WeedLife News Network

A landmark bill that would decriminalize marijuana use at the federal level is up for vote soon.

The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on the legislation in September, according to an email sent out on Friday by Majority Whip James Clyburn. Politico first reported on the pending vote.

The "Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2019" -- also called the MORE Act -- would officially remove cannabis from the list of federally controlled substances. It would also expunge federal marijuana convictions and arrests, and approve the allocation of resources for communities affected by the war on drugs, according to the bill's text.

"A floor vote on the bill would be the greatest federal cannabis reform accomplishment in over 80 years," the Global Alliance for Cannabis Commerce said in a statement Friday.

The House Judiciary Committee passed the bill, introduced by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and co-sponsored by more than 50 lawmakers, by a vote of 24-10 in November.

The Netherlands has pioneered many parts of the cannabis industry as it has evolved and changed over the last half century. See the eponymous coffee shop.

As a nation, Holland is home to an entrepreneurial ethos that feels like a mixture of American free market economics overlaid on European sensibilities. Like Germany next door, for example, prostitution and cannabis have more or less been legal for a long time. Indeed cannabis and licensed sex workers were lumped together as “sin” industries, like in say, Las Vegas, New Orleans, or Sun City a bit further afield. Right down to the proximity of the real estate they shared (and sometimes still do) in say, Amsterdam.

Laissez (faire) les bons temps rouler and all that.

As a direct result, Holland and even more iconically its capital and most important port city, encapsulated and carried forward a dream of more accessible if not legal cannabis through very dark days indeed.

It has been a very long journey.

As Executive Director of The Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association and as a former member of the Pennsylvania Department of Health Medical Marijuana Advisory Board, I would like to express my concerns, and those of many of our membership, about the legalization of marijuana and the relative effects on public safety in or communities.

I believe that marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania will pose significant challenges for law enforcement resulting from the unanticipated consequences it has on crime and public safety.

In our meeting with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, we supported decriminalization. There is an important distinction to be made here for the commonwealth’s residents. Legalization of marijuana is the process of removing all legal prohibitions against it. Marijuana would then be available to the adult general population for purchase and use at will, similar to tobacco and alcohol. Decriminalization is the act of removing criminal sanctions against an act, article or behavior.

There are insufficient data to determine the true impact of legalized marijuana on crime and safety. However, studies in Colorado show:

One of the most salient concerns we have relates to the consequences of drug-impaired driving. We have all witnessed our share of crashes and traffic congestion, as well as vehicular, pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. Law enforcement officials are uniquely qualified to discuss the issues and concerns related to impaired driving.

Nebraska voters will decide this November on a statewide ballot measure seeking to legalize and regulate medical marijuana access in the state.

In an e-mail sent out to supporters today from the campaign, proponents Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana announced that they have met the state’s signature requirements and that the ballot measure’s language does not violate the state’s single-subject rule.  

The initiative amends “the Nebraska Constitution to provide the right to use, possess, access, and safely produce cannabis, and cannabis products and materials, for serious medical conditions as recommended by a physician or nurse practitioner.”  

Nebraska is one of only three US states that remains on par with the federal government regarding the continued prohibition and criminalization of marijuana.

Separate medical marijuana legalization initiatives will also be voted on in Mississippi and South Dakota on Election Day. Adult-use ballot initiatives have qualified for the ballots in New Jersey, Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota. 

The legal delivery of marijuana is becoming increasingly more popular. Here are some  basics you should know.

One of the great joys of modern life is delivery. The fact that you can order whatever you want from the comfort of your home is extremely convenient, and a perk that has become even more valuable during the pandemic. Marijuana delivery, although not as simple as ordering food or alcohol to go, has grown more popular and hassle free over the years. The pandemic is also helping people get licenses more quickly, gaining faster access to these kinds of perks.

Legal marijuana delivery is not something that a lot of people are aware of. While some know that the option exists, getting their weed from an app doesn’t sound as safe and exclusive as visiting your own dispensary or buying something from your trusted weed guy. Some people also think that legal weed delivery just sounds too good to be true. But it’s not; legal marijuana delivery is 100% legitimate.

Here’s what you should keep in mind when ordering legal marijuana online:

Where you live

Photo by Free-Photos via Pixabay

On July 27, 2020, the Mexico Ministry of Health (Secretaría de Salud) published Draft Regulations on Health Control for the Production, Research, and Medical Use of Cannabis and its Pharmacological Derivatives (the Draft Regulations) on the National Commission for Regulatory Improvements (Comisión Nacional de Mejora Regulatoria) (CONAMER) website.

In summary, the Draft Regulations contain provisions allowing:

Activities for the primary production of cannabis for the supply of industrial production, raw material production for pharmacological and agronomic research, and production of qualified cannabis seed.

The use of cannabis for research purposes to obtain its molecular complexes or pharmacological derivatives to be used in pharmaceutical production, with prior authorization of the Research Protocol issued by COFEPRIS.

The use of cannabis for agronomic research purposes, that is, for scientific activities for the development of primary production technologies for cannabis, including variety assessment and development, crop management and cannabis characteristics.

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.