April 17, 2020
Allowing marijuana businesses to open bank accounts could be part of coronavirus stimulus
Legislation allowing banks to provide credit cards and checking accounts to legal cannabis businesses has been stalled in the Senate. But members of Congress are looking to add its provisions to the next coronavirus stimulus bill, NJ Cannabis Insider has learned. The argument is that many patients who use legal marijuana are among the most vulnerable to contracting COVID-19, and forcing them to deal in cash also puts employees at risk. “Everything has to be capable of mitigating the spread of the coronavirus and mitigating the economic harm of the pandemic,” said Justin Strekal, political director for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The effort is taking place as supporters of ending the federal ban on marijuana seek to make legal cannabis businesses eligible for Small Business Administration loans. The $2 trillion stimulus law included a $349 million paycheck protection program to encourage small businesses to retain their employees, but the cannabis businesses were excluded. “We want to pass the SAFE Banking Act, but we also know SAFE Banking alone won’t be enough to give cannabis businesses the relief they need like other businesses,” said Rep. Earl Perlmutter, D-Colo. “I plan to keep pushing to ensure the cannabis industry has the ability to be eligible for SBA relief funds during this COVID-19 crisis. I have spoken to House leadership about this matter and I’m hopeful in one of the next two packages we can get this done.” Perlmutter, the chief sponsor of the banking bill, is pushing for its inclusion in the stimulus bill, according to another member of Congress speaking on condition of anonymity. After all, asking the marijuana businesses eligible for the loans raises the question of how they would get the money, since most do not have bank accounts and an SBA official isn’t going to walk in the door with a paper bag of dollar bills. “If we get SBA access but don’t get banking, how can SBA distribute money to someone who is unbanked?” Strekal said. “Are they going to get $10,000 cash?”
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April 17, 2020
Virginia Gov. Signs Bill to Regulate CBD Products as Food
Gov. Ralph Northam recently signed a bill that would define hemp extract, such as CBD, as food and usher in state regulations on these products. Senate Bill 918, patroned by Sen. David Marsden, D-Fairfax, will help guide the budding industrial hemp industry in Virginia by regulating facility conditions and requirements for the production of hemp-derived products intended for human consumption. This bill also allows the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to regulate and enforce certain standards for hemp extract, including labeling requirements, identifying contaminants and batch testing.
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The coronavirus crisis has abruptly forced all Americans to reexamine our priorities. Entire sectors of the economy have been shuttered as we reduce contact between people to flatten the curve and reduce the death toll. Elected officials and regulators, in particular, must reevaluate a wide range of government policies to ensure a swift, coordinated and appropriate response to the pandemic. One public policy that offers no benefit whatsoever during this time of crisis is our nation’s failed prohibition of cannabis. As governments work to minimize the negative impacts of COVID-19, it’s clear that punitive cannabis laws and unnecessarily strict regulations serve as far more of a hindrance than a help. Some police departments and prosecutors have already determined that prosecuting low-level offenses such as cannabis possession is counterproductive and puts police, prosecutors and the public at risk. For example, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby ordered her staff to dismiss pending criminal charges against anyone arrested for drug possession and several other nonviolent offenses. Meanwhile, news reports from other jurisdictions indicate that arrests for cannabis possession have continued, increasing the risk of exposure to coronavirus both for cannabis consumers and enforcement personnel and undermining health experts’ advice regarding the need for social distancing. It would be a disaster if the coronavirus becomes prevalent in America’s overcrowded jails and prisons. Criminal justice reform organizations have called for the release of low-risk inmates such as those convicted of cannabis offenses. This step should be taken as swiftly as possible to protect all staff and inmates at correctional facilities. In the 11 states where cannabis is already legal for adults, interaction among law enforcement and consumers has already dropped considerably, so fewer steps are likely to be needed. The other 39 states should immediately suspend enforcement and prosecution of cannabis laws for the duration of the national emergency. Not only does it protect public health, it also avoids wasting limited law enforcement and court resources during a crisis. We must also consider the challenge faced by roughly three million medical cannabis patients across the U.S. Many have vulnerable immune systems due to age or a serious medical condition, putting them in the high-risk category with regard to COVID-19. Although medical cannabis is legal in 33 states, many states have restrictive policies that frustrate patients who are seeking to avoid exposure to the coronavirus. For example, some states forbid deliveries of medical cannabis and others maintain criminal penalties against home cultivation. Fortunately, several states have already adopted emergency measures to ensure that patients are protected. New York, Iowa and other states have designated medical cannabis dispensaries as essential services to ensure their continued operation during the crisis. Louisiana took swift action to allow deliveries, and Michigan is allowing curbside pickup at dispensaries so patients do not have to enter the building. A few states have begun allowing patients to renew their certifications via telemedicine rather than continuing to require a visit to a doctor. These are all worthy reforms that should be enacted in all states that have legalized medical cannabis. Finally, as we dare to look beyond the crisis, it seems clear that states with legal cannabis markets will have a significant advantage over other states as the economy recovers from this pandemic. More than 200,000 Americans already work in the state-legal cannabis industry, demonstrating that cannabis can be an important job creator and driver of economic development in addition to being sensible public policy and a source of substantial tax revenue.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Thursday that it has approved two additional state hemp regulatory plans, as well as three more tribal proposals. Florida and Kansas are the latest states to have their plans federally accepted, raising the number of state approvals so far to 16. The Blackfeet Nation, the Cayuga Nation and the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa also had their plans signed off on. USDA has been accepting plans on a rolling basis since hemp and its derivatives were federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill. Last month, South Carolina and West Virginia joined the list of states where proposed regulations for the crop were approved. “After months of incorporating feedback from the public, growers, and industry stakeholders, we are thrilled that Florida’s hemp industry officially begins now,” Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried said in a press release. ” I thank the USDA for their swift review and approval of our state hemp program.” “By working closely with our farmers, processors, retailers, and consumers, Florida’s state hemp program will become a model for the nation, will set a gold standard for this emerging industry, and will create billions in economic opportunity for Florida,” she said. “As our economy deals with the impacts of COVID-19, this approval will give our agriculture industry a new alternative crop for many years to come.” Jeff Ochampaugh of the Kansas Department of Agriculture said in a release that the development is “great news for Kansas, as it moves us one step closer to establishing a commercial program for industrial hemp.” He added that it’s “important for Kansans to understand, though, that our program won’t be active until the regulations are adopted.” USDA said in a notice that it “continues to receive and review hemp production plans from states and Indian tribes.” While the agency released an interim final rule for a domestic hemp production program last year, industry stakeholders and lawmakers have expressed concerns about certain policies it views as excessively restrictive. The department announced in February that it will temporarily lift two provisions that the industry viewed as problematic. Those policies primarily concern testing and disposal requirements. The department declined to revise the THC limit, however, arguing that it’s a statutory matter that can’t be dealt with administratively. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has said on several occasions that the Drug Enforcement Administration influenced certain rules, adding that the narcotics agency wasn’t pleased with the overall legalization of hemp.
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April 15, 2020
Missouri Activists Officially End 2020 Marijuana Legalization Campaign Due To Coronavirus
A campaign to legalize marijuana in Missouri is officially ending its bid for the November ballot due to the coronavirus outbreak. While activists acknowledged last month that there was “no practical way” to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot since in-person collection was suspended as officials have shuttered many businesses and encouraged social distancing measures, they teamed up with other campaigns to explore alternative avenues to success such as pushing for electronic signature gathering. But Missourians for a New Approach ultimately determined that it wasn’t feasible and they would have to aim to for a future election cycle. “It was always a long shot, especially in Missouri, but we believed in the importance of exploring every avenue, given the strong support in the state for cannabis legalization,” Graham Boyd, director of the national New Approach PAC, which was a major funder of the state effort, wrote in an email to supporters on Tuesday. “New Approach PAC covered the cost of all the legal work exploring the e-signature alternative in Missouri, but now with less than four weeks left before the constitutionally mandated deadline, we’re simply out of time and options,” he said. “The 2020 cannabis legalization campaign in Missouri cannot continue.” A total of 160,199 valid signatures from registered voters were needed in order to qualify the measure for this year’s ballot, and as of last month, the campaign said it had collected about 80,000 raw signatures. It’s uncertain how many of those would have been deemed valid. Activists officially started signature gathering for the Missouri campaign in January. The proposed initiative would have allowed adults 21 and older possess and purchase cannabis from licensed retailers and cultivate up to three plants for personal use. Additionally, it would have imposed a 15 percent tax on marijuana sales, with revenue going toward veterans services, substance misuse treatment and infrastructure projects. Individuals with cannabis convictions would have been empowered to petition for resentencing or expungements. “We’ve seen tremendous excitement from across the state for ending the prohibition of adult-use marijuana,” John Payne, campaign manager for Missourians for a New Approach, told Marijuana Moment. “Missourians support taxing and regulating marijuana in order to give law enforcement additional resources to focus on serious crime. Eleven other states, including our neighbors in Illinois, are currently reaping the tax revenue from regulated marijuana that we know would be so beneficial to the Show-Me-State.”
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April 15, 2020
Marijuana lobby presses for coronavirus relief funds
The cannabis lobby is flexing its muscle in Washington and seeking aid for small businesses in the next coronavirus relief package. The marijuana industry has already found help at the state level. Twenty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are allowing medical cannabis dispensaries to remain open during the pandemic, and eight states allow both licensed recreational and medical cannabis dispensaries to operate. Cannabis groups are pushing for more states to allow legal marijuana markets to remain open and are seeking funds in state aid packages. But the push for help from Washington, where the federal government still classifies marijuana as a controlled substance, has so far failed to make headway. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a $2.2 trillion stimulus package passed by Congress in March, prohibits businesses engaged in cannabis-related activity from receiving any small business loans. Cannabis groups say that is unfair and are pushing to change that in the next aid package. “Cannabis businesses are dealing with the exact same thing that other businesses are dealing with in terms of employee protection, maintaining payroll ... all on top of the onerous financial burdens that cannabis businesses already face,” said Morgan Fox, National Cannabis Industry Association media relations director. Cannabis lobbying groups wrote a letter to governors last week to urge them to provide loans at the state level and to push their congressional delegations to include them in the next federal relief package. Fox said the association has heard that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) are working out language to allow cannabis companies to receive small-business loans. Pelosi’s office did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment, but Perlmutter said he is hopeful it will happen. “I plan to keep pushing to ensure the cannabis industry has the ability to be eligible for SBA [Small Business Administration] relief funds during this COVID-19 crisis. I have spoken to House leadership about this matter and I’m hopeful in one of the next two packages we can get this done,” Perlmutter told The Hill. The National Association of Cannabis Businesses (NACB) is also working toward relief for pot shops. “We’re very favorable towards utilizing stimulus funds or recovery funds and opening those to cannabis businesses. I know that’s problematic because of the status of cannabis, but there are people who think there are ways they can get it done, and I think Pelosi’s looking at that,” Mark Gorman, NACB chief operating officer, told The Hill. The industry groups have also turned to K Street for help. Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck has been working on behalf of the Cannabis Trade Federation to lobby Congress to find ways to help cannabis companies access aid in the CARES Act. “There is a very robust conversation happening in the House right now about how to help these companies going forward,” Brownstein’s Melissa Kuipers Blake said. The GOP-controlled Senate will be a harder sell. In 2019, marijuana business advocates had high hopes for passing legislation that would allow financial institutions to finally do business with cannabis businesses that were legal in the states. The House passed legislation in September that would allow banks to finally work with cannabis businesses, but the bill failed to move in the Senate.
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April 15, 2020
Virginia Governor Urges Medical Marijuana Expansion As Amendment To Recently Approved Bill
Virginia’s medical marijuana law has been a source of confusion and frustration for reform advocates given the restrictive definitions of which cannabis products patients can access and the limited legal protections afforded to them. But under legislation approved by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) this week, the issue is being addressed. While considering a bill expanding the number of cannabis dispensing facilities in the state that lawmakers sent to his desk, the governor has recommended an amendment to revise the language in a way that advocates say will expand patient access. Patients who participate in the state’s medical cannabis program will also benefit from a separate piece of legislation that Northam signed, which formally legalizes medical marijuana preparations—as opposed to the prior policy that simply offered patients an affirmative defense in court following police encounters. This is in addition to a marijuana decriminalization bill that was also recently approved—but is also subject to another vote because the governor similarly recommended several amendments. Advocates expect the legislature to approve all of the governor’s proposed changes later this month. The medical cannabis expansion amendment to the dispensary bill would strike language concerning the definition of products that can be dispensed to patients and replace it with a more expansive description. Originally, “cannabidiol oil or THC-A oil” that contains at least 15 percent CBD or THC-A and a maximum five percent THC was covered under the program. But the governor’s proposal would change that language to instead cover “cannabis oil” that “contains at least five milligrams of cannabidiol (CBD) or tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THC-A) and no more than 10 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol per dose.” Reform advocates celebrated the action, as it moves Virginia closer to being what they consider to having an effective or comprehensive medical marijuana law—albeit one that’s still far more restrictive than those in many other states that allow patients to access a wide range of cannabis products, including flower. “No one should be subject to criminal penalties for participating in state-sanctioned healthcare,” Jenn Michelle Pedini, NORML’s development director who also serves as executive director of Virginia NORML, told Marijuana Moment. “Fortunately, SB1015 and SB976 greatly improve and expand Virginia’s medical cannabis program, providing explicit legal protections for participants, and ensuring patients have access to a wide range of popular formulations.” Olivia Naugle, legislative coordinator with the Marijuana Policy Project, told Marijuana Moment that Northam’s recommended amendment “will further expand patients’ access to the medicine they need.” “If enacted, this legislation would give patients a greater variety of product to best treat their conditions, and allow for more locations across Virginia to dispense medical cannabis products to patients,” she said. “We encourage the legislature to approve the governor’s recommendation.” The legislature is tentatively scheduled to convene on April 22 to consider this and various other proposals from the governor, though the voting process may be complicated by the coronavirus outbreak. According to advocates, these modest victories this year will set the stage for comprehensive legalization during an upcoming session. Part of the process of getting there involves a working group study on the impact of legalization for the state—something that was set in motion by the decriminalization bill—as well as a separate approved resolution directing the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission to also review the issue. That said, Northam did recommend another amendment on the decriminalization legislation that concerns the legalization study. He proposed delaying the deadline for the working group to submit a report on its recommendations from November 30, 2020 to November 30, 2021. Insiders say that the legislature tends not to act on bold reform without first seeing the results of a formal study.
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Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring says the state will become “a more fair, just, and equal place” now that simple possession of marijuana will be decriminalized. Democratic Governor Ralph Northam signed the decriminalization legislation into law over the weekend. The new law scraps criminal charges for simple possession of marijuana and creates a $25 civil penalty. It also creates a work group to study the impact of legalization of marijuana and eventually release a report on the matter. Supporters have argued the measure is needed in part because African Americans are disproportionately charged with drug crimes. A measure to legalize marijuana failed earlier this year. “Decriminalization is an incredibly important first step, and one that many thought we may never see in Virginia, but we cannot stop until we have legal and regulated adult use,” Herring said in a statement.
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Illinois farmers produced 2.3 million pounds of industrial hemp in the first year of legal cultivation in decades, state officials said. The Illinois Department of Agriculture began issuing hemp-production permits last spring after production was legalized. Of 651 licenses granted, 514 planted at least one acre. Nearly three-quarters of the acreage planted was harvested. Hemp is related to marijuana and even though the psychoactive chemical THC is much lower than it is in marijuana, hemp was illegal from the 1940s until Illinois legalized it in 2018. “The department has been diligently working to open markets for growers to sell their hemp," Agriculture director Jerry Costello said. "We recently developed a policy allowing licensed hemp growers to sell product to licensed cannabis cultivators for use in medical and adult-use cannabis products.”
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April 14, 2020
Growing hemp is a new option for struggling Florida farmers. Licenses go online soon.
During a time of historic economic disruption and agricultural turmoil in Florida due to the novel coronavirus, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried says there’s a newer, greener reason for farmers to be hopeful. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is poised to green-light Florida’s hemp program as early as this week, clearing the way for farmers to apply for cultivation licenses and for other hemp-adjacent businesses to get involved in processing and selling the product. “Our state needs hope, and this is some of that hope,” she told the Miami Herald Monday. The Florida Department of Agriculture has been sending draft hemp rules back and forth with USDA for months, making final tweaks and incorporating feedback from public comment periods. The final plan was submitted to the USDA last Thursday and will be approved any day now. “They are excited to have our rule and give us the green light,” said Fried, whose office has been working closely with the federal agency. Fried and Cannabis Director Holly Bell say they hope to see applications come online by April 27, opening up opportunities to all Floridians. Fried said they will be efficient and quick in getting the hemp program up and running. “[USDA] is anticipating our rules being the gold standard for the country,” she said. Hopeful hemp growers will be able to fill out an application on the Department of Agriculture website and will be approved after a fingerprint scan and background check, Bell said. The only Floridians restricted from getting a permit are those who have been convicted of a narcotics felony — including marijuana charges — in the past 10 years. The permits won’t come with any fees, Bell noted.
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