WeedLife News Network

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf called for the legalization of recreational marijuana on Tuesday, telling state lawmakers that taxes levied on cannabis sales could be used to fund COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts. As the Democratic governor announced his legislative agenda, Wolf asked the Republican-led legislature to focus on pandemic recovery, government reform, and support for businesses, workers, and families.

“House and Senate Democrats have been fighting for these things for years, and certainly since the beginning of the pandemic,” Wolf said. “They’ve been stopped at every turn by the Republicans who’ve been focused on ignoring the public health crisis and actually trashing me. That has to stop. We’ve got to get back to doing things that actually matter to people.”

“The legislature must come back and take immediate steps to provide funding to frontline workers and businesses, put in place protections for families and our workforce, and make these commonsense reforms that can provide confidence in our government,” he added. “Pennsylvanians need relief, they need reform, and they need it now.”

Wolf specifically called for the legalization of cannabis for adults 21 and older, with the tax revenues raised going to restorative justice programs and funding for existing small business grant programs. Wolf estimated cannabis taxes could raise $90 million for pandemic relief.

“Fifty percent of the funding would be earmarked for historically disadvantaged businesses. Along with the call to the General Assembly to pass legislation legalizing the sale and use of recreational marijuana, the governor proposes that a portion of the revenue be used to further restorative justice programs that give priority to repairing the harm done to crime victims and communities as a result of marijuana criminalization,” Wolf said in a press release.

A Canadian truck driver faces charges in Detroit after border officials at the Fort Street Cargo Facility seized over 1,000 lbs of marijuana on Sunday.

The driver presented a manifest for steel wire destined for a distribution centre in Chicago, but Customs and Border Protection officers got suspicious and sent the truck to secondary inspection.

That’s when they found 1,031 lbs of marijuana hidden in five wooden crates.

“The Port of Detroit is proud to have prevented the exploitation of our borders and the introduction of illicit drugs into our communities,” said Port Director, Devin Chamberlain. “I am equally proud of our CBP Officers and Agriculture Specialists who remain vigilant in their efforts to protect the American people every day.”

While marijuana is legal for personal use in Canada, taking it across the border is illegal. There is also a limit on how much a person can possess. That limit is just 30 grams.

Agriculture officials in New York say federal rules for producing hemp are “unrealistic.” The state also said they won’t try to regulate the crop. Hemp farmers say they will have to be very careful without support from the state.

Legal hemp is a tricky crop to harvest. It’s cannabis — like marijuana, without the mind altering properties.

But hemp still contains some of the psychoactive chemical, THC. That’s where the bad news starts for hemp growers like David Falkowski.

“There could be criminal implications on the farmers," Falkowski said. "They could actually be brought up on charges. And some of the lesser degrees, they would have to burn or disk in their crop under the oversight of a DEA registered agency.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a very hard line between what is considered legal hemp and marijuana, an illicit drug. Without the New York government being the middleman with its own regulatory process, Falkowski said he has little protection when dealing with the feds.

Marijuana legalization is headed to the ballot in Arizona this November. If successful, the state would become the 12th US state to legalize marijuana. The initiative is already subject of a lawsuit from anti-legalization groups and scorn from politicians, including Governor Doug Ducey (R). If passed, the legalization effort could significantly reduce arrests in a state with some of the harshest marijuana penalties in the nation and a heavily burdened prison system.

Despite its draconian laws for non-medical use, Arizona passed medical marijuana back in 2010. It now has has over 250,000 registered medical patients or caregivers and 131 dispensaries. The last time Arizona voted on full legalization, in November 2016, it narrowly lost, with about 49 percent support. 

How Arizona Legalization Would Work

The legalization initiative, called Prop 207 or the Smart and Safe Arizona Act, officially qualified for the general election ballot on August 10. If approved by a majority of voters, it would legalize up to one ounce of cannabis for over-21s. Adults could also cultivate six marijuana plants at home.

Prop 207 would also allow people with prior convictions for marijuana possession to petition the courts for expungement. Presumably, this process would not be automatic, as it is meant to be in states like California.

In Arizona’s legal market, a 16 percent excise tax on cannabis sales would cover the costs of implementing regulations. Excess tax revenue would then go to community colleges, public roads and infrastructure, police and firefighters, and certain social justice initiatives. The latter would include a social equity program to help people with past criminal records for marijuana get business licenses in the new industry.

Thousands of people are arrested every year for illicit consumption of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances (NDPS). In 2018, 81,778 persons were arrested under the NDPS Act. Fifty-nine per cent of the those were found in possession of substances for personal use. Our forthcoming findings on Mumbai give an insight into how many people are arrested for illicit cannabis consumption, in comparison to other prohibited substances.

During the course of our research, we analysed 10,669 cases from Magistrate Courts in Mumbai, 99.9 per cent of these cases involved consumption of a narcotic substance. Wherever information on the kind of substance involved was available, 87 per cent of the cases involved cannabis. We find, therefore, that Mumbai’s NDPS arrests, which are the highest in the country, are primarily arrests of cannabis consumers. This suggests that criminalisation of cannabis consumption is pushing a substantial number of people into the criminal justice system.

Strain on the criminal justice system

Criminalisation of illicit cannabis use exacerbates the strain on the criminal justice system. The impact is particularly felt by an already overburdened and understaffed police force, where the police per lakh population ratio and vacancies have constantly remained a critical governance issue and the judicial system, already crumbling under high pendency.

In order to arrest, prosecute and sentence a cannabis consumer, the state machinery exhausts substantial human and economic resources. The police, judiciary and correctional institutions are systematically made party to a futile exercise, the cost of which is enormous. With over 3 crore cannabis users in the country, if the NDPS Act were to be implemented effectively, with every cannabis user arrested and prosecuted, the crumbling system would cave in entirely.

Although there is no current research on the cost of enforcing cannabis prohibition in India, studies conducted abroad find that on an average, incarceration costs are 2-6 times higher than money spent on health and social services. A study of budgetary implications of cannabis prohibition in the US indicated that legalisation of cannabis would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure.

It’s been nearly two years since Canada became the first G20 country to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes. However, the majority of customers are still getting their pot from the illicit market -- with a lot of ground left to cover.

In the fourth quarter of 2018, legal marijuana represented only 21 per cent of total consumption in Canada, despite weed becoming lawful on Oct. 17 of that year. Fast-forward to the first quarter of 2020 and cannabis is now a $2.2 billion retail industry, yet legal consumption is still just 46 per cent of the total, according to data from Statistics Canada.

“Consumer conversion from the illicit market is clearly occurring, but it is still early days,” Cormark Securities analyst Jesse Pytlak said in an email. “Retail infrastructure is still being developed, and useful insight on consumer preferences and behaviors is just now beginning to emerge.”

The relatively slow growth can be attributed to both steep prices in the legal market, as well as the fact that physical stores remain few and far between in large provinces like Ontario. The accessibility of brick-and-mortar storefronts is critical for converting consumers from illegal consumption, Pytlak added.

“The pricing is still way too high relative to what we’re seeing in the illicit market,” Canaccord Genuity analyst Matt Bottomley said in an interview. “If you are someone that consumes cannabis on a regular interval, there’s not a lot of incentive for you to transition over.”

French trade group Syndicat Professionnel du Chanvre (SPC) and three other industry organizations have called on authorities in France to defend their interests amid fears the European Commission is about to designate hemp extracts as narcotics.

The groups warned warned that a position on hemp extracts announced recently by the Commission “would have dramatic repercussions on the hemp sector as a whole.”

Signatories

In addition to SPC, the open letter was signed by representatives of Synadiet, the French national union of food supplements makers; ITEIPMAII, the French research institute for perfume, medicinal and aromatic plants; and Phytolia, which represents stakeholders in France’s health & beauty and well-being sectors.

The EC last month issued the “preliminary conclusion” that non-medical natural hemp extracts should be considered narcotics in the EU, and appear to be preparing a similar recommendation to the 12 EU member states that will vote on cannabis and medical CBD issues at a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) this December. If the EC makes its “preliminary conclusion” final, it would throw the European CBD market into chaos, affecting hemp food, food supplements and cosmetics that are formulated with CBD.

Hit to entire sector

The French groups said classification of hemp extracts as narcotics would not only hit manufacturers and distributors in the wellness and health & beauty sectors, but would have a knock-on effect of jeopardizing investments in the sectors that process hemp straw for sustainable building materials, textiles, paper, plastics and biocomposites.

Earl Blumenauer cautioned Biden from following too closely in Hillary Clinton’s footsteps, as he believes she would be President if she had supported cannabis legalization.

When presidential candidate Joe Biden announced his criminal justice reform plan, it included cannabis policies that appeared to be lacking compared to those proposed by other prominent Democratic party members. Almost none, however, have criticized Biden’s cannabis agenda until this week when one Democratic congressman described it as “essentially meaningless.”

The comment came from Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus. The congressman appeared in a video interview with Canopy Growth executive David Culver, who asked Blumenauer about Biden’s marijuana platform.

“[Legalization] is demanded by the American public. It’s no longer controversial,” Blumenauer said. “For the campaign to talk about decriminalization is essentially meaningless. Your grandmother is for decriminalization.

“Over two-thirds of the American public supports full legalization. A majority of Republicans support full legalization and an overwhelming majority of young people,” he continued. “So I think that’s where we’re going. I’m optimistic that before the election we’ll get a better statement. But ultimately, what’s going to matter is what we do in Congress and we are poised, maybe even this Congress, to fully legalize, but certainly in the next Congress.”

It's been over a year since the 2018 Farm Bill legalized the commerce of hemp and CBD. Yet, CBD is still not regulated as a dietary supplement by the FDA.

This may come as a surprise to many people who’ve already incorporated CBD into their lives. Among the 14 percent of Americans who use CBD, most believe those products are FDA regulated. 

The FDA wants to regulate CBD, too. Over the past five years, the agency has issued reports to Congress on their assessment of the marketplace and CBD's safety. They've also issued dozens of warning letters to companies mislabeling their products. 

Still, the FDA still hasn’t issued formal regulations for the CBD industry. Why?

CBD is the new kid on the block

There are many factors at play here. The biggest reason is that CBD is simply very new. In its current form, CBD is considered a New Dietary Ingredient (NDI), and the review process is slow for NDI notifications. This process may include conducting lab tests and research studies, submitting data to the FDA for evaluation, and potentially many rounds of feedback and revisions. 

Federal trademark registration is viewed as an attractive form of property-rights protection for most industries. The benefits of such a registration are numerous.

A federal trademark registration serves to recast what would normally be localized common-law trademark rights into nationwide trademark rights. It provides the owner with the right to use the ® designation, to enforce the owner’s rights in federal court, and to file the trademark registration with U.S. Customs to block infringing imports. A federal registration also provides a basis for registering the trademark in foreign countries and jurisdictions.

Unfortunately, members of the cannabis industry have faced an uphill battle when trying to protect their brands on the federal level.

This article will focus on strategies for protecting trademarks used on CBD products, which may be grouped into two categories: marijuana-derived CBD products and hemp-derived CBD products.

Today, the Office of Marijuana Policy, a part of the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services, unveiled plans for the issuance of Maine’s first active licenses for adult use marijuana establishments. The Office intends to issue the first active licenses to recreational cannabis businesses on Tuesday, September 8, 2020. Retail sales of adult use marijuana to consumers 21 years of age or older will be permitted starting on Friday, October 9, 2020.

The issuance of active licenses will continue the Office of Marijuana Policy’s structured rollout of Maine’s nascent adult use industry, which had been indefinitely postponed in April in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The public’s health and safety are at the forefront of every decision we make at the Office of Marijuana Policy,” said OMP Director Erik Gundersen. “While we were poised to launch this new industry earlier this year, we were unwilling to sacrifice the high standards we have set for this program by launching during an emerging public health pandemic and in the absence of a testing facility. With the support of the public health community, municipalities across the state, and the industry we regulate, we have used the last few months to ensure this new industry is introduced to Maine consumers in a manner that is as responsible as possible.”

Active licensure is the culmination of a three-step application process which also includes conditional licensure and local authorization, respectively. An active license is required for adult use establishments to come into possession, process and sell adult use marijuana, including initiating plant transfers from Maine’s existing medical marijuana program.

It is expected adult use licensees will utilize the time between active licensure and Maine’s retail sales launch date to harvest and process marijuana, ensure those products satisfy the mandatory testing requirements, and move product through the supply chain to stock retail store shelves. Additionally, businesses which will conduct retail sales will prepare to implement and support social distancing and other public health guidance at a time when public interest may attract a significant consumer presence to their retail locations.

The designation of the cannabis business as essential caught some states and some state officials off guard. 

It was a classic watershed moment when 20 of the 33 states across the U.S. that allowed some form of sale and consumption of marijuana had those businesses designated as essential businesses in March during the early days of the coronavirus outbreak. 

And while that designation of what is “essential” was just an advisory from the Department of Homeland Security, and not a federal directive or standard, meaning that it’s open to wide interpretation by various jurisdictions, cannabis advocates jumped on the opportunity in March to remind state governors about the importance of the cannabis industry. 

A letter from the Marijuana Policy Project states that governors and legislative leaders played up the significance of access to medical cannabis in times of a pandemic: “As leaders of states with medical cannabis or cannabidiol (CBD) laws, we write to urge you to ensure patients can safely access their treatment option in a way that is consistent with public health. Cannabis is a crucial part of the treatment regimens of hundreds of thousands of individuals, including many who have vulnerable immune systems because of their advanced age or a serious medical condition.” 

The designation of the cannabis business as essential caught some states and some state officials off guard. 

Vice President Mike Pence took to Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox News earlier this week to gripe that Democrats were attempting to include legislation related to marijuana and banking in the latest coronavirus relief bill.

"I heard the other day the bill mentions marijuana more than it mentions jobs," Pence said to Dobbs. "The American people don't want some pork-barrel bill coming out of the Congress when we've got real needs for working-class families."

Maybe he's trying to remind everybody that Joe Biden isn't the only vice president who's still resisting marijuana legalization?

There are two ironies here. First, the bill Pence is complaining about makes it possible for cannabis businesses to safely engage in banking in states where cannabis is legal, which helps those "working-class families" who rely on the cannabis industry. Second, the bill he's referring to will actually save taxpayers money, unlike much of the rest of this relief legislation.

The "Secure and Fair Enforcement Act of 2019," a.k.a. the "SAFE Banking Act," would allow legally operating cannabis businesses to have the same legal access to banks, loans, and deposit protections as other legal businesses. Because the sale and possession of marijuana are still forbidden by federal law, banks are reluctant to have any dealings with dispensaries and growers, even when they're legally operating within their home states.

It would appear that changing over the Senate is even more important than who is President on this particular issue.

Many in the cannabis industry have, understandably, backed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for President and VP, presumably for a variety of reasons which include a belief that they are more likely to support legalizing cannabis at the federal level. Many are not as aware that President Donald Trump has stated that he is, in his words, “100%” in favor of legalizing medical marijuana, and that he believes recreational or adult use should be decided by the states, although early in his 2016 campaign he said he opposed legalizing adult use.

The truth is, as many have discovered, the Biden campaign has almost the same view as Mr. Trump. The former VP will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes, leave decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states, and reschedule cannabis as a Schedule II drug. If Trump supports legalization essentially in this manner, then why has it not been enacted since his inauguration? There are primarily three barriers to this, and their names are Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, Mike Crapo and Lindsey Graham. But let’s step back.

In January 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama-era Cole Memo in the Justice Department which deemphasized federal prosecution of state legal cannabis enterprises. In response to this, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) told the President he would hold up all his judicial nominees until he addressed the issue. A few months later he was able to talk to Trump, who assured him that if a bill came to his desk legalizing medical marijuana and leaving adult use to the states, he would sign it. Gardner then backed off his resistance to Trump’s judges.

Shortly thereafter, Gardner, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), introduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act, then reintroduced it a year later. A companion bill was also introduced in the House. The bill would take the steps Trump said he would accept in legalizing medical marijuana and allowing states to legalize adult use.

A study of consumer attitudes released recently found that residents of states with legal cannabis have a positive view of the regulated marketplace. Results of the research, “Consumer perceptions of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ cannabis in US states with legal cannabis sales,” were released online last month ahead of the publication of the study in the journal Addictive Behaviors early next year.

To conduct the study, researchers with the University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health in Canada surveyed adult consumers in states with legal cannabis and asked them about their views of the regulated marketplace. Investigators surveyed 5,530 respondents residing in Alaska, California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. 

The study examined consumer perceptions of quality, price, convenience, and safety of use and purchasing cannabis from legal versus illegal sources in U.S. states with legal retail sales. The study also attempted to examine associations between cannabis use, length of time since legal sales began, and perceptions of legal cannabis.

Well over half (59.2%) of the survey participants reported that, compared to an illicit supplier, cannabis was more convenient to obtain from a licensed source and 56.1% said it was a safer way to purchase cannabis. Additionally, 37.6% of consumers said that they believed the quality of the cannabis offered at licensed businesses was superior to what can be purchased from unlicensed sellers, although more than 30% of respondents said that legal cannabis is more expensive. Less than 15% of respondents in any state reported that legal cannabis was less expensive than that purchased from unlicensed sources. The study also found that 40.3% of those surveyed felt that cannabis purchased from legal sources was safer to use than unregulated products.

Better Over Time

Researchers also found that consumer perceptions varied according to the length of time since legal cannabis sales began. Respondents living in more mature legal markets that had legalized marijuana earlier were more likely to perceive legal cannabis as being of higher quality. The survey also found that consumers in mature markets were less likely to say that legal pot was more expensive.

Two separate cannabis initiatives have qualified for the general election ballot in Montana, making it the sixth state in the nation that will be voting on a legalization measure in November. On Thursday, the office of Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton revealed that supporters for Initiative 190 and Constitutional Initiative 118 had collected enough signatures to qualify both measures for the ballot.

Initiative 190 would legalize the possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana for adult use and establish a regulatory system to license cannabis businesses. The measure also levies a tax of 20% on recreational marijuana and reduces the existing tax on medical cannabis from 1% to 2%. The initiative also authorizes the home cultivation of up to four mature cannabis plants and four seedlings.

Revenue from the tax on adult-use cannabis would be allocated to land, water, and wildlife conservation programs, veteran services, substance abuse treatment, long-term health care, and local governments. Proponents of the measure have estimated that it would raise $48 million in tax revenue by 2025.

Constitutional Initiative 118 would amend the Montana Constitution to allow the state legislature to set the legal age to make cannabis purchases at 21. Currently, the constitution grants all of the rights of an adult to all persons age 18 or older, except for the purchase of alcohol.

More Than Enough Signatures Collected

Petitions for both initiatives were circulated by New Approach Montana, which collected more than 130,000 signatures to put the measures on the ballot. To qualify, Initiative 190 needed approximately 25,000 verified signatures, while the constitutional initiative required about 50,000 signatures. The group reports that it spent approximately $2 million on its signature-gathering effort and other expenses related to qualifying the two initiatives for the ballot.