After several stalled attempts, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and top lawmakers say a deal to legalize marijuana for adult use is closer than ever before. The Democratic governor and legislative leaders have all told reporters in recent days that negotiations over a marijuana-legalization bill have resulted in major progress. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, said a deal is "extremely close." “We have continued to ... have negotiations and really have ironed out a lot of what we think would be important in terms of making sure we do this right," she said. The impasse right now is over marijuana use as it relates to impaired driving, said Stewart-Cousins. But she added: “I’m optimistic that it will be resolved sooner rather than later.” Word of an impending deal comes amid recent polling showing broad support of marijuana legalization in New York. In March, a Siena College poll found that nearly 60% of New York voters who responded supported legalizing recreational marijuana. About 30% opposed it and 8% said they either had no opinion or did not know. In New York, some earlier proposals for marijuana legalization were stymied as pro-cannabis activists and Democratic lawmakers said that Cuomo had rejected measures to ensure enough money went to communities of color disproportionately harmed by enforcement of marijuana prohibition. Sweeping legalization has also seen opposition from law enforcement, physicians and educational groups. But New York still approved a law decriminalizing small amounts of possession of marijuana in 2019.
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The legalization of adult use recreational cannabis may soon receive funding. Included in the New York State Budget is funding to create the Office of Cannabis Management, which is a needed first step in legalization. Local experts say a standalone bill to legalize cannabis could be voted on as early as next week, which has potential growers excited for the future. "It gives opportunities to micro businesses, on terms consumption, at-home delivery, its really a great bill for industry," Castetter Cannabis Group CEO Kaelan Castetter told 12 News Tuesday. "It also takes into account equity applicants, economic equity, social equity or disadvantaged farmers," he said. Castetter says he'd expect commercial purchases to be available by the end of 2021 or next year if the legalization bill is passed.
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It's been a wild ride toward legalized marijuana in South Dakota. In the November election, South Dakota voters approved two separate measures to do away with the state's nearly century-old prohibition on pot. Initiated Measure 26 legalized medical marijuana with about 70% of ballots cast in favor. At the same time, Constitutional Amendment A to legalize recreational marijuana also earned support from a majority of South Dakotans, with about 54% of all ballots cast favoring the end of pot prohibition in the state. But a future in South Dakota with legalized marijuana quickly came under fire by Gov. Kristi Noem, who used the courts to block recreational marijuana and the influence of her office to pressure the Legislature to stand in the way of medical marijuana. Today, IM 26 stands to take effect this summer, and Constitutional Amendment A is tied up in court. Barring a special session of the state Legislature and subsequent action, legal medical marijuana will become a reality in about 100 days. Based on codified law currently on the South Dakota rule books, the Department of Health has 180 days, or six months, from July 1 to open up an application process for both medical marijuana cards and licenses for both commercial growers and sellers of medical cannabis.
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March 16, 2021
The Data On Legalizing Weed
Last month, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed three bills making it official: marijuana will soon be growing legally in the gardens of the Garden State for anyone over 21 to enjoy. The bills follow through on a marijuana legalization ballot initiative that New Jerseyans approved overwhelmingly last year. New Jersey is now one of a dozen states, plus the District of Columbia, which have let loose the magic dragon — and more states, like Virginia, may be on the way. It's been almost a decade since Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana. That's given economists and other researchers enough time to study the effects of the policy. Here are some of the most interesting findings: Legalization didn't seem to substantially affect crime rates — Proponents of legalizing weed claimed it would reduce violent crimes. Opponents said it would increase violent crimes. A study by the CATO Institute finds, "Overall, violent crime has neither soared nor plummeted in the wake of marijuana legalization." Legalization seems to have little or no effect on traffic accidents and fatalities — Opponents of marijuana legalization argued it would wreak havoc on the road. A few studies have found that's not the case. Economists Benjamin Hansen, Keaton S. Miller & Caroline Weber, for instance, found evidence suggesting it had no effect on trends in traffic fatalities in both Colorado and Washington.
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March 16, 2021
It's completely legal, but still the hemp industry has trouble finding banks — here's why
The legal marijuana industry’s struggle to find banks willing to offer loans and account services was widely reported when states legalized the drug for recreational and medicinal purposes in recent years. Marijuana’s opaque legal status — it remains prohibited under federal law — means most financial institutions won't touch it. But those troubles also extend to hemp, which also comes from the cannabis plant and found itself in similarly murky legal terrain until the 2018 Farm Bill fully legalized the crop. Ohio lifted its hemp prohibition in 2019. Even so, hemp farmers and processors say they have to call dozens of banks before they find one willing to loan money or let them open an account. The few financial institutions willing to serve hemp growers and entrepreneurs generally charge higher fees.
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March 15, 2021
New Mexico hits stalemate on cannabis legalization
State legislators are at a stalemate regarding popular efforts to legalize marijuana in New Mexico with less than a week remaining to send a bill the governor. A state Senate panel pulled cannabis discussions off its agenda minutes before a Sunday hearing. Legislators are searching for common ground among advocates for legalization who say the industry would help New Mexico’s economic recovery from the pandemic. Divergent views on marijuana taxation, licensing and pardon procedures for past convictions are complicating efforts to bring a final bill to a crucial Senate vote. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has set cannabis legalization as a high priority this year as her administration looks for new sources of employment as an antidote to high rates of poverty. In one camp, Republican state Sen. Cliff Pirtle of Roswell is advocating for a streamlined approach to taxation and regulation aimed at stamping out the illicit market for marijuana and providing easy entry for entrepreneurs. Successful legislation also is likely to include social justice provisions within a House-approved bill from Democratic state Rep. Javier Martínez of Albuquerque that emphasizes aid to communities adversely affected by marijuana criminalization. The House-backed bill provides automated pardon and expungement procedures for past marijuana possession charges and convictions. It also would set aside public funds in the future to to underwrite vocation training for cannabis workers, education to prevent substance abuse, and an array of social services in communities battered by policing against illicit drugs. Legislators have until the close of the regular annual legislative session at noon on March 20 to send bills to the governor. Several diehard opponents to legalization were ousted from the state Senate in 2020 elections.
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Marijuana may be legal in New Jersey now, but Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian is pushing to keep weed out of the family-oriented beach town. Gillian introduced an ordinance on Thursday to City Council that would prohibit marijuana sales and cultivation anywhere in Ocean City. Council voted unanimously in favor of the ordinance, and next there will be a public hearing and a final vote on April 8. The move comes just weeks after the state of New Jersey legalized recreational marijuana use for people 21 and older. Council members opposed to New Jersey's legalization law say it will bring more people to the beaches to smoke pot and encourages underage consumption. This ordinance would replace a similar one banning marijuana in the city that passed two years ago, when politicians in Trenton were previously trying to legalize recreational marijuana. Ocean City's original ordinance became invalid – as were similar pot-sales prohibitions in dozens of other New Jersey towns– after Gov. Phil Murphy signed the new pot bills into state law Feb. 22, the Press of Atlantic City reported. "I have asked City Council to adopt a new ordinance to reinstate these prohibitions," Gillian wrote in his Friday update on March 5. "The new legislation gives municipalities 180 days to do so." Ocean City's ordinance, in addition to prohibiting the sales and cultivation of pot, would also stop the sale of marijuana paraphernalia.
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Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes is confident recreational marijuana will be legalized in New York during this legislative session. “I'm actually more confident than I have been in the past,” said Peoples-Stokes. In years past, the assemblywoman has proposed bills to legalized marijuana, but all died before being approved. In 2020, the bill was pushed back for more pressing legislation concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. “I've just finished with a few phone calls from staff that are still in the process of negotiating both with the senate staff, as well as the governor's team,” said Peoples-Stokes with how active negotiations are with the bill. While she believes this bill will help future entrepreneurs, she is more concerned with the legislation helping the people who have already been criminal prosecuted for low-level drug offenses. “It will provide opportunities to invest in the lives of literally thousands of people, whose lives have been negatively impacted by incarceration. All social scientists will tell you that when people are incarcerated it has a negative impact on your children, on their families, and clearly on their communities where they live,” added People-Stokes.
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March 12, 2021
Mexico’s move to greenlight marijuana may pressure Biden
Mexico is on the verge of creating the world’s largest legal marijuana market, a move that could pressure President Joe Biden to embrace weed, too. Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies passed landmark legislation Thursday morning, ahead of a April 30 deadline set by the country's Supreme Court to legalize recreational sales. The Senate is expected to back the bill in the coming days. “It’s historic,” said Luis Armendáriz, a cannabis attorney with the Hoban Law Group who works with companies that are looking to enter the Mexican market. “You have the end of prohibition of more than 100 years.” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose party strongly backs the proposal, is expected to sign the bill, sandwiching the U.S. between the world's two biggest legal marijuana markets. With a population of nearly 130 million people, Mexico would become the largest country in the world to legalize cannabis at the national level. By comparison, the two other countries that already took that step — Canada (37.6 million) and Uruguay (3.4 million) — have a combined population that adds up to less than a third of Mexico's. The specter of legal marijuana markets on the United States' northern and southern borders is expected to put new pressure on the federal government to loosen restrictions on marijuana. "My guess is at some point that drives the push to decriminalize or legalize,“ said Andrew Rudman, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, pointing out that a majority of U.S. House members now represent states with legal markets. "I think Mexico probably gives more impetus to something that might have happened anyways.”
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March 12, 2021
McKee proposes legalizing recreational marijuana
Gov. Dan McKee is proposing to legalize recreational marijuana use in his budget for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. The program would roll out with 25 retail-store licenses offered in the first year — the winning businesses determined by lottery — with five of those licenses set aside for qualifying minority businesses. (Dozens of additional store licenses would be offered in future years based on market demand.) The governor’s plan would add a 10% cannabis tax on top of the state’s regular 7% sales tax on all purchases. And it would also tax those retail stores’ suppliers — the state’s 60 or so licensed cultivators — based on the weight of product they grow. The Office of Cannabis Regulation within the Department of Business Regulation would license private business applicants and enforce compliance with the state’s packaging, labeling, security and safety requirements for marijuana products. (A separate legalization plan, put forth this week by Senate leaders, would create an appointed five-member Cannabis Control Commission that would regulate the new industry, including determining who qualified for retail licenses.) Once the program is fully ramped up, McKee’s budget predicts that recreational, or “adult use” of marijuana in Rhode Island would generate $16.9 million in various taxes in fiscal year 2023. The plan would also create a “Cannabis Reinvestment Task Force,” which would make recommendations on how marijuana revenues could be used in job training, providing capital for small businesses, and community development in such areas of affordable housing and health equity.
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