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London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced plans to study cannabis legalization during a visit to a dispensary and cultivation facility in Los Angeles.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a plan to study the legalization of cannabis on Wednesday after visiting a dispensary and cultivation facility as part of an official visit to Los Angeles. Khan said that he was forming a commission to study cannabis legalization and named a prominent Labour Party official to head the panel.

Khan walked among growing cannabis plants and was introduced to the wide variety of products available at licensed cannabis dispensaries. The London mayor said that the commission he was appointing would examine the effectiveness of the city’s drug laws and explore how legalizing pot could help reduce “drug-related harm.”

“The illegal drugs trade causes huge damage to our society and we need to do more to tackle this epidemic and further the debate around our drugs laws,” Khan said.

“That’s why I am in LA to see first-hand the approach they have taken to cannabis.”

The commission will gather evidence on cannabis legalization from around the world and will study the public health benefits of cannabis, the best methods to prevent misuse, and effective law enforcement strategies. The panel will make recommendations to City Hall and government officials, law enforcement, and public health officials. More appointments to the commission will be announced this summer. The London Drugs Commission is not expected to make its first report until next year.

Some members of the Vermont state Senate are upset over a 60% cap proposed by their colleagues in the House.

Vermont lawmakers are at loggerheads over a measure that would establish a cap on the level of THC in solid cannabis concentrates sold at the state’s regulated cannabis retailers. 

Local publication VTDigger has the background, reporting that members of the Vermont state Senate “bristled Friday at a last-minute change to a key cannabis bill during a House vote Thursday—and speculated as to why the Vermont Department of Health abruptly reversed its recommendation to lawmakers on the measure last week.”

Members of the House “on Thursday imposed a 60% cap on the level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, in solid cannabis concentrates to be sold at retail establishments when they open in October,” according to VTDigger.

“They held the damn thing for over a week and a half and then come up with this,” said Democratic state Senator Dick Sears, as quoted by VTDigger.

“There isn’t much time to call for a conference committee.” 

When Germany's new coalition included the legalization of recreational cannabis in its political agenda in late 2021, there were few details on how to regulate the industry.

However, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach announced last week that it would start the legal process for cannabis legalization soon.

He told German newspaper Handelsblatt he changed his mind on legalization over the past two years, and he now believes the dangers of non-legalization outweigh the risks of recreational cannabis legalization.

"I've always been opposed to cannabis legalization, but I revised my position about a year ago," he said.

In addition, Finance Minister Christian Lindner confirmed that the process of legalizing recreational cannabis has started.

"A question that people keep asking me: 'When will Bubatz [German street slang for cannabis] be legal? I would say: soon," he wrote in a tweet on April 6.

Tony Evers, the first-term Democrat, has been a vocal supporter of bringing cannabis legalization to Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Friday announced dozens of new pardons, including nine for individuals previously convicted for cannabis-related offenses.

“There is power in redemption and forgiveness, especially for folks who’ve been working to move beyond their past mistakes to be productive, positive members of their communities,” Evers said in a statement.

“I’m grateful for being able to give a second chance to these individuals who’ve worked hard to do just that.”

Evers, the first-term Democrat, has now “granted more pardons during his first three years in office than any other governor in contemporary history,” according to a release from his office, which said that he has granted a total of 498 pardons since taking office in 2019.

The nine individuals previously busted for pot-related offenses who received a pardon on Friday include Danielle Arrigo, who “was 22 when she twice sold marijuana to a confidential informant,” and “now resides in Burlington with her daughter and has earned her associate degree.”

There are more than 181,000 Missourians carrying medical marijuana cards.

On May 4, 2022, South Carolina’s medical marijuana bill — SB 150, also known as the South Carolina Compassionate Care Act — was ruled unconstitutional by the state’s House of Representatives.

The constitutional challenge was mounted by Rep. John McCravy, who argued that because the bill involves the creation of a new tax, specifically on medical cannabis, that the bill should have originated in the House, per the South Carolina constitution. House Speaker Pro Tem Thomas Pope agreed with Rep. McCravy’s argument and ruled the bill unconstitutional.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Davis, appealed the ruling, but the House voted 59-55 to table the appeal, stopping the bill in its tracks. In response to this tabling of his appeal, Rep. Davis stated he would be “working on” getting the bill a “merits up or down [vote] in the House,” before the Legislature closes in mid-May.

While the ruling dealt a blow to the bill’s momentum, it is notable that the bill has not yet seen a vote on the merits — this setback was strictly a procedural one. The bill, which would allow patients with qualifying medical conditions to buy, possess, and use cannabis from state-licensed dispensaries, was passed by the Senate in February 2022. The bill has 14 listed cosponsors and was passed unanimously by the House Medical, Public, and Municipal Affairs Committee before stalling out on the House floor.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is backtracking after saying the legislation would be unveiled this month.

The wait for the Senate’s version of a cannabis legalization bill will continue for months, with Democratic leaders in the chamber indicating Thursday that it will come sometime in the summer.

According to The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he’s proud of the progress senators have made in “bringing this vital bill closer to its official introduction” before the recess in early August.”

The timeline marks a shift from what Schumer had said previously and it may dismay legalization advocates who had hoped that the Senate’s legislation would arrive sooner—especially after the U.S. House of Representatives passed its own bill to end prohibition on the federal level earlier this month.

The New York Democrat said after the House’s passage that he hoped the Senate would unveil its legalization measure by the end of this month.

On April 1, the Democratic-led House passed the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act, which would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, effectively ending the federal prohibition on pot.

While you may want to buy legal cannabis at the age of 18, that will be quite impossible since provisions and policies put in place by weed legalized states do not permit it.

Election Day 2012 saw voters in Colorado approve a ballot initiative to legalize the recreational sale and use of cannabis. This bold step by the citizens of Colorado saw the state become the first to do so in all of the United States.

Since then, 17 other states, Guam, and Washington, D.C., have followed suit, and public support for cannabis legalization has significantly grown. However, the recreational use of cannabis is still very much illegal at the federal level.

While many states have legalized the recreational and medical use of cannabis, the approach and policies of each state differ. To this end, a young person needs to know what applies in each state to avoid the wrath of the law.

Here are the states where the recreational sale and use of cannabis is legal:

As mentioned earlier, each of these states has specific provisions for the buying, sale, and amount of cannabis an adult can legally possess. These states also have different rules as regards adult growing cannabis plants for personal recreational use. However, one similarity these states share is that individuals above the age of 21 years can legally buy and use cannabis for recreational purposes. Here are the provisions and legalization measures in each state.

An effort to save a bill that would legalize medical cannabis in South Carolina failed on Wednesday in the state legislature, dimming its prospects this year.

The State newspaper of Columbia, South Carolina reports that “House lawmakers on Wednesday voted 59-55 against an appeal proposed by House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, to keep the bill alive,” which followed a request from a Republican member of the state House that “the proposal be ruled unconstitutional since it creates a new tax, arguing that revenue-raising bills can only originate in the lower chamber.”

As the newspaper noted, the move “likely [ends] any hope of passage this year.”

It marks a disappointing development after the bill won approval in the state Senate in February. Members of that chamber deemed medical cannabis a major priority at the start of the legislative session earlier this year.

The bill’s sponsor, GOP state Sen. Tom Davis, has been pushing a medical cannabis bill since 2015.

“If you pound at the door long enough. If you make your case. If the public is asking for something, the state Senate owes a debate,” Davis told The Post and Courier in January.

Hemp and CBD are legal in Tennessee but marijuana (medical and recreationional) is not. So where does this leave Delta-8?

A Tennessee lawmaker proposed a bill this legislatative session that would have regulated and taxed Delta-8 products, but the bill didn’t make it out of committee. Meanwhile, stores selling Delta-8, CBD and hemp products are cropping up across the state, and there’s even a CBD restaurant and bar that’s coming to Nashville.

Senators on both sides of the aisle are throwing support behind a proposal to tuck key marijuana banking legislation into a larger package aimed at boosting U.S. competitiveness, increasing the odds that a significant cannabis bill gets through the upper chamber this year.

Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the No. 3 Senate Democrat, is leading a push to pass the SAFE Banking Act, which would enable cannabis firms to use banking services, as part of a sweeping package lawmakers are hashing out in both chambers that is intended to bolster the country’s supply chains and manufacturing.   

While the cannabis measure was not included in the bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act that passed the Senate, the legislation was featured in the House’s version of the bill, known as the Competes Act, that passed in February.

Murray says she is “fighting every which way” to get the cannabis legislation included in the final bill. She noted that federal law currently forces weed dispensaries to use cash, making them prime targets for robberies.

“This is a cash-only business right now. It’s dangerous for the employees,” Murray, a member of the Senate conference committee heading negotiations for the final version of the bill, told The Hill.

The MORE Act becoming law in 2022 is more of a fantasy than reality, and Republicans seem to be succeeding in blocking this bill without receiving much flack.

Last month, and much to the excitement of cannabis enthusiasts, The MORE Act passed in the House of Representatives. While this was not the first time the house passed such a bill, there was a renewed sense optimism, especially since the majority of Americans support some form of marijuana legalization.

In order for the MORE Act to continue on its way towards law, however, it has what appear to be insurmountable hurdles. The Act “will need to gain 60 votes in the evenly divided Senate before moving to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature, an outcome widely seen as unlikely given the lack of Republican support for the measure,” according to Reuters.

If Republicans do not support the MORE Act, which it looks likely they will not, what will this mean for those Republicans who are up for re-election in states where marijuana is an important issue? Furthermore, how are Republican senators and congresspersons still able to keep their seats when their voting seems to contradict the general consensus of the American people?

One belief is that although many Republican lawmakers are voting “nay” to the MORE Act and other marijuana legislation, they are not doing so simply to adhere to the old and tired Republican “War on Drugs” platform.

“Every two years, you get a new crop of members from both parties, but certainly from the Republican Party, who don’t have to defend the drug war … and they don’t have to prop it up,” cannabis advocate and former Maryland GOP state delegate Don Murphy told Politico. He says that instead, they are able to vote with their conscience. This also means, however, that these congress members and senators are able to use a long list of new reasons as to why they vote against marijuana legalization.

If anyone thought that the road to cannabis reform was going to be easy, a decision last week in Cologne, Germany has just confirmed the fact that this is going to be a prolonged battle, fought all the way with regressive skirmishes and undoubtedly, setbacks.

Here is the latest example. Shockingly, the Administrative Court in Cologne has just ruled that the legal classification of CBD drops (i.e. good old CBD extract) are medical products. As such, they must be approved by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM)—Germany’s version of the American Food and Drug Administration (or FDA).

The court’s logic on this ruling is that the nutritional value of CBD is still an unknown. Further as outlined in the legal decision, the plaintiff company could not prove that there were comparable products on the market or that CBD might be used as a part of a diet rather than medical regime. The plaintiff’s suggestion that hemp tea might serve as one example was dismissed as the court maintained that cannabis tea is subject to narcotics law—thanks to the indecisive ruling on this in 2021.

The timing of this case, not to mention the finding of the court is also telling. It could potentially throw the entire German CBD business back to the dark ages—even though this is just a state-level, not a federal ruling. Walk into every health food store, not to mention the growing number of CBD specialty shops in Germany, and it is possible to find CBD oil, of various concentrations, on the shelves.

According to Kai-Friedrich Niermann, a leading cannabis attorney in Germany, “The ruling of the Cologne Administrative Court poses a significant risk to the CBD market in Germany if further authorities and courts refer to BfArM and the ruling.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) from Florida, called President Joe Biden a “recalcitrant boomer” criticizing him over the lack of marijuana reform, a policy change that he campaigned on, reported Marijuana Moment. (Benzinga)

The Congressman made the ageist comments during an episode of his podcast “Firebrand.” He contrasted his stance toward legalization against that of President Biden. 

Gaetz boasted that he was one of just three Republican members of the House who voted in favor of a Democratic-led bill to end federal cannabis prohibition, while Biden opposes adult-use marijuana legalization.

Biden administration officials said they’re “very aware that there are other Americans held in Russia,” and added that Whelan and Griner are “very much in our minds.”

The Biden administration participated in a prisoner swap with Russia last week involving the exchange of a convicted Russian drug smuggler jailed in Connecticut for Trevor Reed a Marine veteran imprisoned in Russia since 2019. Meanwhile, the fate of WNBA superstar Brittney Griner and former marine Paul Whelan remains unclear. (Benzinga)

What is clear is that leaders in Washington and Moscow are still speaking to each other, regardless of the daily sputtering and saber-rattling following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Brittney Griner

Like other female athletes who play abroad during the off-season for extra income, Griner had been playing on a Russian team for the past seven years. The huge gender pay gap in professional sports places women at additional risk.

Paul Whelan

Whelan, a former marine arrested in Moscow in 2018, was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor and is still being held in Russia.

It’s a game of num­bers for Dem­o­crats in Wash­ing­ton who want bold re­form on a num­ber of key boil­er­plate is­sues.

But even if they add one more to their ranks in the 50-50 Senate by way of Penn­syl­va­nia, it still may be un­likely that le­gal­ized mar­i­juana be­comes a re­al­ity on the fed­eral level.

All three of the top Demo­cratic con­tend­ers here — John Fetter­man, Conor Lamb and Mal­colm Ken­yatta — fa­vor some de­gree of mar­i­juana re­form, but if they pull off a win in what’s one of the coun­try’s most im­por­tant races, they’ll face an up­hill climb in the Senate.

HuffPost, check­ing in with nu­mer­ous U.S. sen­a­tors last week, re­ported that it’s not just Re­pub­li­cans who could stall move­ment on le­gal weed in the cham­ber. A num­ber of Dem­o­crats are hes­i­tant, too, ei­ther be­cause they say there are too many un­an­swered ques­tions on the con­se­quences or be­cause they say there are big­ger is­sues on their minds.

None of the three Penn­syl­va­nia Dem­o­crats would in­sist mar­i­juana is the only is­sue on their ra­dar, but it’s one that pro­po­nents say could raise bil­lions in tax rev­e­nue, re­move the re­li­ance on an of­ten-dan­ger­ous black mar­ket and re­lieve ra­cial dis­par­i­ties in en­force­ment — all while align­ing with pub­lic poll­ing.

This so hap­pens to be a race, too, in which the fron­trun­ner, Mr. Fetter­man, has made le­gal­iz­ing mar­i­juana a sta­ple of his po­lit­i­cal rise.

Growing chorus of officials want to ban officers from partaking in weed

During his decade in law enforcement, AJ Jacobs fell into a trap of cracking open a beer after a long, stressful shift in the suburbs of Phoenix.

Jacobs didn’t spend much time with his family — he had the “super cop” mentality to work all the time, he said.

But after 11 years on the force, he sustained a career-ending back injury, and turned to cannabis to alleviate the pain from five herniated discs in his back. He said marijuana also helped him work through PTSD, and he recommends it to police officers.

“I would rather them come home and smoke a joint to decompress and deal with their life and their emotions, as opposed to drinking that handle of Jack Daniels and then suppressing everything,” said Jacobs, now the secretary for Arizona NORML, a nationwide marijuana advocacy group. 

In Arizona, police aren’t allowed to consume marijuana, recreationally or medicinally, so some of Jacobs’ former colleagues can’t partake like he can. Jacobs thinks more states should follow New Jersey’s lead. Acting Attorney General Matt Platkin reminded law enforcement chiefs recently that the New Jersey law allowing for recreational marijuana permits cops to consume it off duty.

The governor’s amendment would have made possession of over 2 ounces of cannabis punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

An amendment to Virginia’s Senate Bill 591, proposed by Gov. Glen Youngkin (R), would have made marijuana possession a more serious matter than it is today. However, Youngkin’s efforts fell flat because lawmakers refused to advance the bill altogether, advocacy group NORML reported. (Benzinga)

SB 591 was re-referred by legislators to the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services committee, but, since the 2022 legislative session already ended, the legislation will not advance any further this year.

The governor’s amendment would have made possession of over 2 ounces of cannabis punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. Possession of over 6 ounces of weed would have been punishable by up to 12 months in jail and/or a $2,500 fine.

“The bad news is lawmakers’ inaction today allows for products containing unregulated and potentially unsafe synthetically-derived THC products to continue to proliferate in Virginia,” Pedini added.

Republican Gov. Glen Youngkin’s recent attempt to recriminalize activities involving the possession of two ounces of marijuana by adults via the enactment of an amendment to SB 591 has been defeated for the session. That effort failed on Wednesday with lawmakers’ refusal to advance the bill it was added to, SB 591.

Legislators voted to re-refer SB 591 to the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services committee. With the 2022 legislative session having already ended, this vote effectively ends any further discussion on the legislation this year. 

JM Pedini, NORML’s Development Director and the Executive Director of Virginia NORML, said, “The good news is, Governor Youngkin’s effort to recriminalize personal possession failed. The bad news is lawmakers’ inaction today allows for products containing unregulated and potentially unsafe synthetically-derived THC products to continue to proliferate in Virginia.”

Pedini added, “With his attempt to create new ways to criminalize Virginians for personal possession of cannabis having failed, Governor Youngkin’s administration should actually serve his constituents by establishing a legal adult-use marijuana market and ensuring that all cannabis products sold in the Commonwealth are accurately labeled and regulated for consumer safety.”

Commenting on the failure to approve the base text that would have regulated currently unregulated synthetically derived THC and novel THC products, JM Pedini added: “Sending SB 591 back to the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services committee is not in the interest of public health or safety. By failing to take legislative action, unregulated products containing synthetically-derived THC will continue to be sold at retail and wholesale outside of the strict regulatory oversight currently required for legally produced cannabis products. Consumers deserve to know what they’re purchasing, and far too often what’s on the label is not what’s in the package when it comes to unregulated products.”

Personal possession and the cultivation of small quantities of cannabis by adults 21 and older is already permitted in Virginia under the 2021 legalization law approved by former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam. Senate lawmakers approved separate legislation earlier this year to establish retail cannabis sales, but the bill died in the House after Republican members of the House General Laws Subcommittee rejected the measure.

Micah Rasmussen, the director of Rider’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics,  has been involved in the New Jersey political landscape since he graduated from Rider in 1992.

The political science professor organizes his classes to be a hub for political conversation with the party lines that often split local politics represented in his classroom. 

Yet in recent years, students in his classroom bipartisanly agreed to the recreational legalization of marijuana, something that went into effect in New Jersey for those 21 and older on April 21. 

“I would say it’s pretty rare to see a student who is opposed to legalization at this point and that’s probably been the case for a long time,” Rasmussen said poignantly. “Students always saw the benefit of legalization and always saw the futility of having [marijuana] criminalized and wanted to have that change.” 

Rasmussen helped grow an annual event called Model Congress more than 30 years ago where high school students come to Rider, pitch different bills and simulate the process of making it a law. 

“When I started running Model Congress, [legalization] was very much a fringe idea, it was very much a student idea, it was very much a pipe dream,” Rasmussen said before clarifying there was no intention of a pun in the quote. “… Year after year, decade after decade, advocates kept chipping away and they won over public opinion.”