Photo: Anti/LAist |
Photo: Anti/LAist |
Graphic: KFBB |
With the next session just months away, Republican legislators are getting ready for a battle to ban medical marijuana in Montana, spurred by an explosion in the number of patients in the state.
KXLH |
Rest in peace, Lori Burnam, 66, of Missoula, Montana. Lori was suffering from emphysema and advanced cancer |
President Elect Donald Trump selected Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has repeatedly sued the agency to block anti-pollution laws. While this might be seen as support for states’ rights — and by extension the marijuana industry — Mark Joseph Stern at Slate calls Pruitt “ one of the phoniest federalists in the GOP.”
In particular, Pruitt joined Nebraska in suing Colorado over the state’s REC industry. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, retired Marine General John F. Kelly, opposes legalization saying that it increases health care costs and crime, and that the state experiments with it open the U.S. to accusations of hypocrisy from Latin American nations. Kelly is open to the plant having medical benefits.
It also emerged that Jim O’Neill, a Silicon Valley investor who Marijuana.com describes as a “ Marijuana legalization activist,” could be tapped to lead the Food and Drug Administration. O’Neill is neither a doctor or scientist, typical credentials for the position. For more see here.
Marijuana entrepreneurs want Trump to see them as “ job creators,” Forbes reports.
The New York Observer, which is owned by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, called for rescheduling.
In an effort to protect marijuana laws under the Trump administration, Colorado is cracking down on home growers. The state is poised to surpass 3,000 licensed businesses next year.
What attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R) means for state-legal pot business remains the big green question. In an in-depth piece, Politico says Sessions could easily “ ignore the will of millions of pro-pot voters” and crack down. Time lists seven reasons Trump is unlikely to go after the industry.
The Sessions hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 10 and 11.
Pro-cannabis group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is petitioning the Justice Department to correct what ASA says is incorrect or misleading information about cannabis on the DEA web site. ASA is represented pro-bono by the major San Francisco law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
Though he’s promised to legalize next year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he still wants police to prosecute dispensaries. His pro-pot supporters feel “cheated.”
Canadian producer Cronos Group will work with First Nations groups in Canada to help them join the cannabis economy.
An upcoming March ballot measure for regulating the industry in Los Angeles raises many questions.
A Democratic state Senator in Texas introduced a “longshot” MED bill. Virginia Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R), asked for a study of how the state’s cannabis laws might be changed.Tennessee could also be in play.
Oregon took emergency steps to lower the testing burden on growers, but the industry is skeptical.
REC opponents in Maine were accused of not providing enough volunteers for a recount of the recent vote. A judge ruled that following the recent vote, MED dispensaries in Montana can reopen immediately.
Maryland named 102 pre-approved dispensary license winners. In New York, licensees are worried about competition in the relatively small market.
Guam is implementing a MED program. Dusseldorf, Germany is on the path to legalization.
Here’s your daily dose of cannabis news from the newsletter WeedWeek:
On a conference call with reporters this week, Bill Piper, the Drug Policy Alliance’s Senior Director of National Affairs, discussed the nomination of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions (R) for U.S. Attorney General:
“Civil rights groups point out that Sen. Sessions has been one of the Senate’s most extreme voices on issues affecting immigrants, Muslims, African-Americans, Latinos, Women and the LGBT community. He has a long record of obstructing civil rights.
“He was deemed unfit to be a Federal judge in 1986 and I believe he will be deemed unfit to be U.S. Attorney General when the Senate looks at his history and record during confirmation hearings next year.”
Following Piper, representatives from LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, theCouncil on American-Islamic Relations, and the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, and the Cato Institute—“massive, massive privacy concerns” – each discussed what Attorney General Sessions could mean for criminal justice and civil liberties.
As Piper writes in a blog post, it isn’t clear how state-legal marijuana businesses would be affected if Sessions wins confirmation:
We can start by taking a hard look at our movement and the marijuana industry we have created. If groups draft legalization laws that ignore racial justice, we need to call them out. If dispensaries, marijuana magazines or other marijuana businesses objectify and demean women to sell their products, or if they exclude people of color, we need to call them out. It is long past time to clean up our own house.”
The Christian Science Monitor tries to parse how or if AG Sessions will go after the industry. So does The Hill. “Pot policy in the U.S. is up in the air,” Brookings Institution scholar John Hudak tells the NYTimes.
Cannabis business lawyer Hilary Bricken shares her views at Above the Law. More from LAist, andMarijuana.com.
Pro-pot activist and journalist Tom Angell told Buzzfeed, “From a political lens, I think reversing course on [marijuana]and trying to shut down broadly popular state laws, that’s going to be a huge distraction from all the other things they care a lot more about,” Angell said. “It’s a fight that they don’t want to pick.”
To put this differently, unlike going after undocumented immigrants or Muslims, an attempt to crush the legal marijuana industry would likely have political consequences for a Republican administration.
If Sessions doesn’t realize it already, he’ll soon learn that gutting the REC and MED industry would require opposing state Legislatures in Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and going against the will of voters in states including Florida, Arkansas, Nevada, Colorado, Montana and North Dakota. It would mean killing tens of thousands of jobs, and perhaps prosecuting White, media-savvy, cannabis executives, who can afford good lawyers.
Trump did not make a return to prohibition central to his campaign — his support for MED has beenrelatively consistent – and for a president who wants to win re-election, it’s hard to see much if any upside for him in a widespread crackdown. Given these uncertainties, there is a case for the industry to keep its head-down and hope President Trump has other priorities.
There is also a case for action.
In important respects, the marijuana industry is a marginalized community. But unlike other marginalized groups, marijuana is also a thriving industry, one expected to generate more than $6 billion in revenue this year.
During the Obama years, the marijuana industry has obtained the resources and geographic scope to make the Sessions confirmation a fiercely contested battle, and perhaps even defeat him. To do so, Republican Senators, especially those from legal states, need to understand that a vote for Sessions will cast a long shadow over their political futures.
For more than two years, cannabis executives have been telling me that this industry isn’t just about getting high and getting rich, that it’s rooted in struggles for health and justice. The Sessions nomination is the test of that commitment. If industry leaders don’t fight when other groups –including those that include colleagues, friends and customers — appear far more vulnerable, it’s hard to see how this industry stands for anything except its own enrichment. If the industry doesn’t fight now, who will stand up for it if political realities shift and legal cannabis emerges as a primary target?
He’s not the only one.
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
Dennis Peron, the celebrated cannabis activist and backer of 1996’s Proposition 215, which legalized MED in California, opposes the state’s coming REC vote. “In 1996, it was like a dark room had been left for so long without any light. I let a little light in. A light of compassion, hope and empowerment. We empowered the patients and the voters and the people that don’t believe marijuana is a crime,” Peron said. “But Prop. 64 will destroy that power that we’ve had for the last 20 years.”
Irvine, Calif.-based Weedmaps is full of bogus dispensary reviews, according to an investigation by the L.A. Times.
Reporter Paresh Dave looked at nearly 600 businesses reviewed on the site and found that 70% included reviews submitted from a single IP address (i.e. a single computer). A textual analysis found that 62% of reviews on the site are “fake.”
Weedmaps, a Yelp-like service with operations in several states, had stored the IP addresses of anonymous reviewers, in its publicly available code. A Weedmaps executive said the 62% figure is far too high, and emphasized that reviews are only part of the product.
Legal weed. |
Denver’s Westword newspaper was on the ground in Colorado yesterday for “Green Wednesday”, scouting out several recreational cannabis shops and purchasing some legal green to enjoy recreationally. Below, check out one account of buying herb at The Clinic early on in the day.
As of 4:45 New Years Eve, The Clinic wasn’t going to open for recreational sales today. But some last-minute scrambling, pleading and begging got them through the process enough to legally open their doors this morning at 8 a.m. The crowd was minimal at that point, with a lone would-be customer who drove all night from Montana outnumbered by a few reporters sensible enough to avoid the media circus at other dispensaries (we got reports that cameramen were openly cursing each other well before 8 a.m. at Denver’s 3-D).
Pot.tv |
Aaron Sandusky faces 10 years to life in federal prison. He will be sentenced next month. |
Fins Technology |