Emmett Reistroffer was one of the authors of Initiative 300 and worked on the campaign to get the social-use ordinance passed last November. Now the event planner and policy consultant for Denver Relief Consulting serves on the city’s Social Use Advisory Committee. We sat down with Reistroffer to chat about social use, the first committee meeting, and what he thinks about how the process is going.
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It’s part of a whole PR campaign.
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Ahead of his confirmation hearing for Attorney General, a public relations campaign is trying to depict Sen. Jeff Sessions as emphatically not a racist. He has long been dogged by such accusations, due in part to a statement that he was ok with the Ku Klux Klan, until he heard that they smoke pot.
Rolling Stone envisions the war on drugs under Attorney General Sessions.
Oregon is revising its product testing rules again, following complaints from companies. Nevada companies call for strict product testing.
The Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) reports on “ progress and hurdles” in the New York MED program. For more see here.
Maine REC opponents cancelled their recall effort. Gov. Paul LePage (R) said that with REC there’s no longer a need for a MED program. A prominent New Hampshire state senator will propose a REC bill.
Canada.com looks at how legalization up north could alter Canadian/American relations.
An Arizona judge ruled that local officials can’t use federal law to block MED dispensaries.
The city of Copenhagen is pursuing a longshot legalization push in an effort to reduce gang warfare.
Caribbean nation Dominica will consider MED legalization next year.
Denver cannabis law firm Hoban Law Group may sue the DEA over its recent CBD ruling.
Purdue Pharma, which makes Oxycontin, is expanding overseas. In the U.S., the L.A. Times remarks, opioids are a “dying business.”
Hound Labs and Cannabix Technologies are racing to perfect a cannabis breathalyzer.
Boston is another potential “ cannabis capital.” Canadian businesses are preparing for legalization.
CBD pet treats are becoming big business.
Older adults are using more cannabis, and binge drinking more too. Cannabis use may not be a good idea for those seeking long-term abatement of depression and anxiety, Colorado researchers found.
Modern Farmer hangs out with Bear Real, a Colorado hemp scientist.
It also said other drug problems are more pressing.
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In a report, the DEA said media attention is making it more difficult to prosecute marijuana offenders.
Ferrell Scott, sentenced to life without parole for possession and conspiracy to sell marijuana, was denied clemency by President Obama.
Charles “Eddy” Lepp, “a defiant 64-year-old Vietnam vet and ordained Rastafarian minister” was released after serving eight years in federal prison for growing.
Two pieces in The Guardian examine the human toll of Mexico’s decade-old, U.S. supported drug war
A New York Times photojournalist documented dozens of homicide victims of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war. The Duterte administration defended its record to Reuters.
Big deal political thinker Ian Bremmer tweeted that Duterte wants to advise Trump on drug policy.
The activist New Jersey Weedman, who faces cannabis charges, compared himself to a “ prisoner at Guantanamo.”
Leafly tells the stories of Sam Caldwell and Moses Baca, “ drug war prisoners 1 & 2,” in 1937. Both were apprehended in Denver. It also cites the work of a “48-year old drug felon and autodidactic cannabis historian who goes by the pen name “Uncle Mike,” maintains a site at UncleMikesResearch.com.
Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, said he tried MED for his back pain. It didn’t help him but he took a strong stand in favor of it for athletes:
“If you’re an NFL player, in particular, and you got lot of pain, I don’t think there’s any question that pot is better for your body than Vicodin,” Kerr, 51, said. “And yet, athletes everywhere are prescribed Vicodin like it’s Vitamin C, like it’s no big deal. And there’s like this perception in our country that over-the-counter drugs are fine but pot is bad. Now, I think that’s changing.”
The comment got attention and he later added to his remarks. Kerr said the NBA should explore MED for pain relief. New York Knicks president and celebrated coach Phil Jackson said he’d also used MED for pain adding, “I don’t think we have been able to stop it in the NBA. I think it still goes on and is still a part of the culture in the NBA. I think it is something that we either have to accommodate or figure out another way to deal with it.”
Forbes has more on the science of athletes and MED.
Vice asked budtenders about their worst customers. They’re not fond of weed snobs and scary types. The Cannabist serves up 10 budtender commandments, including “Thou Shalt Not Be Too High.”
The Pantone Color Institute, picked Greenery as the color of 2017.
The AP visits Malana, India, a Himalayan village that depends on cannabis. Uruguay will host a cannabis museum.
A bestseller in Germany and the U.K. says the Nazis ingested huge amounts of meth, and that Hitler was an opiate addict. “Blitzed,” will be published here in April.
The industry is worried.
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President-elect Donald Trump nominated anti-pot hardliner Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama (R) for Attorney General. At a Senate hearing in April 2016, Sessions said that ‘we need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it’s in fact a very real danger.’
“I think one of [Obama’s] great failures, it’s obvious to me, is his lax treatment in comments on marijuana,” Sessions said at the hearing. “It reverses 20 years almost of hostility to drugs that began really when Nancy Reagan started ‘Just Say No.’ ”
Lawmakers, he said, have to “send that message with clarity that good people don’t smoke marijuana.”
USNews calls Sessions an “ Existential threat” to state-legal cannabis. Industry leaders are very nervous.
Reason points out that Sessions has an “aversion to civil rights” and gay rights. The U.S. Senate failed to confirm him for a federal judgeship in 1986, amid allegations of what late Senator Ted Kennedy called “racial insensitivity” and “lack of commitment to equal justice under the law.” The New York Times editorializes that the nomination is an “ insult to justice.”
What does a Trump presidency mean for the industry? The transition team isn’t talking. NBC speculates.So does CBS.
The Sessions nomination needs to be approved by the Senate. Have a view you want to share? Contact your Senator.
Before the Sessions pick, the Washington Post’s Radley Balko said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) would also be “ terrifying.”
Before the Sessions pick, anti-legalization activist Kevin Sabet said, “A Trump administration throws everything up in the air… “Is it going to be ‘ states’ rights Trump’ or ‘law-and-order Trump’?”
Marijuana.com’s Tom Angell has launched a petition for Trump to keep his “marijuana pledge” to respect state laws. Even if he doesn’t go after the industry, The Stranger says President Trump will make the industry whiter.
It’s official, Denver will be the first U.S. city to license social use businesses.
After the Massachusetts REC vote, Rhode Island could legalize REC through the legislature. Alaska is setting up a drop box system to collect taxes in cash.
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery (R), said looser cannabis regulations in Memphis and Nashville can’t stand.
Due to a glitch, it appears that MED in California will be tax-free until the state’s REC program begins in 2018.
Some conservatives don’t like that MED patients can’t buy guns.
The president-elect may not be a hardliner, but he’s surrounded himself with them.
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The all-but-final Election Day tally is California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine legalized REC, whileFlorida, Arkansas, and North Dakota legalized MED.
Arizona rejected a REC measure. Montanans voted to allow a MED industry, though it remains contentious.
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R), a legalization opponent and former DEA chief, said the process requires federal input. “It’s an example of the states innovating in a risky area, and certainly the states are leading on this, but we’re to a point that the federal government is going to have to readdress this,” he said. “This does not call for a state-by-state solution, it calls for … a national solution.”
This is an early indication that the cannabis industry will be harder for the Donald Trump administration to ignore than it was for the Obama administration.
Vice president elect Mike Pence (R) has replaced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as head of Trump’s transition team. Both are known for their hardline stances against legalization, as is former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, a possible attorney general in the administration.
Several pieces speculate on what a Trump presidency means for legalization. Here are three: The Cannabist, MJBiz, Reveal (Center for Investigative Reporting).
Drug Policy Alliance head Ethan Nadelmann said, “the federal government retains the power to hobble much of what we’ve accomplished…The progress we’ve made … will be very much at risk when Donald Trump enters the White House.”
Vivian Azer, a stock analyst with Cowen, predicts cannabis will be a low priority for Trump.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D.-Ore.), probably pot’s best friend in Congress, said he thinks the industry’s priorities for banking and tax reform could both pass a Republican Congress under President Trump.
It’s even classified as a chemical weapon.
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Steep Hill, a testing lab, found that 84% of samples tested at its Berkeley facility over a 30-day period tested positive for pesticide residues, more than expected. Alarmingly, about 65% of samples tested positive for Myclobutanil, a common food pesticide that becomes highly toxic when heated.
The company is aware of the situation.
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An Ohio mom has complained to fast food chain Wendy’s after it reportedly served her four-year old daughter fries dusted with pot. The girl said her fries “tasted funny and were yucky.”
Prohibition is part of the international order.
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
As Canada moves to legalize it has two options regarding international treaties to which it is a part. It could take a “ principled stand” against prohibition or quietly withdraw from the treaties and then attempt to re-enter them with exemptions. Canada being Canada, it is leaning towards the quiet approach.
The state’s growing regions can be dangerous.
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
Two women were arrested for detaining four brothers on a California pot farm and forcing them to work for six months. In Colorado, 14 Chinese nationals were arrested at an illegal grow. Authorities are investigating whether they were “labor trafficked.”
In SFWeekly, I recommended that the industry adopt an abuse-free product certification to curtail worker exploitation.
None of them touch the plant.
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Four cannabis companies made the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies. They are the media site Leafly, Apeks Supercritical, a manufacturer of extraction equipment, Marijuana Business Daily, and GrowersHouse.com, an equipment retailer. Inc. spoke to MBD’s Cassandra Farrington “ High priestess of marijuana business intelligence.”
Marijuana Business Daily estimates that tourists in Colorado bought almost $100M worth of REC last year, about 17% of the state total.