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Prior to 1913, marijuana was legal nationwide. Motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment resulting from an influx of Mexican immigration after the Mexican War in 1910, states started to outlaw marijuana. By 1931, 29 states effectively outlawed it. The Controlled Substance Act of 1970 officially banned marijuana federally, as part of the government’s War on Drugs effort.

These policies have caused incredible suffering through the loss of lives and livelihood—police violence against black and minority communities, poverty, asset forfeiture, mass imprisonment, and health hazard through adulterated black-market products, to name a few.

However, 2020 was a big year for drug legalization, especially marijuana legalization, and 2021 seems likely to continue that trend. However, layers of regulatory inconsistency have imposed a de facto barrier in the production, distribution, and consumption of marijuana or marijuana-based products in the legal context. There is a lot more work to be done.

For example, the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp, a marijuana derivative containing only 0.3 percent THC. Yet hemp farmers struggle to find banks to keep their legal business afloat. Erik Bogard, president of the hemp processing company Columbus Naturals, said: “I called probably 20 different companies and got denied 19 different times before I found someone, and it’s probably 10 times the cost of what it would be if we weren’t dealing with hemp.”

The strict 0.3 percent threshold is difficult to maintain since the concentration level varies depending on the growth period and harvesting environment. Testing requirements are not clearly laid out either. The Farm Bill puts the USDA in charge of setting testing regimes while the FDA and DEA are involved in other parts of regulating the derivates of marijuana.

A former federal law enforcement officer turned Pennsylvania lawmaker became the second Republican state senator to publicly endorse legalizing recreational marijuana in the Keystone State.

York County state Sen. Mike Regan, the chairman of the Senate Law and Justice Committee, circulated a co-sponsorship memo late Monday to colleagues soliciting support for a bill to legalize marijuana for those 21 and older.

He said the revenue could be used to fund police, fight violent crime in cities and pay for afterschool programs in disadvantaged neighborhoods. 

“Our law enforcement agencies and justice system do not have the manpower or time to handle these minor marijuana offenses that clog our courts and produce little return,” he wrote.

“Instead, police and prosecutors need to focus on protecting our residents from the violent criminals and large-scale drug importers that are also dealing in heroin and fentanyl, which kill thousands of Pennsylvanians each year.”

More than six months after Texas legalized hemp, marijuana prosecution cases fell dramatically, with prosecutors filing fewer criminal charges while unleashing a struggle for police departments who now need to test substances in private labs, in order to prove illegal marijuana possession.

Since Gov. Greg Abbott signed the legalization of hemp at the beginning of June, focusing on agricultural practices and regulations, the number of misdemeanor marijuana possession cases dropped nearly two-thirds across Texas.

In 2018, Texas prosecutors filed about 5,900 new misdemeanor marijuana possession cases a month, as reported by the Texas Tribune, the first five months of 2019 saw an average of more than 5,600 new cases filed a month.

However, since June -when the hemp law was enacted- the number of cases has been slashed by more than half. In November, less than 2,000 new cases were filed, according to court data.

“In 2019, #txlege legalized hemp and threw into chaos the prosecution of marijuana crimes. From 2018 to 2019, pot possession arrests plummeted from 62.9k to 45.1k. In 2020, that number kept falling. @TxDPS reported 23.7k arrests statewide”. Reporter Jolie McCullough tweeted.

They hit the throttle and sped through pitch-black water. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers spotted a vessel of some sort in the distance, near the uninhabited Celeron Island in the Detroit River at 2:35 a.m., June 5, 2020.

Market dynamics steer smugglers to Michigan, and ‘submersible watercraft’

The good stuff

Today, the Cannabis Freedom Alliance (CFA) added a new class of membership, Values Members, who share a vision with CFA of ending prohibition in a manner consistent with helping all Americans achieve their full potential and limiting the number of barriers that inhibit innovation and entrepreneurship in a free and open market; and three new working groups focused on CFA’s core values: Successful Second Chances and Competitive Open Markets.

CFA congratulates, and is proud to welcome, the newest additions to the coalition: Consumer Choice Center (CCC), End It For Good (EFIG), Nevada Policy (NP), R Street Institute (RSI), and Students for Liberty (SFL).

CFA is further proud to announce the creation of its three working groups:

Criminal Justice Reform and Successful Second Chances Working Group. This group seeks to advance policy changes that facilitate second chances for non-violent cannabis offenders through developing and socializing model policy around justice reform. In addition, the group will work to help secure clemency, commutation, pardons and the like for current non-violent cannabis offenders, as well as petitioning the White House for broader action on such clemency. This group will find ways to support former cannabis offenders in their reentry into society. This working group will be coordinated by former cannabis offender and second-chances advocate Weldon Angelos, Mission Green; and retired law enforcement officer Lt. Diane Goldstein, LEAP.

Weldon Angelos, co-Coordinator of CFA’s Steering Committee said, “We are very pleased to have so many organizations joining our mission to end the injustices of prohibition and reforming the policies that incarcerated so many individuals unfairly.”

Okay, we know that NASA's international space station and other such spacecraft can pick up a heck of a lot of what's happening here on the third planet from the sun, but an indoor cannabis farm? 

Last week, authorities in Nevada, along with an impressive backup of national law enforcers, raided what they called the largest illegal marijuana grow in Douglas County history, and perhaps one of the largest ever to be discovered in the state, which legalized adult-use cannabis in 2017.

With 80 workers, the cannabis farm was also the largest employer in the area, rivaling several smaller firms in Douglas County, which is located some 20 miles south of Nevada’s state capital Carson City and borders Lake Tahoe.

The numbers associated with the 160-greenhouse pot grow on 22 acres of land were "staggering," reported the Record-Courier.

What did authorities do with 62 tons of weed? 

They buried it, "…hopefully deep enough to discourage anyone else from trying to dig it up," according to the newspaper. 

Illegal activity within the medical marijuana industry was among the topics discussed at the recent interim study hearing at the Oklahoma State Capitol.

"This is very near and dear to my heart in Northwest Oklahoma," District Attorney Chris Boring shared. "It's bad. I hope that you guys can find some solutions and help us deal with this problem."

Lori Carter, deputy attorney general for public policy, presented information regarding the prosecution of illegal activities within the medical marijuana industry.

According to Carter, crimes accompanying the now legal marijuana industry include fentanyl trafficking, human trafficking and prostitution, as well as other crimes.

"We are focusing on those as well as trying to keep everything else within the law," Carter said. "Our second role really is advising on policy."

A total of $1.5 million in state funding will be coming to three North Coast counties to fight what officials are calling the "worst of the worst" illegal cannabis grows. North Coast Sen. Mike McGuire; alongside Mendocino County Supervisor John Haschak and the sheriffs of Trinity, Mendocino, and Humboldt Counties; announced Wednesday that the funding is meant to support enforcement of laws surrounding unpermitted cannabis farms.

McGuire said Wednesday that the Humboldt and Mendocino County Sheriff's Offices will each receive $600-thousand and the Trinity County Sheriff's Office will receive $300-thousand. The funding is supposed to help staff the departments target the sites generating serious environmental and violent crimes.

Humboldt Sheriff William Honsal said during a virtual press conference with reporters that decades ago, illegal marijuana farms were small in nature, but now organized crime operations have taken hold and are abusing the environment.

"We have significant organized crime, drug cartels, and drug trafficking organizations that have really come in to take advantage of this market," Honsal said. "Now they're buying private land all over the county and they don't care about our county, they care about one thing and that's making money. It's greed."

Honsal noted that his office has seen increased rates of human and labor trafficking on these sites in recent years, and that is why serious state funding is needed to combat these grow sites.

Legislative leaders in Mississippi have requested that Republican Governor Tate Reeves convene a special legislative session in the coming days to address medical marijuana access.

The request comes after lawmakers last week revealed that they have reached an agreement on a draft legislation to regulate medical marijuana access in the state. If the Governor agrees to convene a special session, it would likely begin on Friday October 1. 

On Election Day 2020, 73 percent of Mississippi voters decided in favor of Initiative 65, which established a system of state-licensed dispensaries to engage in the retail dispensing of cannabis and cannabis products to patients who possess a doctor’s authorization. However, just prior to the vote, officials representing the city of Madison – including the town’s Republican Mayor – filed suit arguing that the legislature’s failure to update guidelines for petitioners should invalidate the initiative vote. The state Supreme Court eventually decided 6 to 3 to nullify the vote in favor of Initiative 65.

The new legislative proposal being advanced by lawmakers permits qualified patients, including those with chronic pain, to obtain herbal cannabis and other formulations of marijuana from licensed facilities.

Localities would be permitted to opt out of allowing marijuana businesses to operate in their jurisdiction, a provision that differs from that of the voter-approved measure. 

The nation’s largest prosecutor’s office is moving to dismiss roughly 60,000 marijuana convictions, the latest step to undo what some reform advocates consider the damage caused by narcotics enforcement carried out before Californians voted to legalize marijuana, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón announced Monday.

Under previous Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, the office moved last year to dump 66,000 marijuana convictions that took place before voters passed Proposition 64, the state law legalizing recreational marijuana use. But that list was compiled using information collected by the California Department of Justice, and Gascón said his office was able to identify tens of thousands more eligible cases by combing L.A. County court records.

“Dismissing these convictions means the possibility of a better future to thousands of disenfranchised people who are receiving this long-needed relief,” Gascón said in a statement. “It clears the path for them to find jobs, housing and other services that previously were denied to them because of unjust cannabis laws.”

Gascón has long championed efforts to reverse what he sees as the racially disparate and overly punitive effects of the nation’s war on drugs. While serving as San Francisco’s top prosecutor, he sought the dismissal of nearly 9,000 felony and misdemeanor marijuana convictions that were processed before the passage of Proposition 64. As part of that effort, Gascón partnered with nonprofit tech organization Code for America, which developed an algorithm to analyze county data and identify cases eligible to be cleared under Proposition 64.

Sun Provisions in Decatur is a little, family-owned marijuana shop with an extraction lab in the back.

“It’s been a struggle,” said Helen Sun, 33, Sun Provisions operations manager and daughter of the owner. “We came really close to having to restructure, but we were able to squeeze by and make it from one harvest to another.

“I think we’ll be OK, but the difference between feast and famine is going to be allowing us to grow and do more.”

It’s been almost a year since New Jersey voters passed by a 2-1 margin a “Constitutional Amendment to Legalize Marijuana,” as it was misleadingly labeled.

“It might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies’ Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR,” Toklas wrote. “Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extensions of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected.”Not in New Jersey. As we approach the first anniversary of that amendment’s passage, the new bureaucracy called “The Cannabis Regulatory Commission” has not yet accomplished the simple task of legalizing marijuana.But the CRC has one major accomplishment: It has prohibited the sale of any marijuana products “resembling food.” The only acceptable edibles will be lozenges.

The regulations exclude brownies, cookies, and those chocolate bars that are so popular with the customers at NJ Weedman’s restaurant/pot dispensary on State Street in Trenton.

But towns all over the state are strengthening their anti-smoking ordinances to counter the pot smokers. So why ban the sort of marijuana that produces no fumes?

Evan Nison of the New Jersey Chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) said that is counter-productive.

Legislative negotiators and leaders have agreed on a draft of medical marijuana legislation, and are anticipated to ask Gov. Tate Reeves as early as Friday to call the Legislature into special session, sources close to the negotiations said Thursday.

Legislative leaders on Thursday released some details of the proposal — which had been kept close to the vest for months — such as that cities and counties will be allowed to “opt out” of having medical marijuana cultivation or dispensaries, although local voters can override this. 

Negotiations have dragged on throughout the summer on crafting a medical marijuana program to replace one passed by Mississippi voters in November but shot down in May by the state Supreme Court on a constitutional technicality.

House Speaker Philip Gunn in a Thursday interview on a Supertalk radio show said he believed the House and Senate leadership and negotiators are “in agreement” on a draft bill, and he believes both chambers have the votes to pass such a measure. He said he planned to get together with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, then barring any last minute glitches “inform the governor we are ready.”

Other sources close to the negotiations on Thursday told Mississippi Today they anticipate that request to the governor would happen as soon as Friday. Reeves has sole authority to call lawmakers into special session, and would set the date and parameters of a special session.

Politicians and associates in New York on both sides of the aisle are implicated in alleged involvement of misappropriated money to benefit the launch of a pot business. Two Rudy Giuliani associates—Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman—told a Russian millionaire in 2018 they offered a $125,000 straw donation to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo to curry favor in launching a pot business in New York, court filings say.

First reported by New York Daily News, the ongoing scandal continues to reveal a web of corruption in marijuana markets in multiple states.

Cuomo signed legislation on March 31 to legalize adult-use cannabis in New York, but was criticized for dragging his feet in getting the market up and running. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who replaced Cuomo, promised to pick up where Cuomo failed, and get the state’s adult-use cannabis market off the ground. 

New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act provides advanced social equity provisions. Like any other state with a legal market, competition is high to obtain licenses and establish dominance in the market. 

But allegations of corruption in the approval process could include both the former governor and the former attorney of Donald Trump.

One thing most people agree on: Federal marijuana legalization is coming.

When California legalized cannabis for adult use in 2016, many supporters acknowledged that the War on Drugs had disproportionately impacted communities of color around the state. It was, in fact, one of the selling points of Proposition 64, which went into effect more than a year later. 

On the belief that the ballot initiative didn’t go far enough, though, social equity programs started springing up across the state in recent years to give special privileges to Black, Brown and low-income people who had been arrested and thrown in jail for nonviolent cannabis-related offenses and thereby barred from taking part in the new industry. 

One survey, conducted in 2017 by Marijuana Business Daily, found that about 80 percent of the founders and owners of cannabis businesses at the time were White. 

Neither the city nor the county of San Diego has a social equity program on the books and officials for both say they’re working to create one. By their own admission, they’re late to the game. 

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, considering that other municipalities in California have tried and failed to correct the injustices they previously identified. In some places, social equity programs have been portrayed as harmful to the same people they were supposed to help. 

Two area businesswomen want to open a cannabis growing, manufacturing and retail distribution facility in a building that once housed a Roseland charter school, but some area residents say they object to that kind of business in their neighborhood. Old School Cannabis, which has applied for permission to operate at the site, will be considered by the Santa Rosa Planning Commission during a scheduled meeting Thursday afternoon.

“We want to ... uplift the community and build jobs and uplift the culture,” co-owner and operator Nayeli Rivera said.

Rivera said she is a first-generation immigrant whose parents moved to Sonoma County in the 1970s. She added that she grew up in Petaluma and now lives in Sebastopol.

“Being Mexican-American and being a business owner in the (Roseland) community, I think, is just a wonderful opportunity and I feel very excited and very humbled,” she said. “There’s not many Latinos in cannabis and especially not women.”

Located at 100 Sebastopol Road, the former school building is bordered by industrial facilities to its north and south. Residential neighborhoods are on its other two sides.

The Las Cruces city council voted to pay the state back $400,000 that was going to go to a new hemp manufacturing company.

The city planned to invest $150,000 of its own funding in addition to $400,000 that the New Mexico Economic Development Department gave the city for 420 Valley, LLC.

The city's decision to retract the money was due to the fact that 420 valley was unable to meet its hiring goals.

"They we’re going to provide up to 55 jobs at a certain income level by 2023, December 31st," said Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima. "And then there was also another stipulation that they would have at least 18 jobs by December 31st of 2020 and we don’t believe that they’re going to fulfill that.”

“We started reaching out to people for the hiring process, getting it lined up, but we didn’t have anybody that was fully committed to come work for us," said Rick Morales the co-owner of 420 Valley.