Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Kentucky Governor Pushes Lawmakers To Approve More Medical Marijuana Qualifying Conditions While Unveiling First Program Rules

The governor of Kentucky is urging lawmakers to significantly expand the state’s medical marijuana law by adding new qualifying conditions as the administration puts forward a series of initial proposed regulations to begin implementing the program.

At a briefing on Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) announced that two independent advisory groups he appointed have unanimously voted to recommend that the legislature add more than a dozen new conditions to qualify patients for medical cannabis under a law he signed last year.

“This is a crucial step. While the legislation referenced several qualifying conditions, it left others out,” he said, adding that the expanded list includes “very serious conditions that we believe—but more importantly that these medical groups and advisory groups all unanimously agree—should become a part of the program.”

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DEA Confirms That Psychedelic Mushroom Spores Are Federally Legal Prior To Germination

A top Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has affirmed that spores that produce so-called magic mushrooms are not, on their own, federally prohibited.

DEA’s Drug & Chemical Evaluation Section Chief Terrence Boos was asked about the legal status of the spores in a letter from attorney Michael McGuire in November, and he sent a response on Tuesday that clarified the agency’s position.

“If the mushroom spores (or any other material) do not contain psilocybin or psilocin (or any other controlled substance or listed chemical), the material is considered not controlled” under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Boos wrote.

“However, if at any time the material contains a controlled substance such as psilocybin or psilocin (for example, upon germination), the material would be considered a controlled substance under the CSA,” he said, as Kight On Cannabis first reported.

This isn’t especially revelatory, as its long been understood that the CSA doesn’t explicitly ban spores that can be used to produce so-called “magic mushrooms.” Rather, it lists the key psychoactive ingredients in psychedelic mushrooms, psilocybin and psilocyn, as Schedule I controlled substances.

Because the spores themselves don’t contain those specific compounds, they are uncontrolled under the CSA.

However, it should be noted that while the spores are technically considered federally legal—as long as someone doesn’t use them to produce mushrooms that contain psilocybin or psilocin—states such as California, Georgia and Idaho do prohibit the spores themselves.

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New Kentucky Bill Would Legalize Marijuana Use, Possession And Home Cultivation—But Not Sales

As Kentucky works to implement a recently passed medical cannabis policy, a lawmaker filed legislation this week that would end all penalties, including arrest, for simple possession and use of recreational marijuana by adults 21 and older. It would also allow adults to grow a small number of cannabis plants at home for personal use. Commercial sales, however, would remain prohibited.

The limited legalization measure, HB 72, was introduced Tuesday by Rep. Nima Kulkarni (D), who this time last year introduced a measure that would have let voters decide whether to legalize use, possession and home cultivation. The lawmaker previously introduced a similar noncommercial legalization proposal for the 2022 legislative session.

“For decades, the failed and irrational War on Drugs has ensured that we have arrested, prosecuted and jailed millions of Americans for low level nonviolent drug offenses,” Kulkarni said a year ago.

Under the new proposal, adults could possess up to an ounce of marijuana in plant form, five grams of cannabinoids derived from hemp or marijuana, products containing 1,000 milligrams or less of delta-8 and delta-9 THC or five or fewer cannabis plants.

Possession above the personal use limit would be considered a Class B misdemeanor, carrying up to 45 days of jail time plus monetary penalties.

In addition to ending penalties for noncommercial possession and cultivation, the newly filed legislation would also prevent marijuana use from being used as grounds to revoke probation, parole or conditional release.

Trafficking penalties, meanwhile—which state law says someone is guilty of “when he knowingly and unlawfully traffics in marijuana”—would apply to people with more than the personal use quantity and less than eight ounces of cannabis. That would be a Class A misdemeanor on the first offense and a Class D felony on second and subsequent offenses. Higher penalties would apply for greater amounts.

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Massachusetts Lawmakers Will Be Forced To Consider Psychedelics Legalization Measure That Activists Petitioned For, State Official Says

Massachusetts officials have certified that activists submitted enough valid signatures to force legislative consideration of a psychedelics legalization initiative before the measure potentially heads to the state’s 2024 ballot.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s (D) office certified that the campaign Massachusetts for Mental Health Options (MMHO) collected 96,277 valid signatures for the reform measure—about 20,000 more than required to put the issue before legislators.

Accordingly, the proposal has now been officially transmitted to the legislature.

“This brings psilocybin and other breakthrough psychedelic therapies one big step closer to being available to adults dealing with depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges,” Jennifer Manley, committee spokesperson, said in a press release on Wednesday.

“We look forward to working with legislative leaders on the possibility and promise of natural psychedelic medicine as we continue our work to provide therapeutic access to these groundbreaking treatments,” she said. “We thank the secretary and his staff for their service reviewing the nearly 100,000 signatures submitted in support, as well as the volunteers and advocates who spent many hours talking to voters around the state.”

The announcement came after a longer-than-usual review process, which was due to an especially high volume of ballot proposals that were being circulated for the 2024 election cycle.

The MMHO measure would create a regulatory framework for lawful and supervised access to psychedelics at licensed facilities. It would also legalize the possession and gifting of psychedelics such as psilocybin and ayahuasca, but it would not otherwise provide for commercial retail sales of the substances.

“We are on the precipice of a sea change in the way we can help people who may believe they have run out of options,” Winthrop police lieutenant Sarko Gergerian, one of the campaign’s backers, said. “Don’t lose hope. These options could be available soon for you and your loved ones here in Massachusetts.”

The campaign first filed two different psychedelics reform initiatives in August, and after the state attorney general determined that they both met the constitutional requirement for ballot placement the following months, activists decided to pursue the version that included a home cultivation option.

Now that the secretary of state has verified the signature count, the legislature will now have the choice to enact the reform, propose a substitute or decline to act. If lawmakers decide not to legalize psychedelics by May 1, activists would then have until July 3 to submit at least 12,429 additional valid signatures to put the proposal before voters on the November 2024 ballot.

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DEA Tells Congress It Has ‘Final Authority’ On Marijuana, Regardless Of Health Agency’s Schedule III Recommendation

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is telling lawmakers that it reserves “the final authority” to make any scheduling decision on marijuana following an ongoing review, regardless of what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommends.

In a letter sent to Congressional Cannabis Caucus co-chair Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), DEA Acting Chief of the Office of Congressional Affairs Michael Miller gave a general overview of the scheduling review process that was initiated under a directive from President Joe Biden in October 2022.

That started with a scientific assessment from HHS that reportedly advised DEA to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Once HHS made its recommendation in August, “DEA conducts its own review,” the letter, sent last month and first reported by Punchbowl News, says.

“DEA has the final authority to schedule, reschedule, or deschedule a drug under the Controlled Substances Act, after considering the relevant statutory and regulatory criteria and HHS’s scientific and medical evaluation,” it says. “DEA is now conducting its review.”

The agency’s statement came in response to an earlier letter from 31 bipartisan lawmakers, led by Blumenauer, that implored DEA to consider the “merits” of legalization as it carried out its review. That initial letter also criticized the limitations of simply placing cannabis in Schedule III, as opposed to fully removing the plant from CSA control.

“While Congress works to send the President comprehensive cannabis legislation, the urgency of full descheduling should inform DEA’s position on overall cannabis reform and appropriate enforcement centered on advancing public safety, not unjust criminalization,” the lawmakers’ letter said. “Marijuana’s continued inappropriate scheduling is both arcane and out-of-touch with the will of the American people.”

In that context, DEA’s response offered little insight, with the agency declining to address the lawmakers’ key arguments and instead simply outlining the procedural details of the scheduling review.

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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.”

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South Dakota Bill Would Force Medical Cannabis Dispensaries To Warn Patients About Federal Gun Ban For People ‘Addicted To Marijuana’

South Dakota Republican lawmakers have filed a bill to mandate that state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries post a sign at their businesses warning patients that federal law prohibits cannabis consumers from possessing firearms.

The legislation, led by Rep. Kevin Jensen (R) and Sen. Jim Stalzer (R) and 10 other legislators, comes at a time when the constitutionality of the underlying federal gun ban for marijuana consumers is being challenged in multiple courts.

Under the bill, South Dakota medical cannabis dispensaries would need to post at each entrance to their business and at each register or point of sale a sign that reads:

“WARNING: Federal law prohibits the possession of a firearm by certain individuals who are users of or addicted to marijuana. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).”

The measure, HB 1036, states that the warning requirement would be suspended if the attorney general certifies that “federal law no longer prohibits the possession of a firearm by certain individuals who are users of or addicted to marijuana.”

Until then, businesses that fail to post the notice would be subject to a civil penalty of $250 per day, with those fees going to state general fund.

The GOP lawmakers also filed a separate bill, HB 1024, that would require state application forms for medical cannabis cards to contain a notice of the federal restrictions on gun possession by marijuana consumers. Patients would have to sign to specifically acknowledge the warning.

The Justice Department has insisted on the necessity of the ban in numerous federal courts, arguing at points that people who use marijuana and possess guns pose a unique danger, akin to permitting people with serious mental illness to own firearms.

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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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