U.S. Representative Diana DeGette’s bill to halt federal marijuana prohibition in states where cannabis is legal was introduced on Monday, April 1, but she insists the issue is no joke.
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HBO’s Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, which has become the go-to spot for what is essentially investigative comedy, devoted the lion’s share of its latest episode to a shredding of current federal marijuana laws. And among the stories Oliver used to illustrate his points were several from Colorado.
Central to Oliver’s thesis was the tale of Brandon Coats, whom we first introduced you to back in 2012. That year, as we’ve reported, Coats, a paralyzed medical marijuana patient fired by DISH for failing a drug test, filed a complaint over the issue in Arapahoe District Court. When he lost there, attorney Michael Evans took the case to the Colorado Court of Appeals, where jurists also rejected Coats’s argument. Evans, though, wasn’t ready to give up. He subsequently submitted what he described to us as a final document in an effort to get the Colorado Supreme Court to take on the matter — and in January 2014, the jurists agreed to do so.
After Attorney General Jeff Sessions told an assembly of the country’s attorneys general that state marijuana laws are in violation of federal law, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman came out fighting for this state’s rights.
Coffman, a Republican, said that while the Trump administration’s intentions regarding marijuana are unclear, she plans to uphold the Colorado Constitution — including Amendment 64, which legalized the recreational sale and use of marijuana in 2012.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tied the regulated marijuana industry to opioid addiction last week. At a press briefing, he told reporters: “I think that when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing that we should be doing is encouraging people…. There’s still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.”
Opioid addiction is a well-documented epidemic in the United States; 33,000 people died from overdosing on prescription painkillers, heroin and similar drugs in 2015 — a number on par with those killed by firearms and those who died in car accidents in the same year. But opioid use is down in Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational marijuana.
After White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that we should expect “greater enforcement” of marijuana laws, particularly regarding recreational sales, Colorado politicians responded.
Governor John Hickenlooper appeared on MSNBC on February 24 and then on Meet the Press on February 26 when he was in Washington, D.C., for a governors’ conference. During both appearances, he noted that he did not approve of marijuana legalization when it passed in Colorado, adding that he continues to be wary despite the fact that legal marijuana raked in over $1.3 billion in sales last year in this state alone.
Within minutes of press secretary Sean Spicer’s comment on February 23 that we can expect “greater enforcement” of marijuana laws by the Trump administration, outcries resounded throughout the marijuana industry.
“Over 60 percent of Americans support cannabis legalization. It is one of the few bipartisan issues that actually has the potential to unite us right now. Our country and many of our citizens are still recovering from the devastation of a failed Drug War. It would be a crime to waste any more resources prohibiting adult access to this safe, effective medicine,” says Christie Strong, marketing communications manager for Kiva Confections.
Others warn the administration of a potential legal battle and take some hope in the fact that Spicer has previously made inaccurate statements from the press-secretary podium. “Sean Spicer’s comments on recreational marijuana seem to be a disturbing departure from Trump’s purported position on states’ rights. We will have to see how this plays out. I suspect this issue will end up being litigated at the Supreme Court. Let’s not forget, however, this is the same guy who falsely reported on the attendance at the inauguration,” says Steve Gormley, CEO of Seventh Point LLC.
Danny Davis, managing partner at Convectium, hopes that Spicer’s sentiments are not shared throughout the administration. “We are hopeful that Mr. Spicer’s comments are not representative of the entire administration,” he says. “Many of the states that helped elect President Trump just voted to also support recreational marijuana. It is hard to imagine that he would push an agenda with the support ratings where they are. As an equipment company, we represent both the recreational and medicinal markets, but we would hate to see an action that would stop the current multi-state momentum for recreational.”
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer just gave one of the most direct comments we’ve gotten from the Trump administration regarding marijuana policy. In response to a reporter’s question at a February 23 press briefing, Spicer said he believes we will see “greater enforcement” of federal marijuana laws.
Singapore executed Chijioke Stephen Obioha by hanging. A Nigerian national and football player, Obioha was found with 2.5 kg (5.5 pounds) of marijuana in 2007. According to Singapore law, anyone with more than 500 g is presumed to be trafficking.
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, known as “The Punisher” for his advocacy of vigilante murders,threatened his human rights activist critics.
A Florida county sheriff’s office may have trained drug sniffing dogs with material other than drugs, according to ProPublica. Another ProPublica report led Portland, Ore. to change its policy for the drug tests used in many arrests.
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t take up the case of a Native American church in Hawaii that wants to be exempt for marijuana laws.
A college student who had $11,000 confiscated at the Cincinnati airport after his checked bag smelled of pot, challenged the forfeiture and got his money back.
Seantrel Henderson, a Buffalo Bills offensive lineman, may sue the NFL over his second cannabis suspension of the season. Henderson’s Crohn’s disease forced him to have two and a half feet of his colon removed.
The Bay Area has the country’s highest concentration of cannabis users in the country.
My friend Reilly Capps wrote a story for The Rooster about “ Stoners anonymous.”
A survey found that cannabis is attracting an increasingly upscale clientele.
Anita Thompson, widow of Hunter S. Thompson, wants to market the gonzo journalist’s personal cannabis strains. Skepticism abounds.
The founder of Healing Church, a Catholicism-inflected pot “ministry” in Rhode Island, is involved in abizarre legal situation. If I’m reading this correctly, Anne Armstrong had a vision of cannabis leaves on a six-foot replica of the Virgin of Guadeloupe – an image said to have appeared on a Mexican peasant’s poncho in 1531. Armstrong later obtained and then lost custody of the replica. She also faces a possession charge.
The Stranger put together a cannabis gift guide. It includes weed filled advent calendars and Christmas ornaments. The piece also cites scripture to prove Jesus was a stoner.
Country music legend Loretta Lynn smoked pot for the first time at 84, for her glaucoma. She didn’t like it, but defended Willie Nelson and the right to do it.
A woman in Greensboro, N.C., was “shocked,” in a bad way, when someone mistakenly mailed her four pounds of weed.
The industry is worried.
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek.
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 company applied to trade on NASDAQ earlier this year but was rejected.
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
Social network MassRoots, defaulted on almost $1 million in debt payments and laid off about 40% of its staff, according to SEC filings. This week Chairman and CEO Isaac Dietrich, wrote an upbeat letter to shareholders that did not reference either setback. The company has raised more than $5 million.