WeedLife News Network

As the cannabis industry grows globally, no country is according to FTI Consulting better positioned than Colombia to become the “grower” of choice for international cannabis trade. Experts Michael Cullen and Miguel Salcedo explain why. 

While predictions for the global cannabis trade in 2020 vary widely, industry leaders largely concur that legalization efforts will continue across the globe. As of April 2020, medical cannabis is legal (to some degree) in upwards of 50 countries. As a result, marijuana-related business are beginning to leverage international supply chains in pursuit of lower production costs, with a view to Latin America. 

Some countries in the region are positioning themselves to compete in the global cannabis market through regulatory reforms and partnerships with established North American and European players. While their competitiveness will be hampered by persistent political and macroeconomic hurdles, no country is more prepared than Colombia to differentiate itself from other countries in the region to become the industry’s grower of choice. 

Early moves toward legalization

The Colombian government sees cannabis production as a viable alternative to coca growing for farmers in conflict-ridden areas. During the 2016 peace negotiations between the administration of former President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC), a left-wing guerilla group, coca production saw exponential growth following a ban on aerial spraying in favor of manual eradication.

Accordingly, the current administration of President Iván Duque hopes that cannabis production will provide an attractive legal alternative for rural communities, which have historically had few economically viable options beyond cooperating with illegal armed groups in the production of coca.

Colorado lawmakers passed a bill on Monday that would allow the governor to issue pardons for low-level marijuana convictions without input from the judges and prosecutors involved in the original court cases. The measure, House Bill 1424, now heads to the office of Democratic Gov. Jared Polis for his signature.

HB 1424 began its journey through the legislative process only last week, when it was introduced by Democratic Rep. James Coleman as a bill to define social equity applicants in the state’s legal cannabis industry. After speedy approval in the Colorado House of Representatives, the bill moved on to the state Senate, where it was amended to give the governor the authority to issue pardons for convictions for possession of up to two ounces of marijuana.

“This bill is a product of effective stakeholder work that created a path forward on important social equity policies,” said a spokesperson for Polis. “The Governor is happy that a meaningful, bipartisan bill addressing marijuana equity passed the legislature, and thanks lawmakers for their efforts to get this bill to his desk.”

Under the normal process for issuing pardons in Colorado, the governor is required to notify the relevant judge and prosecuting attorney so that they can provide input to guide the decision. HB 1424 eliminates that requirement for low-level marijuana possession cases and instead allows the governor and state attorney general to establish and implement an expungement process.

Bill Also Defines Social Equity Applicants

The original intent of HB 1424 was to create a definition for applicants eligible for the state’s cannabis business accelerator program and a future social equity program for Colorado’s legal cannabis industry. Under the current accelerator program, which is only open to those from economically disadvantaged communities, eligible individuals are permitted to operate marijuana businesses out of existing licensed facilities.

Deadly police actions, punctuated by the ongoing protests after the murder of George Floyd, represent just one arm of an octopus-like creature that feeds off systemic racism. Another element that has been brought up a lot in recent weeks is the failed War on Drugs policy.

Despite the supposed end to the U.S. drug policy, it continues to claim victims, including those who remain in prison for non-violent weed convictions and those whose records prevent them from equal treatment in terms employment and housing.

The War on Drugs “is a policy failure that has come at great cost, to society generally and to minority communities especially,” drug policy experts Katharine Neill Harris and Alfred Glassell, III write in a blog posted last week on Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy website.

But, as Harris and Glassell point out in their post, the failure’s legacy stretches beyond the immediate victims: “The ‘war on drugs’ is an impediment to reducing unnecessary citizen-police encounters and to cultivating humane treatment of people who use drugs.” By normalizing “aggressive policing within a system already mired in institutional racism,” the pair suggests that chances are greater for more and more violent interactions between people and police.

Approaches such as no-knock searches, often led by heavily armed SWAT teams, unsurprisingly “carry a high risk for deadly violence.” And drugs are a routine component of “pretext stops,” described as allowing police officers to stop people for one violation with the intent of uncovering a separate violation. This would be the case if a driver was pulled over for a traffic violation and on the pretext of smelling weed, the vehicle is then searched.

Last week was Hemp Week across the USA, but in the state of Colorado a special local event was officially proclaimed by the state’s government.

As we recently mentioned, a national Hemp Week was held last week – an initiative of the Hemp Industries Association (HIA) that is now in its 11th year. Colorado’s state government took things a step further by issuing an official proclamation declaring Colorado Hemp Week; with a slightly different timeline – June 7 – 13.

“Colorado was the first state in the nation to bring back the cultivation of hemp after 75 years of prohibition and we lead the nation in industrial hemp production acreage,” said a post on Governor Jared Polis’s Facebook page. “Hemp is a necessary agricultural commodity to promote conservation and hemp products can provide sustainable solutions and options for consumers and businesses.”

The Proclamation also states Colorado was the first state in the nation to recognize hemp as a food product.

Colorado voters authorized hemp production in 2012, and the first experimental crops were planted the following year. This was before the federal 2014 Farm Bill that contained provisions for growing hemp for research purposes.

Long-known as a cannabis mecca, Nepal would establish a formal program to develop medical cannabis and the hemp sector under a bill that has been proposed in the country’s parliament.

The Cannabis Cultivation Act, put forth by MP Sher Bahadur Tamang and signed by 40 legislators, would require no license for growers of hemp destined for foods, including but not limited to seeds, honey, oil and drinks, and use of the hemp stalk for industrial purposes. Sales and distribution of those products also would not require special license under the proposal.

Research and production of CBD would presumably be licensed under medical cannabis provisions in the bill, but the measure is intended primarily to advance that compound for Ayurvedic and allopathic healing, according to Nivedita Bansal Shah, COO and a co-founder at Janakpur-based Shah Hemp Inno-Ventures (SHIV), Nepal’s leading hemp company.

THC limit is troublesome

However the bill’s recommended THC limit of 0.2% – which follows the current European standard – would challenge those who want to farm hemp, likely requiring years of breeding to develop cultivars that would come in under that benchmark.

“Setting THC limits is not relevant in Nepal unless and until we study our genetic landraces,” said Dhiraj K. Shah, SHIV’s CEO and co-founder. “This law would lead to the import of certified 0.2% THC seeds, destroying our genetics even before we could discover their potential,” Shah said. “This is what happens when underdeveloped countries make laws under the influence of developed countries.”

Six months after the decriminalization of cannabis in Trinidad and Tobago, some early results are in. 

Among other things, the nation has seen a significant drop in cannabis-related arrests. A somewhat confusing rollout and COVID-related delays have, however, pushed back the establishment of a fully regulated medical cannabis industry and fueled an apparent spurt in illicit cultivation.

When amendments to the country’s Dangerous Drugs Act were pitched to the population and members of Parliament six months ago, Faris Al Rawi, the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, said it would be  the country’s most aggressive realignment in the area of drug policy and criminal justice reform in decades. Indeed, the Act allows persons to possess up to thirty grams of cannabis and five grams of cannabis resin without penalty, and it makes possession of between thirty grams and sixty grams of cannabis and up to 10 grams of cannabis resin a ticketable offense. Previously, any amount of cannabis resulted in a criminal penalty. 

So far, some results are significant. An analysis of data from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service by Cannabis Wire shows that between January and December of 2019, a period before the Act was in force, the country’s Police Service arrested and charged 3,630 individuals for offenses related to cannabis: 3,254 for possession, and 376 for possession with the intent to sell. Since the passage of the Act in December, however, up until the end of April 2020, only 192 arrests have been made: 117 for possession, and 75 for possession with intent to sell. 

Still, parts of the decriminalization rollout have been “flawed,” Nazma Muller, a cannabis legalization activist, told Cannabis Wire. She pointed out, for example, that citizens still have no legal access to seeds, which the Ministry of Agriculture has said they will provide, although the Act has granted them the right to cultivate cannabis since December. Muller has again begun to protest the delays and announced plans to form a union to represent cannabis farmers in their dealings with the Government.

At the end of May, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). The announcement came on the heels of a Trump threat to permanently cut off all U.S. funding for the organization (the U.S. is the largest individual national contributor) because of a supposedly “China-centric influence.”

But beyond squabbles about politics or supposed “foreign” influence, what will this decision have, if any, on the international or domestic cannabis industry?

A Brief History of The WHO and Cannabis

In a nutshell, the WHO is the health arm of the United Nations (UN). It is by definition, an intergovernmental organization created in the aftermath of WWII in 1948 to foster international responses to global health threats. The WHO has, as its primary function, a global coordinating role in developing international public health policy and coordinating global responses to epidemics and pandemics, as well as other diseases. Their responses to diseases, beyond the current crisis, include those for SARS and ebola, as well as smallpox, polio, and measles.

The WHO, named in the three global narcotics control treaties that are now up to sixty years old next year, also has the authority to make scheduling determinations. And that currently is where the friction, if not the debate, lies when it comes to cannabis.

The WHO And Cannabis Reform

Despite expanding reform on a country-by-country basis over the last five years, the WHO has not budged on considering reclassification, although the entity has considered the question for the last three years. Indeed, the WHO recommended that cannabis be rescheduled in 2019, but delayed the vote yet again in early March 2020, about a week before declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic. The decision about the reclassification of the plant as well as the cannabinoids within it, is expected to happen this December. The outcome is widely expected to change THC at least to a legitimate (Schedule II) drug and potentially deschedule hemp. 

To legalize, or not to legalize? That is the question South Dakotans will answer when it comes to marijuana in the state. In November, voters will decide on Constitutional Amendment A and Initiated Measure 26.

Amendment A would legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana as well as require laws ensuring access to medical marijuana. IM 26 would establish a medical marijuana program for qualifying patients. On Wednesday, South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws held a Zoom news conference to make its case to legalize it. However, local law enforcement has questions about the implications of approving the amendment and initiated measure.

South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws want voters to say yes to cannabis in the state.

“The outright prohibition on cannabis does not work,” Brendan Johnson, former U.S Attorney and member of Better Marijuana Laws, said.

Supporters include Johnson and Chuck Parkinson , who worked for President Reagan’s administration on the frontlines of the famed War on Drugs.

The Garden State will be facing a budget shortfall through the end of the next fiscal year as a result of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Can marijuana legalization help?

Registered voters in New Jersey are expected to vote in favor of adult-use marijuana legalization in November — but uncertainty surrounds the pending legislation.

“Cannabis advocates looking forward to creating an adult use regulated and taxed cannabis marketplace have reason to be cautiously optimistic as we approach the consideration of the issue in the form of a public question on the ballot for the voters in November,” says Charles Gormally, co-chair of the Brach Eichler LLC cannabis practice group.

Early polling has shown consistent support for the question. Nevertheless, Gormally said he expects to see a large influx of pro- and anti-pot advocacy on the question in the months leading to the election itself.

“Since the early 1970s, we have created a significant number of stake holders in the failed cannabis prohibition regime that continues to dominate federal and state law enforcement interest groups,” he says. “In addition, advocacy groups touting the false narrative of cannabis as a ‘dangerous gateway drug’ are well financed and powerful forces that oppose cannabis law modernization.”

Traffic searches, a longtime tool in the War on Drugs, dropped dramatically following marijuana legalization, new data reveals.

Two weeks have passed since George Floyd was killed while in the custody of Minneapolis police, sparking nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic injustice. National organizations and lawmakers have admitted that rolling back Drug War policies is an important step to fixing inequalities that exist in criminal justice.

Sen. Cory Booker noted racial imbalances in marijuana enforcement as just one explanation for the protests. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, described cannabis legalization as a “civil rights” issue.

That’s because, as data shows, legalizing marijuana changes the behavior of police departments. Colorado and Washington voters approved recreational cannabis in 2012 and a 2017 analysis by the Stanford Open Policing Project examined how this affected the focus of state police. Data shows that roadside searches dropped by nearly half post-legalization, with the most dramatic decrease occurring among Black and Hispanic drivers. In addition, Burlington police in Vermont released data last year that showed traffic searches dropped by 70% after the state legalized marijuana.

According to Stanford researchers, the threshold to pull over minority drivers is lower than it is for white drivers. Though traffic stops eventually dropped by more than 50% in both Colorado and Washington following legalization, that disparity between white and minority drivers remained.

Though California legalized marijuana to roll back unjust Drug War policies, cannabis taxes help fund police operations.

California Governor Gavin Newsom discussed during a press conference last week how the state plans to fix issues of systemic injustice and racism following widespread protests of police brutality. Newsom referenced California’s efforts to roll back the consequences and policies of the War on Drugs, including mandatory-minimum sentencing and the disparity between prosecuting crack vs. cocaine drug possession.

A major act of criminal justice reform, Newsom highlighted, was California legalizing recreational marijuana in recent years. The governor went so far as to describe legalization as a “civil rights” issue.

“That’s why the state was one of the early adopters of a new approach as it relates to cannabis reform—legalization around adult-use of marijuana,” Newsom said. “It was a civil rights call from our perspective.”

“I was proud to be out in front in those efforts,” he continued. “It was about addressing the disparities. It was about addressing incarceration. It was about addressing the ills of this war on drugs.”

It all started with a bizarre, teasing tweet on June 6th, when billionaire Elon Musk told his 35 million Twitter followers: "This will probably get me into trouble, but I feel I have to say it."

Musk has been the target of much controversy in recent months, claiming his company Tesla's stock price were too high, calling shelter-in-place orders "fascist," and calling the panic over the pandemic "dumb." All of these proclamations have come via his Twitter feed, so when Musk again turned to the platform to warn that he might be stepping in it again, the Twitterverse wondered what he would say this time. 

Speculation was rampant. Will he announce the invention of wireless seatbelts? Are Tesla stockholders about to have another nervous breakdown? Will he be saying something about the Black Lives Matter movement?

No to all of the above. Turns out his big revelation the next day was perhaps the most sensical thing Musk has said in the last few months. 

Musk became another critic of the antiquated and unjust penal system that incarcerates innocent people for non-violent cannabis crimes. Far from getting him in trouble, his tweet evoked a plethora of praise. 

A group pushing to place a recreational marijuana amendment on the November ballot is breathing a sigh of relief following an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling allowing them to collect signatures electronically.

“People can go to our website, they can download the special signature page and then they can sign the petition and then they can mail it to us,” said Arkansans for Cannabis Reform Executive Director, Melissa Fults.

Fults said when the pandemic hit it put a dent on their efforts to gather signatures.

“We had just gotten money to hire paid canvassers like two weeks before all of this hit,” she said.

Part of their initiative would allow Arkansans over the age of 21 to purchase marijuana. It would also increase the number of dispensaries to 30 per congressional district, with at least one in each county. Dispensaries would be able to grow a minimum of 200 mature plants and 200 seedlings, versus the current 50 plant limit.

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has exposed critical vulnerabilities in national governments and business operations around the world.

The virus is significantly disrupting supply chains and consumer habits on a global level that will reverberate across every industry in the coming months.

The aftershocks of the crisis could last for years.

While the legal cannabis industry is theoretically recession-resistant in the same way alcohol and pharmaceutical sales have been impervious to historical downturns, cultivators must take necessary measures to safeguard their long-term financial safety.

An Artificial Boost in Consumer Spending

The recent surge in consumer spending has resulted in an artificial sales boost, and dispensaries cannot expect this influx of profits to last.