December 4, 2020
Inside the Weed Legalization Bill Congress Is Voting on This Week
It was 2018, Democrats were about to gain control of the House of Representatives, and cannabis justice advocates knew they needed to get to work. Every two years, a handful of new states were joining those that had already legalized cannabis, either recreationally or medicinally. Federal decriminalization was inevitable. If advocates wanted to have any say in what legislation would look like, the first Democratic House majority since 2011 was their best chance to make inroads. “Anybody who’s doing work on drug policy and criminal justice could see that it was only a matter of time before the federal government legalized [cannabis],” says Martiza Perez, national affairs director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “We wanted to make certain that when they did it they did it right.” The result, two years later, is the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which the House will vote on this week. It’s the first time either chamber of Congress will take up a bill to legalize cannabis, but the MORE Act goes far beyond simply decriminalizing it. Included in the bill are several social and criminal justice measures that would help lift up the communities of color ravaged by the War on Drugs, while helping build an equitable cannabis industry in which the people of color disproportionately impacted by prohibition have a seat at the table. “I’ve been working on this issue longer than any politician in America and can confidently say that the MORE Act is the most comprehensive federal cannabis reform legislation in U.S. history,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, said in a statement. “Congress must capitalize on this momentum and do our part to end the failed policy of prohibition that has resulted in a long and shameful period of selective enforcement against communities of color.” Federal cannabis legalization has been a long time coming. A Pew Research Center study published in November of 2019 found that 67 percent of the nation supports legalization, including a majority of Republicans. As of this November, 15 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation or voter initiatives to legalize recreational cannabis, while 38 states and D.C. allow some form of it for medicinal purposes. Every cannabis measure up for a vote last month passed convincingly. One in three Americans now live in states that have legalized recreational use.
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December 4, 2020
San Francisco bans indoor tobacco smoking, marijuana permitted
San Francisco city officials this week voted to ban all smoking inside of apartments, with the exception of smoking marijuana. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 to approve the move on Tuesday. The legislation bans smoking inside of buildings with three or more units and in all common areas, although it does not apply to “adult-use” or medical marijuana, CNN reported. The measure is targeted at protecting apartment residents from secondhand smoke. The president of the city’s Board of Supervisors, Norman Yee, who authored the legislation, tweeted Wednesday that “Secondhand smoke causes harm & everyone should have clean air to breathe where they live." The San Francisco Department of Public Health is set to enforce the measure. Officials must first try to educate people who smoke inside of apartment buildings and help residents who smoke tobacco quit, The Associated Press reported. Residents who are repeatedly caught smoking inside could be fined up to $1,000 a day. The original legislation also sought to ban residents from smoking marijuana in their apartments. However, it is already illegal under California state law to smoke cannabis in public places, and activists pointed out that the proposal would remove the legal place to smoke marijuana.
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December 2, 2020
New Jersey bill to legalize marijuana includes ‘social equity’ tax
The push to legalize recreational weed in New Jersey includes a new “social equity” tax that would benefit communities of color disproportionately affected by drug laws. Bills by both the Senate and Assembly allow the Cannabis Regulatory Commission to levy an optional “social equity excise fee” for programs aimed at alleviating racial disparities. “We’ve spelled out the communities that we look for this money to be invested in,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney said during a roundtable discussion Monday, according to NJ.com. “I think we made our intentions very clear in the Senate.” The legislation initially proposed that marijuana sales would be subjected to the 6.625 percent state tax — but the amount was boosted to 7 percent last month, the Asbury Park Press reported. The Senate wants 70 percent of the sales tax revenue, plus all of the social equity fee, to go toward funding community programs, while the Assembly version only calls for the sales tax being put toward those programs, NJ.com said. The social equity funding was sought by the state Legislative Black Caucus and other advocates. “A key component of cannabis legalization is addressing social justice concerns,” Assemblyman and caucus member Jamel Holley said in a statement last month. “The fact that Black New Jerseyans are 3 or 4 times more likely to be arrested on cannabis charges has contributed to the disenfranchisement of (Black) communities.”
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December 2, 2020
‘This Is Coming:’ State Work Group Releases Blueprint For Legalizing Marijuana In Virginia
Virginia should establish a Cannabis Cabinet to steer its effort to legalize marijuana, according to a work group that released nearly 500 pages of recommendations Monday. The report, ordered by law last year, adds that the cabinet should learn from the efforts of 10 states where it’s legal to sell recreational marijuana, with a focus on how a new industry can correct for racism in drug enforcement. “What it means is that this is being taken seriously, that we know this is coming, and that Virginia wants to do it right,” said state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who plans to sponsor a bill to legalize marijuana. The 23-member work group interviewed federal leaders, state regulators, law enforcement, addiction specialists, and community advocates. It found that Black Virginians are approximately three times as likely to be arrested for marijuana charges than their white counterparts; the ratio is higher in some places including Arlington, where Black Virginians are eight times as likely to be arrested for marijuana-related charges than white residents. Jenn Michelle Pedini, executive director of the pro-legalizing organization Virginia NORML and a member of the work group, said those statistics informed the group’s approach. “What we are hearing resoundingly time and time again is that it’s not enough to simply legalize cannabis. Virginia must equitably legalize cannabis,” Pedini said. Pedini, who uses the pronoun they, said Illinois, in particular, provided an example of best practices. The state created a $20 million low-interest loan program to help lower barriers of entry in the marijuana industry to people who meet certain criteria, including having a marijuana-related criminal record or living in an area that has a high rate of arrests and incarceration for marijuana-related offenses. Illinois also created a method for expunging marijuana-related records. Other states that legalized recreational cannabis were retroactively adding similar measures, Pedini said.
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A South Dakota sheriff and a colonel in the state highway patrol on Friday filed a lawsuit challenging a voter referendum legalizing recreational marijuana use in the state. In the lawsuit, Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom and South Dakota Highway Patrol Col. Rick Miller claimed the constitutional amendment at issue violated rules against amending more than one subject at once, according to a report in Dakota News Now. They argued that the amendment, Amendment A, incorporates legalizing marijuana, regulating its recreational use, taxing it, ensuring access to medical marijuana and requiring that state lawmakers pass laws regulating hemp. The lawsuit further claims that the initiative is a “revision” rather than an amendment, that is, a fundamental change to the state constitution that requires a three-quarters vote from both chambers of the legislature. “Our constitutional amendment procedure is very straightforward,” Miller said in a statement. “In this case, the group bringing Amendment A unconstitutionally abused the initiative process. We’re confident that the courts will safeguard the South Dakota Constitution and the rule of law.” Amendment A passed with 54 percent support in the Nov. 3 election while a separate question on legalizing medical marijuana received nearly 70 percent, according to the outlet. Gov. Kristi Noem (R) is among the high-profile opponents of the measures, calling them “the wrong choice” in a statement released two days after the election. “We are prepared to defend Amendment A against this lawsuit. Our opponents should accept defeat instead of trying to overturn the will of the people,” South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws, the group that backed the amendment, said in a statement in response to the filing. “Amendment A was carefully drafted, fully vetted, and approved by a strong majority of South Dakota voters this year.”
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November 25, 2020
Equity obstacles in Virginia push to legalize marijuana
Could legalizing marijuana in Virginia help address social disparities and inequities? That’s one of the topics the state’s legislative watchdog agency explores in a new report examining how the commonwealth could legalize marijuana. The Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission report was published shortly before Gov. Ralph Northam announced he will support legislation to legalize marijuana in the Old Dominion. Virginia decriminalized marijuana possession earlier this year and reduced possession penalties to a $25 civil penalty and no jail time for amounts up to an ounce. In the past, possessing up to half an ounce could lead to a $500 fine and 30 days in jail. Northam said legislation should address five principles including public health and social, racial and economic equity. The report addresses the establishment of a commercial marijuana industry that protects minors, prosecutes illegal sellers and maintains the state’s medical marijuana program. JLARC director Hal Greer said the study also examines ways legalization could benefit individuals and communities disproportionately impacted by past enforcement of marijuana laws. “As a first step in that effort, we analyzed data on marijuana arrests across the state in the last decade,” Greer said. “The data revealed a deeply troubling finding that Black individuals are being arrested for marijuana offenses at a much higher rate than others.” The commission found that from 2010 to 2019 the average arrest rate of Black Virginians for marijuana possession was more than three times higher than that of white residents for the same crime—6.3 per 1,000 Black individuals and 1.8 per white people. This is despite the fact that Black Virginians use marijuana at similar rates as white residents. The conviction rate was also higher for Black individuals with marijuana possession charges.
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November 25, 2020
Mexican church decries Senate's marijuana legalization vote
Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church on Sunday criticized a vote in the Senate to legalize the possession, cultivation and use of small amounts of marijuana. It would legalize the possession of up to an ounce (28 grams) of marijuana by adults as long as they did not consume it in front of children. The bill also would authorize a person to grow up to six pot plants, and open the way for establishing a system of licensing for larger-scale production and sale. The Mexican Bishops Council said in a statement Sunday that Chamber of Deputies should modify the bill “to emphasize health and public safety.” “The bill that was approved does not address the health damages that arise from an ever increasing use of marijuana, does not address the effects on families due to young people's consumption of drugs, and does not contribute the to reducing and inhibiting exposure to drugs,” the council wrote. The church said that wit the approval of the bill, “public health and welfare are no longer the priority, and cede to the tastes of individuals, even though they may damage others. The demands for irresponsible liberty for a few, are placed above the common good and health." Supporters of the measure argue it will help take the marijuana trade out of the hands of the country's violent drug cartels, for whom it is still a source of huge illicit profits.
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November 25, 2020
Pot legalization hits an unlikely snag: ‘magic’ mushrooms
Winning a constitutional right for adults to smoke pot in New Jersey was, apparently, the easy part. The ballot question drew overwhelming support on Election Day, despite a muted pandemic-era campaign that had minimal financial backing from the national cannabis industry. But creating a legislative pathway to reach proponents’ goals — establishing New Jersey as the dominant East Coast marijuana market, right next to New York, while ending the disproportionate rates of arrest in minority communities — is proving to be far more complicated. Many of the pitfalls were anticipated. A battle over psychedelic mushrooms was not. Last week, the state Senate amended a decriminalization bill to include psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound in so-called magic mushrooms, or “shrooms,” snarling the time-sensitive negotiations over a separate legalization bill. That bill creates a framework for the constitutional amendment legalizing marijuana, which takes effect Jan. 1. The mushroom amendment was tacked on just as social justice advocates were spotlighting what they saw as an overarching flaw in the legalization bill: a lack of guaranteed benefit to Black and Latino communities that have suffered most from criminal enforcement of marijuana laws.
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November 25, 2020
New Jersey Weed Vendors Prep for Expansion as Cannabis Industry Rises to New Heights
The bill adopted tSince New Jersey voted to legalize recreational marijuana earlier this month, lawmakers and vendors alike have been working around the clock to create a new marketplace. For some medical dispensaries, expansion is on the docket not just for New Jersey – but across the country. New Jersey voters approved the constitutional amendment on Nov. 3, with about 67 percent voting to legalize recreational marijuana. The measure doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2021. “New Jersey has done a phenomenal job in leading the way,” said CEO of Harmony Foundation, Shaya Brodchandel, in a recent interview with NBC New York.his past week must still go to the lower house of Congress for a vote. Harmony Foundation is a medical cannabis dispensary located in Secaucus. With over 50 years of experience, the members of this cultivation team grow just under 4,000 pounds of marijuana per year. Although this may seem like a healthy amount, it is not nearly enough to support a surge of expected new customers, according to Brodchandel. “It’s certainly not going to be enough to service an entire adult use market – on top of patient growth. We have 92,000 patients in the state of New Jersey,” he explained. Harmony Foundation is in the works of expanding past the Secaucus location to meet the heightened demand. Brodchandel envisions consumers shopping for cannabis as they do for wine. “It’s very similar to the wine industry in terms of people looking at different strains -- focusing on terpenes, flavors, tastes, effects and heritage,” he said. With more commercial products, marijuana will be drawn to a more affordable, premium market.
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November 25, 2020
New Jersey Voting Session Canceled Amid Cannabis Bill Disagreements
A New Jersey Assembly voting session that had been scheduled for Monday and was to include a measure setting up the new recreational marijuana market has been canceled, Speaker Craig Coughlin said Friday. Coughlin, a Democrat, said it was clear the legislation wouldn’t get final approval because of differences between his chamber’s bill and one in the Democrat-led Senate. “The Assembly’s approach for producing fair and responsible legislation is to be thoughtful and deliberative,” he said in a statement. The Senate had also planned a Monday session but it was canceled late on Thursday, with lawmakers citing the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Lawmakers had aimed to fast-track the legislation after voters overwhelmingly approved legalizing recreational marijuana for those 21 and older in the Nov. 3 election. Committees in both chambers passed measures on Thursday, but they differed. Lawmakers must iron out those differences before a final vote. So far, a deal on legislation has eluded legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. A key sticking point is whether the number of licenses for cultivators should be capped. The Senate legislation calls for zero caps, but the Assembly is seeking to have 37, which is up from 28 in an earlier version of the bill. Another sticking point has been whether to include an excise tax, but legislators seemed to move beyond that stumbling block on Thursday. Both versions of the measure included language saying the Cannabis Regulatory Commission may levy such a tax, which was a late addition. Both chambers also want to levy another tax they say amounts to increasing the state’s 6.625% sales tax to 7%.
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