November 5, 2020
If N.J. voters legalize weed, it’ll be at least a year until it’s available to buy, industry experts say
Seven days before Election Day, state Sen. Nick Scutari surprised many when he optimistically forecast adult-use marijuana purchases would begin by the end of 2020. “We might be able to flip the switch and people might be able to get marijuana, legally, right after the vote,” he said during a live Q&A on NJ.com’s Facebook page Oct. 27. The interview was a part of NJ Cannabis Insider’s two-hour industry webinar, “Countdown to Legalization” presented by Brach Eichler. Jeff Brown, assistant commissioner of the state Health Department, was quick to say Tuesday that none of the dispensaries are ready to supply. Later in the week, Brown doubled down: “I could say unequivocally that opening up sales even a few months after the election would be a disaster and would really hurt access for patients who need this as medicine.” During the webinar panel that focussed on the outlook of the cannabis industry, industry leaders were also reluctant to back the senator’s rosy picture. So how will the industry shape up? These experts say licensing issues, the need to establish social justice provisions and a lack of clarity around legislation all need to be addressed as priorities for the process to move forward smoothly. We still don’t know the specifics of legislation: Without enabling legislation, there are still questions as to what the industry will look like — particularly from local governments. Alixon Collazos, a public affairs strategist at The BGill Group, said a main priority for the industry should be clarity. Scutari’s sudden and quick timeline surprised her, given the complicated nature of passing legislation and seating the committee to oversee the industry.
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November 3, 2020
These states could legalize marijuana this November
Four more states could choose to legalize recreational marijuana through ballot measures this Election Day. Voters in Republican-led Arizona and South Dakota and Democrat-led Montana and New Jersey will consider proposals to legalize recreational marijuana. Another red state, Mississippi, is weighing a pair of ballot questions to legalize medical marijuana. Currently, 11 states have legalized full, adult marijuana use. All but two did so by ballot initiative, which poses the question directly to voters. Polls show that the ballots initiatives have support in Arizona, Montana and New Jersey. "It's really showing the kind of breadth of acceptance that we're seeing around the country with respect to cannabis," said Steven Hawkins, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group that works with many of the ballot initiatives. Not every effort to get marijuana on the ballot this year was successful, though, with the coronavirus pandemic and early stay-at-home orders having scuttled signature drives to gather enough support to place the questions on some states' ballots. "We lost the time needed to gather signatures or else there would be six states," Hawkins said, counting the states considering full adult-use legalization this year.
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On Election Day, New Jersey will vote on a ballot question to decide whether the state will allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use to those over age 21. But like other races, when we know the outcome of the ballot question will depend on voter behavior. The more voters who cast their ballots early, the sooner we may have an answer. But if a large percentage of voters wait until Election Day and cast a paper provisional ballot, the count will take longer. As of Thursday, more than 3.1 million mail-in ballots had been received by county election officials, and many counties have already started counting. County election officials will release preliminary vote counts sometime after 8 p.m. on Election Day, but those results will not be final. Election officials will continue to accept ballots with a postmark of Nov. 3 up until Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. Once they receive and count the final ballot, they can start to signature-verify, cross-check and count the ballots that were cast in person. But it’s still possible that we will have an answer on the ballot question sometime on Tuesday night. It will depend on the margins. “If a candidate is leading by more than the margin of outstanding ballots, presumably that race can be called,” said Alicia D’Alessandro, spokeswoman for the secretary of state. “If there are still more outstanding ballots than the margin of votes between two candidates, then it will take as long as it takes to count them and get a result for the election.”
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November 3, 2020
New York proposes regulations for hemp-derived CBD products
New York regulators have proposed quality control standards and a licensing program for hemp-derived CBD products that have gained widespread popularity in products such as tinctures, salves and lotions, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday. The state Department of Health proposed the regulations in accordance with legislation passed earlier this year establishing a Cannabinoid Hemp Program. There are federal regulations for growing hemp but not for processing cannabinoid products. New York's proposed regulations require laboratory testing and labeling to ensure consumers are getting what they pay for, without harmful contaminants. “These regulations are the next step toward regulating the growing hemp industry in New York in a way that protects consumers and helps ensure the industry’s long-term viability,” Cuomo said in a statement announcing the proposal.The regulations have been anxiously awaited by industrial hemp farmers and processors across the state, as well as hundreds of businesses that make consumer products from CBD, or cannabidiol, extracted from hemp. At media events around the state last month, industry leaders urged Cuomo to issue rules before the temporary state program they've been operating under expires at the end of October. An industrial hemp pilot program was launched in New York in 2015 in hopes of spurring economic development and providing farmers with a lucrative new crop. There are now about 700 hemp growers and 100 manufacturers of hemp products across the state. In addition to setting quality standards, the regulations create a system for allowing hemp-derived cannabinoids to be used in certain foods, beverages, topicals and dietary supplements. Processors are prohibited from making claims suggesting the products will treat or prevent disease.
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November 3, 2020
If States Legalize, Expungement Is Next Hurdle: Cannabis Weekly
Cannabis legalization is on the ballot in five states this Tuesday, and polling shows it’s likely to pass in most of them by a clear majority. What’s less clear is what happens to all the prisoners already incarcerated for possessing something that’s now legal. It’s an increasingly accepted view that you can’t have people serving time in jail for something that companies are freely profiting from. Especially when the prisoners are mostly Black, and the companies are primarily run by White executives. Black people are arrested for marijuana possession at 3.7 times the rate of White people, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. And it’s even higher in some of the states voting on legalization this coming Tuesday: In Montana, it’s 9.6 times; in South Dakota, it’s 5 times. Voters who back legalization for its tax benefits and the promise of new jobs are increasingly supporting changes to the law around past marijuana crimes. But when the handful of states vote on legalization this Nov. 3, expungement isn’t on the ballot, except partially in Arizona. Rather, any criminal justice reform will have to come via the legislative or rulemaking system, and that’s a lengthy process. More than half of N.J. voters support expunging all marijuana offenses. Note: Data from survey of around 500 New Jersey voters. Even if a state passes an expungement law, there’s the added challenge of actually locating prisoners. Some county-level records are still in paper form, said Sarah Gersten, executive director of the Last Prisoner Project, a non-profit that estimates there are 40,000 U.S. cannabis prisoners and aims to free every one of them. Meanwhile, prisoners still languish in jail in states that have already legalized sales. “There are thousands of people still incarcerated for cannabis offenses in California, Michigan, Colorado and Oregon,” Gersten said, citing around 2,000 alone in Michigan as of this year relates to If States Legalize, Expungement Is Next Still, Gersten said, her group finds that local jurisdictions are often eager to help. Why? Follow the money: The cost of mass incarceration in the U.S. is around $182 billion a year, and even for non-violent marijuana offenders, it can be $40,000 annually just to keep them in jail, Gersten said. The reason some people want to help with something as controversial as prisoner releases, she observed, can be self-serving: “They know it’s an economic benefit.”
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October 31, 2020
Teens caught with weed on N.J. beach had their criminal case reinstated. Critics question why.
In the middle of August last year, just after midnight on a near-empty stretch of sand along the ocean, a Beach Haven police officer saw what appeared to be someone using a lighter. Smoking is illegal on the beach, so the officer investigated. The cop found two young adults, a man and woman, and saw the man try to hide something. During questioning the man handed over 8.36 grams of marijuana and smoking implements. The suspects, both college kids, were charged with possessing less than 50 grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Such cases are heard in a town’s municipal court, but the suspects' lawyers filed an action to have the cases dismissed by a county’s chief judge, arguing among other things, it was a minor drug bust and would create harm to the college students, who had high grade point averages, and have bright educational and professional futures. And they won, in January. The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, however, appealed the January dismissal, arguing the judge, Ocean County Assignment Judge Marlene Lynch Ford, was wrong to dismiss the cases as “de minimis,” or minor, infractions and she’d abused her discretion.
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October 30, 2020
New Zealand Voters Say No to Legalizing Recreational Weed
New Zealand has decided against legalizing the recreational use of cannabis, bucking a trend toward liberalization among some of its western peers. In a referendum on whether to allow the use and sale of cannabis, 53% of voters said no and 46% were in favor, according to preliminary results released by the Electoral Commission Friday in Wellington. In a separate referendum, New Zealanders agreed to legalize euthanasia with 65% voting yes. The verdict on cannabis contrasts with moves away from prohibition in Canada and the U.S., where multi-billion dollar industries have sprung up to meet demand for legal weed. Canada legalized the drug at a national level in 2018. In the U.S. it’s been approved for recreational use in 11 states so far and several others, including New Jersey, are poised to follow suit. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden may decriminalize cannabis at a federal level if elected. One of Australia’s territories, the ACT, decriminalized pot this year. While cannabis cultivation and use is widespread in New Zealand, warnings that legalization would make the drug more accessible to children struck a chord with many voters in debates before the referendums, which were conducted in conjunction with the Oct. 17 general election.
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More than $2 million in donations have been directed at groups engaged in New Jersey's ballot question battle over whether to legalize marijuana, with all but $10,000 going to groups backing the measure, according to the most recent campaign finance reports. NJ CAN 2020, the main proponent of marijuana legalization, reported nearly $1.1 million in fundraising as of Oct. 23, including in-kind contributions, such as salaries and research paid by others, according to campaign disclosure reports released Thursday by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. Another ballot question committee, the Building Stronger Communities Action Fund, has raised just over $1 million, according to ELEC. The only formal opposition campaign is Don't Let N.J. Go to Pot, which has raised a little over $9,900 to date. It isn't unusual for legal weed proponents to outspend opponents. Nationwide, opposition campaigns have been outspent $103 million to $24 million in marijuana legalization campaigns since 2012, according to various states' campaign finance data. In other states where marijuana legalization was successful, the level of spending correlated with the results: The more money one side spends, the more votes they get. And the closer the gap in spending, the smaller the margin of victory. What is uncommon is the relatively modest amount spent on the ballot question in New Jersey. Some experts predicted the question to generate the kind of multimillion-dollar campaigns seen in other states, where airwaves were flooded with commercials by both sides. As it stands, total spending is below that of every other campaign except the successful Alaska campaign and the failed campaigns in North Dakota in 2018 and Oregon in 2012. Oregon voters approved a marijuana legalization campaign two years later. The legal weed question is the third-cheapest among all New Jersey ballot question campaigns in the last 44 years when accounting for inflation, according to ELEC. Of course, none of the previous campaigns coincided with a worldwide pandemic on par with the novel coronavirus. "Keep in mind that marijuana interests already have spent $4.1 million on lobbying between 2017 and 2019," said Jeff Brindle, ELEC executive director. "The industry’s overall political investment in New Jersey already has topped $6 million."
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October 30, 2020
Navajo Nation accuses farmers of illegally growing hemp
The Navajo Nation is suing nearly three dozen people, accusing them of illegally growing hemp or marijuana on the reservation. The lawsuit filed earlier this week in the Shiprock District Court in northwestern New Mexico says the operations are contaminating the tribe's water, land and other natural resources. It's the second such lawsuit the tribe's Department of Justice has filed this year. The tribe does not have a regulatory system for industrial hemp on the vast reservation that spans parts of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.
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A strong majority of Kansas residents support legalizing marijuana for adult use by a three-to-one margin, according to a new poll. While cannabis reform might not be on the state’s ballot next week as is the case in five other states, the survey shows that about two-thirds of Kansans (66.9 percent) are in favor of enacting the policy change, compared to 22.2 percent who are opposed and 10.9 percent who are undecided. That represents a nearly four percentage point increase in support since voters were polled on the question last year in the same annual Kanas Speaks Survey conducted by the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University. Opposition has also dropped about four points since 2019. Kansas lawmakers introduced a bill to legalize medical marijuana during a short special session earlier this year, but it ultimately died in committee. There weren’t any specific conditions listed in the legislation that would have qualified patients for legal cannabis access. Rather, the bill stated that marijuana could be recommended for a temporary or permanent disability or illness that “limits the ability of the individual to conduct one or more major life activities” or “may cause serious harm to the individual’s safety or physical or mental health.” Certain legislators have indicated that they plan to pursue the reform again. For her part, Gov. Laura Kelly (D) backs medical cannabis legalization, stating earlier this year that she felt the legislature could enact the policy despite complications from the coronavirus pandemic. “I think that it probably would pass the legislature,” she said in April. But she added, “I think the issue of recreational marijuana is still not on the table.” While the governor said at the beginning of the year that she considers medical cannabis reform a priority, she would be inclined to sign an adult-use marijuana legalization bill if it arrived on her desk. “This is something where what the people want is probably more what I will want on something like that,” Kelly said. “I don’t have a personal ideology regarding it. If the folks want it and the legislature passes it, would I sign it? Probably.” And based on the last two Kansas Speaks surveys, what the people want is legalization. The latest poll—which involved interviews with 417 adults from September 21 to October 1—framed the question around the economics of taxing and regulating cannabis.
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