the other motorist in the left leg, the sources said. 

The wounded man was taken to NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn, where he was listed in stable condition, police said. 

The retired captain was taken to the same hospital, and it remained unclear Monday whether he would face charges. 

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California’s ‘Repugnant’ Restrictions on Public Gun Possession Just Took Effect

California’s sweeping new restrictions on public possession of firearms, many of which a federal judge enjoined this month after deeming them “repugnant to the Second Amendment,” took effect today thanks to a stay that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued on Saturday. That means Californians with permits that notionally allow them to carry concealed handguns will have to think twice before using them, because the state has declared a long list of locations they routinely visit to be “sensitive places” where firearms are prohibited.

Senate Bill 2, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on September 26, makes it a crime for permit holders to carry their handguns in 26 categories of places, including parks, playgrounds, zoos, libraries, museums, banks, hospitals, places of worship, public transportation, stadiums, athletic facilities, casinos, bars, and restaurants that serve alcohol. The list also covers any “privately owned commercial establishment that is open to the public” unless the owner “clearly and conspicuously posts a sign at the entrance” saying guns are allowed.

S.B. 2 “turns nearly every public place in California into a ‘sensitive place,’ effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public,” U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney noted on December 20, when he issued a preliminary injunction that barred the state from enforcing 15 provisions of the law. “California will not allow concealed carry permitholders to effectively practice what the Second Amendment promises. SB2’s coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.”

Carney was referring to the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which upheld the right to carry guns in public for self-defense. Under Bruen, states may no longer demand that residents demonstrate a “special need” before they are allowed to exercise that right. Accordingly, S.B. 2 eliminates California’s “good cause” requirement for carry permits, along with a similarly amorphous “good character” criterion. By limiting the discretion of licensing authorities, the bill notes, those changes could have opened the door to “broadly allowing individuals to carry firearms in most public areas.” Deeming that outcome intolerable, legislators instead decreed that guns may not be carried in most public areas.

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XL Bully campaigners win temporary injunction to stop 240 dogs in rescue homes being put down after strict laws came into force on December 31

XL Bully campaigners have won a temporary injunction that will stop 240 dogs in rescue homes from being put down after strict new laws came into force on New Year’s Eve. 

Under the Government’s guidelines, XL Bully dogs that arrived in rescue homes since October 31, which had not been rehomed, would have to be killed because they don’t qualify for an exemption to stay there.

It was thought an estimated 240 dogs would be destroyed as a result until one rescue centre took an injunction to review the rules.

Carla Lane Animals in Need, a 40-year-old care home in Liverpool, said rescue centres do not have to destroy the dogs from today as many had planned. 

A High Court Judge ordered: ‘No XL Bully dog may be seized from a Rehoming Organisation… and/or destroyed for want of or ineligibility for a certification of exemption on grounds that the dog was taken into the RO’s care after 31 October 2023 until the further Order of the Court.’

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These are the most controversial laws that went into effect across the U.S. today

A raft of new laws that have immediate — and possibly fundamental — impact on the lives of Americans went into effect Monday.

Among them was state legislation that dealt with guns, marijuana, voting rights, minimum wage and a controversial Texas law that bans diversity programming at public colleges.

The New York Times gave a rundown of the New Year’s Day changes across the country.

Gun Ownership

In California, a law that went into effect on January 1 bars the carrying of guns in most public places. It lists more than two dozen locations where the weapons can’t be carried, including libraries and sports venues.

In Minnesota, a new law gives officials the power to take firearms away from people deemed dangerous. A similar law will take effect in Michigan next month.

Washington State will require all gun buyers to have a 10-day waiting period and to have passed a safety training program, while in Illinois high-powered semiautomatic rifles have been banned.

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Federal Lawsuit Challenges Mississippi’s Ban On Marijuana Advertising, Citing Free-Speech Rights

Mississippi’s medical cannabis advertising ban is preventing a small dispensary from attracting customers, Tru Source owner Clarence Cocroft is arguing in a federal lawsuit that casts the law as a violation of his free-speech rights.

Though medical marijuana is now legal for Mississippians with qualifying conditions and a medical cannabis card, state law prohibits dispensary owners and cultivators from advertising cannabis products.

“It’s a daunting task to stay in the industry when you can’t advertise,” Cocroft told the Mississippi Free Press on December 8. “And it’s legal. If they allow you to get licensed, they should allow you to promote your business.”

Cocroft owns Tru Source, the state’s first Black-owned medical cannabis dispensary, located in the southeast industrial zoning area of Olive Branch, Mississippi. Cocroft and his dispensary filed a lawsuit on November 14 against the officials in charge of the regulations at the Mississippi State Department of Health, the Mississippi Department of Revenue and the Mississippi Alcohol Beverage Control Bureau.

To open a medical cannabis shop in the state, a person must apply for a dispensary license, register for a sales tax permit and pay thousands of dollars in fees. A person must have a medical cannabis card and be over the age of 21 to enter a dispensary.

“The fight was, ‘OK, we’re paying you all a lot of taxes. We’re abiding by all your rules that you have set forth. All we’re asking is simple: Allow us to advertise. It’s going to increase your tax rate as a state,’” Cocroft said.

Tru Source relies on its website, word of mouth and signs posted on the building for advertising. But Cocroft cannot advertise his dispensary or its website in any other advertising medium. The owner said many customers would not have known about the store if they had not driven by the area.

“It’s not just me in my location that cannot advertise,” he said. “It’s every location in Olive Branch; it’s every dispensary in DeSoto County and all 82 counties,” Cocroft said.

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