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[Baron23]

Elizabeth Warren’s Criminal Justice Plan Involves Legalizing Marijuana And Safe Injection Sites

Legalizing marijuana, granting clemency to people convicted of drug offenses and investing in harm reduction programs such as safe injection sites are part of a criminal justice reform plan that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) released on Tuesday.


The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate stressed that the war on drugs has been carried out in a racially discriminatory manner, writing that it’s unfair that “a kid with an ounce of pot can get thrown in jail, while a bank executive who launders money for a drug cartel can get a bonus. It’s long past time for us to reform our system.”


“This failure [of the drug war] has been particularly harmful for communities of color, and we need a new approach,” she said. “It starts with legalizing marijuana and erasing past convictions, and then eliminating the remaining disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing.”


What’s more, the drug war “has criminalized addiction, ripped apart families—and largely failed to curb drug use” when a more effective system would treat addiction as a public health issue.

That includes diverting people who’ve been convicted of non-violent drug offenses to treatment programs and providing evidence-based resources for people suffering from addiction. For example, Warren’s plan calls for safe injection sites where people can use illicit drugs under the supervision of medical professionals who can help prevent fatal overdoses and get people into treatment. She also said needle exchange programs and expanding access to buprenorphine would reduce the opioid crisis.

“Instead of locking up people for nonviolent marijuana crimes, I’ve proposed putting pharmaceutical executives on the hook to report suspicious orders for controlled substances that damage the lives of millions.”

She also called for the abolition of certain mandatory minimum sentences and said that “people who struggle with addiction should not be incarcerated because of their disease.”


“Mass incarceration has not reduced addiction rates or overdose deaths, because substance abuse disorder is a public health problem — and it’s long past time to treat it that way,” the plan says. “We know that diversion programs are both more humane and a better investment than incarceration — for every dollar we invest in treatment programs, we can save $12 in future crime and health care costs.”

“And rather than incarcerating individuals with substance abuse disorders, we should expand options that divert them into programs that provide real treatment.”

Like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Warren’s criminal justice reform proposal also mentions executive actions she could unilaterally take.


Specifically, she wrote that the Justice Department should not hold authority to make clemency recommendations and it should instead be left up to an independent clemency board so that those eligible for a pardons and commutations are more quickly identified.

“I’ll direct the board to identify broad classes of potentially-deserving individuals for review, including those who would have benefited from retroactivity under the First Step Act, individuals who are jailed under outdated or discriminatory drug laws, or those serving mandatory minimums that should be abolished,” she said.


The plan’s unveiling comes two days after Sanders released his criminal justice reform proposal, which also called for marijuana legalization and the implementation of harm reduction policies such as safe consumption facilities.


Buttigieg’s plan stands out from his fellow Democratic candidates in at least one regard: the mayor said drug possession should broadly be decriminalized.


Warren also released a separate plan for Indian tribes last week that involves protecting tribal cannabis programs from federal intervention.

 

[Baron23]

Bernie Sanders Calls For Legalization Of Marijuana And Safe Injection Sites

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released a criminal justice reform plan on Sunday that includes proposals to legalize marijuana, expunge past cannabis convictions and provide for safe injection sites to combat the opioid overdose crisis.


The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate emphasized racially disparate arrest rates for marijuana and said that such disparities “pervade every aspect of the criminal justice system.”


“When Bernie is president, we will finally make the deep and structural investments to rebuild the communities that mass incarceration continues to decimate,” his campaign website states.


A key component of the senator’s comprehensive proposal is changing federal drug laws and treating addiction as a mental health issue.

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/ber...zation-of-marijuana-and-safe-injection-sites/
According to an outline of the plan, if elected president, Sanders will legalize marijuana while ensuring that revenue from cannabis sales are reinvested in communities “hit hardest by the War on Drugs.”


Sanders discussed aspects of his criminal justice reform vision at a campaign event in South Carolina where he addressed the cash bail system and drug criminalization. A tweet with video from the event points out that people continue to linger in prison due to high bail costs, including for simple marijuana possession arrests, while adults in legal states are able to “get marijuana delivered to your home.”

His plan also notes that people suffering from addiction would benefit from his presidency because he will provide them “with the health care they need by guaranteeing health care—including inpatient and outpatient substance abuse and mental health services with no copayments or deductibles” through a Medicare-for-all system.


Additionally, Sanders described two policies specifically aimed at mitigating the opioid crisis: 1) legalizing safe injection sites where people can use drugs like heroin under the supervision of medical professionals and receive guidance on curbing addiction, and 2) decriminalizing possession of buprenorphine, an opioid often used as an offramp in the treatment of heroin addiction.


First responders would also be encouraged to carry naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal drug, under his plan.


Here are three other drug reform proposals he included in the plan:


—Raise the threshold for when drug charges are federalized, as federal charges carry longer sentences.


—Work with states to fund and pursue innovative overdose prevention initiatives.


—Institute a full review of the current sentencing guidelines and end the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine.


“Today we are releasing a criminal justice plan that will reform every aspect of America’s racist, dysfunctional criminal justice system,” Sanders said in a campaign email blast that prompts recipients to sign a petition in support of the plan. “That includes ending mass incarceration, changing the way we police our communities, providing resources for victims of crime, ending cycles of violence, and more.”


Other than the drug-specific proposals, Sanders’s plan also calls for policing reform, dismantling the for-profit prison complex, broadening expungement opportunities and enhancing mental health services.


Presidential candidates have placed a strong emphasis on drug reform as part of their criminal justice agendas this cycle. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) both unveiled similarly targeted plans in recent months, for example.


But while drug reform is a main feature of Sanders’s plan to halve the federal prison population, he didn’t explicitly recommend decriminalizing drug possession as a means to that end like Buttigieg did in his criminal justice reform plan. Rather, the senator focused on sentencing reform and changing other punitive federal laws that have contributed to mass incarceration.


The plan also differs from Booker’s in its approach to executive action. Sanders said he would create “an independent clemency board removed from the Department of Justice and placed in White House” in order to reform the pardon and commutation process, while Booker said specifically he would immediately move to grant mass clemency to people convicted of drug offenses if elected.

 

[Baron23]

Conservative Group ALEC Floats Marijuana Banking And CBD Bills For States To Consider

An influential conservative organization is floating two cannabis-related resolutions that could be used as models for future state legislation.

Tasks forces of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a nonprofit that brings together conservative lawmakers and private sector stakeholders to draft and distribute model policies for consideration by state legislatures, discussed banking issues in the marijuana industry and enacting hemp and CBD legalization bills at the group’s 46th annual meeting in Austin last week.


ALEC’s Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development (CIE) Task Force tackled cannabis financial services issues during Thursday’s session, weighing a draft resolution that urges Congress to “enact common-sense federal laws that respect state law and promote public safety without compromising federal enforcement of anti-money laundering laws against criminal enterprises.”

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/con...anking-and-cbd-bills-for-states-to-consider/#


“Congress has sole authority to solve the cannabis banking issue by enacting legislation that provides protections for depository institutions that offer financial services to cannabis-related legitimate businesses and service providers for such businesses,” the resolution states.
The measure specifically says it does not take a position on marijuana legalization itself but rather focuses on how conflicting state and federal cannabis laws mean “the vast majority of financial institutions are unwilling to provide services [to marijuana businesses] and those that do could be subject to severe criminal and civil penalties.”
Because of that problem, many such businesses are operating on a largely cash basis, which ALEC described as “inefficient, expensive, opaque, and make illicit activity more difficult for law enforcement and state regulators to track.”

The resolution also emphasizes the bipartisan nature of resolving the banking issue, referencing a recent letter from 38 state and territory attorneys general that called on Congress to enact a legislative fix.
ALEC’s support for resolving financial uncertainty in the cannabis industry is just one of many recent indicators that legislation such as the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act is considered a nonpartisan issue. The House Financial Services Committee approved the SAFE Banking Act in March, and the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on the topic last month, despite its Republican chairman initially stating that the panel wouldn’t discuss it as long as marijuana remained federally illegal.

Over in ALEC’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture (EEA) Task Force, members debated draft legislation for states that would “legalize the agricultural production and sale of hemp as well as Cannabidiol oil, commonly known as CBD oil” but explicitly would “not legalize marijuana.”
The model policy seems to be targeted at the limited number of states that still have hemp prohibition on the books despite the crop’s federal legalization under the 2018 Farm Bill. Those states include Idaho, South Dakota and Mississippi, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Provisions of the draft policy signal that the proposal would be in compliance with federal law, which defines hemp as cannabis that contains no more than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight. However, while the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp and its derivatives, the Food and Drug Administration has said that unless alternative rules are issued for CBD, it cannot legally be marketed in food items or dietary supplement.

ALEC’s draft policy would provide for such marketing, though. It stipulates that CBD products that contain no THC can sold be if the product is “intended for topical application, oral consumption, or inhalation, by humans, or for consumption by animals.”

It’s not clear how the task forces voted or what exactly the immediate next steps would be if the draft proposals were approved and made final at last week’s conference. Marijuana Moment reached out to representatives of ALEC for clarification but did not hear back by the time of publication.

 

[momofthegoons]

Credit Unions Can Bank Hemp Businesses, Federal Agency Announces

A federal financial agency released updated guidelines on banking in the hemp industry on Monday, following up on requests from multiple lawmakers to provide clarity on the issue.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) said in its interim guidance that providing banking services to hemp businesses is allowable since the crop and its derivatives were federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill. The notice also emphasized the economic potential of hemp and the role credit unions can play as the industry continues to develop.

“Lawful hemp businesses provide exciting new opportunities for rural communities,” NCUA Chairman Rodney Hood said in a press release. “I believe today’s interim guidance keeps with the mission of the nation’s cooperative credit system to serve people who have been overlooked and underserved.”

“Many credit unions have a long and successful history of providing services to the agriculture sector,” he said. “My expectation is that credit unions will thoughtfully consider whether they are able to safely and properly serve lawfully operating hemp-related businesses within their fields of membership.”




In a letter sent to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) last month, which the presidential candidate’s Senate office shared exclusively with Marijuana Moment, Hood noted that NCUA was “working on possible future guidance to financial institutions” but that such guidance would be subject to change depending on what regulations the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ultimately develops.

In the meantime, the new interim guidance notes that “growth in hemp-related commerce could provide new economic opportunities for some communities, and will create a need for such businesses to be able to access capital and financial services” while clarifying that credit unions “may provide the customary range of financial services for business accounts, including loans, to lawfully operating hemp related businesses within their fields of membership.”

While NCUA said that it is “generally a credit union’s business decision as to the types of permissible services and accounts to offer,” it highlighted the need to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements, in particular:

—Credit unions need to maintain appropriate due diligence procedures for hemp-related accounts and comply with BSA and AML requirements to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for any activity that appears to involve potential money laundering or illegal or suspicious activity. It is the NCUA’s understanding that SARs are not required to be filed for the activity of hemp-related businesses operating lawfully, provided the activity is not unusual for that business. Credit unions need to remain alert to any indication an account owner is involved in illicit activity or engaging in activity that is unusual for the business.

—If a credit union serves hemp-related businesses lawfully operating under the 2014 Farm Bill pilot provisions, it is essential the credit union knows the state’s laws, regulations, and agreements under which each member that is a hemp-related business operates. For example, a credit union needs to know how to verify the member is part of the pilot program. Credit unions also need to know how to adapt their ongoing due diligence and reporting approaches to any risks specific to participants in the pilot program.

—When deciding whether to serve hemp-related businesses that may already be able to operate lawfully–those not dependent on the forthcoming USDA regulations and guidelines for hemp production–the credit union needs to first be familiar with any other federal and state laws and regulations that prohibit, restrict, or otherwise govern these businesses and their activity. For example, a credit union needs to know if the business and the product(s) is lawful under federal and state law, and any relevant restrictions or requirements under which the business must operate.

“Hemp provides new opportunities for communities with an economic base involving agriculture,” the notice states. “The NCUA encourages credit unions to thoughtfully consider whether they are able to safely and properly serve lawfully operating hemp-related businesses within their fields of membership.”

“Lending to a lawfully operating hemp-related business is permissible.”

After USDA releases its rules for the hemp industry, which are expected to come ahead of the 2020 planting season, NCUA said it “will issue additional guidance on this subject.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who like Bennet has also pressured federal regulators to clear up confusion around hemp banking, took credit for NCUA’s response and celebrated the new guidance.



“I’m delighted to hear the NCUA has answered my call on behalf of Kentuckians to ensure the legal hemp industry can access much-needed financial services,” McConnell said in a press release. “Although President Trump signed into law my initiative last year to remove hemp from the federal list of controlled substances, many of my constituents have told me about their difficulty receiving loans and other services that are necessary to successfully run a hemp business.”

“Through this guidance by the NCUA, I look forward to more hemp farmers, processors and manufacturers starting or growing their operations with the help of Kentucky’s credit unions,” he said. “As Senate Majority Leader, I’ll continue advocating for Kentucky’s priorities throughout the federal government, and I’m proud of today’s positive news.”

Credit unions have generally been friendlier to the marijuana and hemp industries than have conventional banks, and NCUA has similarly taken a more proactive role in evolving to meet the demands of these burgeoning markets.

For example, the agency’s head clarified earlier this month that credit unions wouldn’t be punished simply for serving hemp businesses so long as they were following standard procedures. NCUA also released a draft rule in July that would allow people with past drug convictions to work at credit unions.

Cannabis banking issues have received significant congressional attention this session, with a bipartisan consensus emerging around creating a legislative fix so that hemp and marijuana businesses are able to access financial services.

The hemp industry in particular has enjoyed bipartisan support since the crop was legalized, but while marijuana remains a federally controlled substance, more lawmakers from across the aisle are expressing interest in affording cannabis businesses the same access in order to increase financial transparency and mitigate public safety risks associated with operating on a largely cash-only basis.

The House Financial Services Committee approved a bill in March that would protect banks that service marijuana businesses from being penalized by federal regulators, and the Senate Banking Committee also held a hearing on the issue last month.

Banking Chairman Mike Crapo (I-ID), who suggested earlier this year that his panel wouldn’t convene to discuss the matter as long as cannabis is federally illegal, has since taken a stance that the issue needs to be resolved.

But while advocates hoped that legislation to address marijuana banking problems would be taken up by the full House ahead of the August recess, that window closed and attention is now turned to a potential hearing in the fall.

 

[Baron23]

Do People Move To Access Legal Marijuana? Yes — Meet 'Medical Refugees'

It's not uncommon to hear anecdotal stories of individuals or families who must move for medical reasons — specifically, access to medical cannabis. Some of these cases draw considerable media attention, like that of Yvonne Cahalane, the Irish mother who moved to Colorado for her then-2-year-old son, who suffers from a seizure disorder called Dravet syndrome, according to the United Kingdom newspaper The Guardian.

For Cahalane, her journey to find help for her son took her across an ocean. But many Americans are moving for the same reason, shifting across the nation as legislation governing cannabis changes state-by-state.

The displacement of families seeking legal medical marijuana is becoming so well known that they now have a name: medical refugees. They tell their stories to reporters, document their struggles on social media, and while caring for ailing family members, hope to inspire legal changes.

They also join groups such as American Medical Refugees, a Colorado-based support group for families hoping to connect with those in similar situations and find resources. The organization was co-founded by Amy Dawn Bourlon-Hilterbran after she moved to Colorado from Oklahoma in 2013 for her son, Austin, who has Dravet syndrome. (Oklahoma wouldn't legalize medical marijuana for another five years, but the plant has proven exceptionally popular among patients in the conservative state.)
These heart-wrenching anecdotes of ailing children and the risks their parents take to help them are not hard to find, but data that measure their numbers are sparse.

Data Not Readily Available
The moving company U-Haul tracks migration trends, but it and others don't ask customers how they feel about cannabis. The tech company MoveBuddah.com, which helps people figure out the best methods for their move, doesn't specifically ask people why they're packing up. However, founder Ryan Carrigan noted in 2018 that of the 1,500 inbound moves his company had facilitated to legal states (then Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, and Arkansas) almost 5% voluntarily mentioned legal cannabis as a reason for their move. Of those, three said it was the No. 1 factor in their move. Two were individuals older than 65 hoping to use cannabis for pain relief, while one was a parent seeking cannabis treatment for a child who suffered from seizures.

Census data can also chart the ebbs and flows in a state's population, but it doesn't ask whether people relocate for medical marijuana. Researchers have done their own polling. In the study “The Pot Rush: Is Legalized Marijuana a Positive Local Amenity” released in March 2018, researchers Diego Zambiasi of the University of Basque Country in Spain, and Steven Stillman of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy and the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Germany, reported that they found “strong evidence” that migrants saw legal cannabis as a positive amenity. They compared the actual post-legalization growth of Colorado with a “synthetic Colorado,” or, a composite of 13 states where cannabis isn't legal.

According to Zambiasi's and Stillman's study, prior to legalization from 2005 to 2009, 187,600 people on average migrated to Colorado annually. After medical marijuana was legalized in 2010 and up to 2013 when adult-use was legalized, in-migration increased by 20,760 people per year, an 11% increase, in Colorado compared with synthetic Colorado. After full legalization in 2013, in-migration further increased by 15,470 people per year, an additional 8.2% increase.

The researchers' statistical analysis determined that the rise wasn't from chance, but that Colorado was “a clear and significant outlier.”

Further, “In total, 155,500 more people moved to Colorado than predicted … .” In the end, the researchers concluded that marijuana legalization increased Colorado's population by 3.2% in 2015. Numbers tell part of the story.

Helping Families Move
According to American Medical Refugees board member Sebastien Cotte, the organization helped about 400 families in some way midway through 2018, up from about 150 two years earlier, according to media reports. These families had moved to Colorado from more than 35 states and three countries.

Cotte and his wife Annett know well what these families face. Their son, Jagger, has Leigh syndrome, a neurometabolic disorder that manifests in seizures, muscle pain, difficulty breathing, and other symptoms. Cotte became interested in cannabis as a possible treatment for his son in 2013, after seeing “Weed,” Dr. Sanjay Gupta's documentary about medical cannabis, on CNN. He connected with other parents in Georgia through medical cannabis advocacy organization Americans for Safe Access, but their initial attempts to pass a bill legalizing medical marijuana in Georgia failed. In 2014, Cotte's family decided to move to Colorado. They were one of 17 families to leave Georgia at that time, many of them receiving financial aid from Republican state Rep. Allen Peake.

Access to legal medical marijuana has prompted patients or caregivers, often parents of children with serious medical conditions, to move to states where it's available. One support group calls them medical refugees. (Illustration by Franck Boston via Shutterstock)

Jagger's condition makes it impossible to fly, and Cotte described the six-day, cross-country drive as treacherous.

“When Jagger gets his muscle pain, he starts screaming. The more he was screaming, the more oxygen he needed. So pretty much every three to four hours we had to stop, spend the night in a hotel, calm him down, and recharge the battery on the oxygen [machine],” Cotte said.

Cotte's difficult move illustrates a common pain point for these families. Not only do they have to move, but traveling is often far more difficult with an ill child or family member. They are forced to make a complicated journey, away from their home, friends, and support network. Cotte said some families were forced to split up, with certain members moving to legal states while the others stayed behind to keep their jobs and provide financial support. And many of them just want to go home.
“You leave everything behind and hope for the best and you don't know if it's gonna work. It's taxing emotionally and financially. It's not something easy to do or that I would recommend anyone doing unless you really have to,” Cotte said.

Cotte moved back to Georgia in after it became legal to possess low-THC cannabis oil in 2015. The bill was called the Haleigh's Hope Act after a young girl who suffered from near-constant seizures. Her family also moved to Colorado for medical cannabis.

Returning Home
Cotte was happy to return to Georgia. The altitude in Colorado made it hard for Jagger to breathe, plus it was a financial strain to pay both their Georgia mortgage and their Colorado rent. Most of those other 17 families have also moved back home, too, Cotte said. Yet things aren't perfect.

For one, Georgians can possess cannabis oil with only 5% THC or less, and they must have a qualifying condition to apply for a card. And while it may be legal to possess the oil, there's currently no legal way to purchase it. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill that now allows the production, distribution, and import of medical cannabis in April 2019, but months will pass before the state's patients will be able to walk into a dispensary. Those who need it now must break the law to get it.

Advocate and lobbyist Jason Eassa pointed to two high-profile cases of someone intentionally breaking the law to get medicine to Georgia families. Peake, the same lawmaker who provided financial aid to Cotte's family, has admitted to running an underground medical marijuana network. And there's Dale Jackson, a Georgia father whose son takes cannabis oil for autism and who has openly described in the LaGrange Daily News how harrowing it is to smuggle $15,000 worth of cannabis oil out of Denver International Airport.

“There's no reason somebody should have to pay for a plane ticket or use a private jet to get to Colorado and buy $15,000 worth of oil and bubble wrap it, scared that TSA's gonna see it, and fly it all the way back [to Georgia],” Eassa said. “And frankly, there's no reason someone should have to drive down to Florida for it.”

It's the constant worry of legal ramifications that silences many families and individuals who move for cannabis. According to Cotte, there may be double as many people who moved to Colorado for cannabis than American Medical Refugees even knows about.

'Fear or at Least Uncertainty'
David Brown, an attorney, lobbyist, and president of Sensible Marijuana Policy for Louisiana, said there's often “an element of fear or at least uncertainty” for these medical refugees. He points to a veteran who was worried that if he were more vocal about his need for medical cannabis, he might lose his federally funded veterans benefits. Some parents worry about the legality of providing a federally illegal substance to a minor, or that they may face prosecution or lose their children if they speak out. As a result, Brown said it's hard for his organization to accurately track how many people they work with and how many people are moving.

“I'm certain that even if we had assigned everyone a number, we would have only captured a small fraction,” he said. “A lot of these people are not networked. Maybe they heard from a friend or family member that there's someone they could stay with in another place, so they leave and don't talk to anyone about it.”
And while cases involving ill children often receive the lion's share of media attention, there are adult medical refugees, too, including veterans, senior citizens, and individuals suffering from myriad conditions.

Zoey Bullock, a cannabis consultant who goes by the nickname Betty Chronix, said she moved from Virginia to Florida for access to medical cannabis. Bullock was 12 years old when she was sexually assaulted, which left her with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). At one point, Bullock even attempted suicide. Then, as a teen, her friends introduced her to cannabis.

“It was, really, just the only thing that gave me some calm and some peace with anxiety,” Bullock said. “Today, being a medical patient, it's even better because I'm able to really know what I'm consuming and it really helps to be able to use medical cannabis.”

Bullock and Rhian Santini, an esthetician and reiki practitioner, are in the early stages of their nonprofit, The Healing Light Foundation. They work with local shelters to find women survivors of abuse and domestic violence and connect them to healing and wellness services, including medical cannabis, massage, and spiritual work. Some women are already fleeing domestic violence or volatile situations in their home states, so Bullock hopes to expand her network to cities and states that are not currently 420-friendly.

“We want to have a bigger presence in the U.S. to be the supportive element for women who want to relocate for cannabis,” Bullock said.

While individuals and families are still relocating for cannabis, the moves for medical cannabis have likely already peaked because of changing U.S. laws. Cotte noted that back in 2014, when his family was preparing to move, some families were leaving home simply to access CBD. With the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which allows people across the country to purchase hemp-derived products, those moves may no longer occur.

Until medical cannabis is federally legal and easily accessible, the stigma and fear these families and individuals face will likely remain. There may never be an accurate count of medical refugees in the U.S., but some are working hard to make that number zero.

 

[Baron23]

Weedmaps will stop advertising unlicensed cannabis retailers ‘later this year’

Online advertising giant Weedmaps said Wednesday it will begin requiring a state license number for all marijuana retail listings on its site, indicating it will cease carrying ads for unlicensed cannabis shops and delivery services.

The move could prove an enormous boon to legal retailers that have been struggling to compete with illegal shops simply by eliminating the black-market advertising presence on Weedmaps, which remains one of the most commonly used dispensary finders by marijuana consumers.

A spokesperson for the Irvine, California-based company did not immediately respond to a request for further comment, so it’s unclear exactly when the new requirement may go into effect.

According to a news release, Weedmaps will also be “restricting the use of its point of sale, online orders, delivery logistics and wholesale exchange software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms to licensed operators exclusively.

“In addition, Weedmaps will explore ways to make it easier for patients and adult-use consumers to identify the license number on advertised listings.”

Insiders in California’s cannabis industry said Weedmaps was “capitulating” to pressure from both state regulators and others in the industry to quit carrying ads for hundreds of unlicensed companies that don’t comply with state regulations and don’t pay taxes, which critics of Weedmaps argue has undermined California’s legal market since it launched in January 2018.

Weedmaps CEO Chris Beals said in the release, however, that the move is a reflection of the company’s “commitment to working with lawmakers and regulators to foster a flourishing legal market.”

The California Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC) sent Weedmaps a cease-and-desist letter in February 2018 regarding its ads for unlicensed retailers, but the company last March refused to comply, contending it was protected by federal law.

That means Weedmaps has been advertising for nearly 2,000 illicit competitors of California’s legal market for over a year and a half.

Sacramento-based cannabis industry consultant Jackie McGowan estimated that, as of Aug. 1, Weedmaps was still carrying ads for roughly 400 unlicensed marijuana storefronts and 1,400 unlicensed MJ delivery services in California.

Weedmaps conceding to state

“That’s how I read it – they’re capitulating,” Khurshid Khoja, a longtime California cannabis attorney, said of Weedmaps’ statement.

Weedmaps’ ads have served as a flashpoint since the legal market launched and have led many in the legal market to push for any action they can get to force the site to stop advertising for unlicensed shops.

Longtime critics hailed Wednesday’s news as a win.

“It’s good to hear. That’s all we’ve ever wanted,” said Jerred Kiloh, the president of the Los Angeles-based United Cannabis Business Association.

Kiloh has been one of the most vocal critics of Weedmaps and has been sponsoring a bill in the state Legislature that would help force Weedmaps to stop advertising for unlicensed retailers if it becomes law.

But he and others in the industry believe another new law – Assembly Bill 97 – has already given the BCC the tools it needs to force Weedmaps to comply because the statute includes a possible $30,000-a-day fine for violations that could apply to companies that don’t hold state MJ business licenses.

If regulators chose to do so, they could have possibly levied a fine in the tens of millions of dollars against Weedmaps for its carrying ads from illegal MJ sellers, sources told Marijuana Business Daily.

“I know the BCC has been putting pressure on them to comply or else, so this is the ‘or else’ part,” Kiloh said.

The BCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

‘Even playing field’ may result

McGowan wrote in an email to MJBizDaily that she “applauds” the move by Weedmaps.

“Over the past two years, Weedmaps has continued to undermine the licensed industry by advertising illicit operators just as the newly legal market has attempted to expand,” McGowan wrote.

“According to a report that came out just last week, the illicit market remains almost three times the size of the legal market. Legal businesses deserve an even playing field, and that’s not possible when a technology platform plays both sides.”

Kiloh also estimated that Weedmaps’ support for illicit retailers may have cost the legal industry upwards of $800 million in sales since January 2018 in the city of Los Angeles alone and cost the state of California $200 million in marijuana tax revenue.

A good bit of that revenue may shift into legal channels once Weedmaps stops directing consumers to unlicensed shops, Kiloh said, since the site is one of the most well-known marijuana-shop finders on the internet.

 

[momofthegoons]

Federal Data Shows Youth Marijuana Use Isn’t Increasing Under Legalization

Despite prohibitionists’ often-expressed fears that legalization would lead more young people to use marijuana, new federal data released on Tuesday shows no such trend.

Reports of past-month cannabis use among those 12-17 remained stable from 2017 to 2018—and they’re significantly lower than in the years prior to when the first states began legalizing for adult use.

That’s according to the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual report produced by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

“The percentage of adolescents in 2018 who used marijuana in the past year was lower than the percentages in 2002 to 2004 and in 2009 to 2013, but it was similar to the percentages in 2005 to 2008 and in 2014 to 2017,” SAMHSA said.

Recent studies that have used NSDUH data and other sources also demonstrate that youth marijuana use is not increasing post-legalization. In fact, research published in JAMA Pediatrics in July found that states with recreational cannabis experience a decline in underage marijuana use, with the study authors stating that regulated markets appear to deter illicit use.

Indeed, on a national scale, the percentage of adolescents who reported using marijuana began declining at a greater rate in the years after states started implementing legal cannabis systems. In 2018, 12.5 percent of those 12-17 said they used cannabis in the last month, compared to 13.5 percent in 2012, according to the NSDUH results.

Colorado and Washington State became the first U.S. states to vote to legalize marijuana for recreational use in late 2012, with legal sales commencing in 2014.

Between 2002 and 2018, the highest rate of adolescent marijuana use took place in 2002, when 15.8 percent reported past-month consumption.

“The survey results suggest that marijuana use among youth has remained stable and low in recent years, even as more states legalize medical and adult use,” Sheila Vakharia, PhD, deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance’s Department of Research and Academic Engagement, told Marijuana Moment. “Rather than encouraging increased use, it is possible that legalization has limited access and deterred youth use. We find that these results strengthen the case for legalization in the interest of public health and protecting our nation’s young people.”

What’s more, the report found that cases of cannabis use disorder declined again for the 12-17 group in 2018, marking the seventh year in a row that fewer young people seem to be misusing the substance.

Interestingly, these trends are developing even as people’s perceptions of the risks of casual marijuana consumption are dropping. That seems to contradict an argument from reform opponents who claimed that legalizing cannabis would normalize it in such a way that underage individuals would feel more emboldened to experiment with marijuana

.

Overall, marijuana consumption increased across age groups by about one percentage point over the past year, the survey found, with the bulk of that rise being attributable to those over 26. Past-month cannabis use for that demographic increased from 12.2 percent in 2017 to 13.3 percent in 2018.

 

[Baron23]

Now this probably should go under "Atrocious News" because....I mean, how many sides does a mouth have to talk out of at one time? With these guys, it seems its myriad.

White House Drug Officials Say Legal Marijuana Is Up To States

Two top federal drug officials, including the White House drug czar, recently said that marijuana legalization should be left up to states.


The comments stand out coming from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), which has historically played a central role in defending blanket federal prohibition.


Jim Carroll, the Trump-appointed drug czar who directs the administration’s drug policies, told Fox 59 reporter Kayla Sullivan that he considers legalization a states’ right issue. He added that he’d like to see targeted education campaigns concerning cannabis use during pregnancy and underage usage as well as research into impaired driving.

Two top federal drug officials, including the White House drug czar, recently said that marijuana legalization should be left up to states.
The comments stand out coming from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), which has historically played a central role in defending blanket federal prohibition.
Jim Carroll, the Trump-appointed drug czar who directs the administration’s drug policies, told Fox 59 reporter Kayla Sullivan that he considers legalization a states’ right issue. He added that he’d like to see targeted education campaigns concerning cannabis use during pregnancy and underage usage as well as research into impaired driving.

It’s a particularly notable position given that federal law stipulates that the drug czar is required to “take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance” listed as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, including marijuana.
Even if Carroll’s remarks arguably don’t directly violate that statute, they are significant in that he doesn’t seem to have taken the opportunity to proactively oppose state legalization efforts when asked by a reporter.
Anne Hazlett, senior advisor at ONDCP, also weighed in on cannabis legalization on Wednesday, telling CentralIllinoisProud.com that marijuana legalization is “a state decision.”

“Marijuana is an ongoing challenge that is being addressed in many of our states,” she said. “This is a state decision, and we would like to see additional research done so that these decisions being made at a state level are being made in a manor that is fully informed.”
Though the comments from Carroll and Hazlett seem to reflect an evolving understanding of the federal government’s role in imposing prohibition on the states, the ONDCP director has previously made clear he’s not enthusiastic about the burgeoning legal market.
During a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing in May, Carroll raised concerns about THC potency in marijuana products, saying “the marijuana we have today is nothing like what it was when I was a kid, when I was in high school.”
“Back then the THC, the ingredient in marijuana that makes you high, was in the teens in terms of the percentage,” he said. “Now what we’re seeing is twice that, three times that, in the plant.”
He also said that more research is needed and that the Drug Enforcement Administration as well as the Department of Health and Human Services are “working hard to make sure that we understand the impact of legalization of marijuana on the body.”

 

[ClearBlueLou]

Bullshit that’s up to the original standards...their talking points were blown out of the water by research a few years ago, but still maintaining the “cautious conservative” disguise serves the broken notion that a National situation, generated at the federal level, is ‘up to the states’ to manage and to solve...more honest to say they simply don’t care, if you look at the record for the “laboratories of democracy” coming up with new and effective solutions for genuinely *dealing* with anything, it’s obvious that “leave it to the states” is Pilate washing his hands, absolving himself of involvement and responsibility and duty...not even a ‘hail Mary’, just “leave us out of it”.

Too bad for them, their hand-wringing doesn’t have the force of the law that they completely ignore in saying these stupid things. Cannabis’ placement on the Schedule “trumps” their eagerness to devolve federal responsibility into the laps of the states on any pretext. Ironic, me citing the thing, but the Controlled Substances Act makes no provision for just letting the states decide: the states DID decide when they passed the thing in Congress, the law is federal, no hand-waving by appointed political officers will change it

Congress will have to do it the hard way.

 

[Baron23]

more honest to say they simply don’t care,

Oh, I think its more accurate to say that they are cowards who will not take any risk to their re-election prospects because THAT is all that they really care about.

Much easier to punt it to the states so they can still talk out of both sides of their mouth, depending on the audience.

Gosh, I do hate politicans.

 

[momofthegoons]

Willie Nelson’s Cannabis Company Is Releasing a Line of Pet CBD Products

Willie Nelson’s company is releasing a CBD line exclusively for pets. Rick Kern/Getty Images for Shock Ink


Musician and cannabis enthusiast Willie Nelson is getting in on the CBD phenomenon, specifically for pets.

As the head of his own cannabis company, Willie’s Reserve, the singer and marijuana activist is releasing CBD products for “furry friends.” Willie’s Rescue is the company’s new line of hemp-derived pet products, according to a release by parent company GCH.

“As longtime animal advocates and pet owners, our family believes that the hemp plant has benefited our own animals,” Willie and his wife Annie Nelson said in a statement. “We want you and your best friends to experience the potential benefits of hemp together.”

Willie’s Rescue, which does not contain THC, is making its debut at SuperZoo, a pet industry trade show taking place in Las Vegas this week.

According to the company, Willie’s Rescue “is supported by oversight and guidance from veteran experts in the pet care category,” via a partnership with Greg Forquer, a managing partner at the consulting firm PetsPhD. But CBD use for animals is still a highly-contested topic. While holistic-minded experts have recommended CBD to calm pets, especially during highly anxiety-inducing events like fireworks and other loud noises, there is still not enough data on the pros and cons of its use.

The compound can be prescribed for pets in California, which recently passed a bill allowing veterinarians to do so. And anecdotally, many have touted the benefits of CBD on animals, with numerous veterinarians and medical professionals confirming its safety. Not to mention that animal protection organizations, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), have placed their stamp of approval on the therapeutic effects of hemp oil on pets.

However, CBD products in general are still being assessed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) despite its decriminalization in 2018. Due to the unclear legal status of cannabidiol, many startups specializing in human and pet CBD offerings must label their products with a “non-FDA approved” warning.

All in all, the CBD industry is still in the process of convincing the government that direct sales of hemp items to consumers is safe. For now, veterinarians will have to rely on individual state laws in order to recommend CBD products to pet owners.

 

[Baron23]

This article goes to genetic intellectual property and hence, in my mind, can go in the legal section of the forum. Mom, if you disagree, please move it.

But I think the real crux of the matter is that this guy is pissed that his parents named him after a character in Jungle Book. ;-)


How Phylos Bioscience sent shockwaves through the cannabis industry with ‘Big Ag’ disclosure

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 on Wednesday will explore possible solutions for how cannabis companies can protect intellectual property and what the future might hold for cannabis genetics.)

Mod note: This post has been edited to remove copy written content. To view entire article, please follow link in title.

 

[Baron23]

Yeah, yeah, yeah....talk is cheap, especially if you are the Fed Government and an expert at talking out of both sides of your mouth.

"The DEA said in a “notice to applications” filed with the Office of the Federal Register that it intends to propose new regulations to govern its marijuana research program before making decisions on 33 pending applications."​

This ^^, Ladies and Germs, is how Fed bureaucracies kick the can down the road....and with the rule making process in DC, this could be very far down the road.

BS non-news to me until they actually fucking do something.

DEA supports expanding cannabis research, but timing uncertain


The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced Monday that it will expand scientific and medical research of marijuana, a development that could ultimately boost industry prospects.

But it’s unclear how soon additional research projects will be approved.

The DEA said in a “notice to applications” filed with the Office of the Federal Register that it intends to propose new regulations to govern its marijuana research program before making decisions on 33 pending applications.

The DEA announcement comes just weeks after an appellate court ordered the DEA to respond to claims that it has unlawfully failed to act on medical cannabis research applications since 2016.

Despite congressional pressure for the DEA to act, only the University of Mississippi has been granted federal authorization to grow research cannabis.

Such research is critical to assessing the potential health and scientific benefits of cannabis, which, in turn, could bolster the medical case for using cannabis and for legalization in general.

The DEA said in a news release that it anticipates that registering additional qualified marijuana growers will increase the varieties available for research.

The agency said the new rules will help ensure that the agency is evaluating the applications under the applicable legal standards.

The process also will provide applicants and the general public with an opportunity to comment on the regulations, according to the DEA.

“I am pleased that the DEA is moving forward with its review of applications for those who seek to grow marijuana legally to support research,” U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in a statement.

“The Department of Justice will continue to work with our colleagues at the Department of Health and Human Services and across the administration to improve research opportunities wherever we can.”

The DEA also announced that growers and processors of hemp and CBD at or below 0.3% THC are no longer required to register with the agency.

Hemp was legalized nationwide as part of the 2018 Farm Bill.

 

[Baron23]

Cultivators, MJ executives say Eastern US marijuana prices remain strong as industry grows steadily

Up and down the Eastern United States, cannabis growers and business owners are reporting healthy prices for pounds of marijuana, both medical and recreational.

Prices range from $2,000 a pound for flower all the way up to $4,200, depending on the state.

But cultivators are still facing regulatory hurdles and the growing pains of keeping pace with the rapidly expanding industry.

Marijuana Business Daily surveyed several growers, analysts and business owners in Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania to determine:

• The top business challenges they’re facing.
• If their markets are profitable.
• What they’re getting for their wholesale pounds of cannabis.

Below are excerpts from the interviews.


Prices holding steady

Several of the growers who responded gave robust price points for wholesale pounds of flower.

Tim Shaw

Tim Shaw, chief operating officer of multistate company Marimed, said he’s seeing $1,800-$3,200 a pound in Maryland, depending on potency, quantity and quality.

“In Maryland, the prices have started to come down from last year,” he said.

“As a new market, the prices started much higher. However, with more and more producers coming to market, you see the pricing start to level out and become reasonable.”

To the north, Shaw’s seeing $3,000-$4,200 a pound in Massachusetts.

“These numbers do not necessarily have direct correlation to quality, either,” he added.

Jake Van Wingerden

“There are more and more dispensaries coming online and (they) are willing to pay for the flower to have product on the shelves.”

He said he presumes Massachusetts will follow a similar pattern to Maryland and see price declines as more cultivators come online.

Jake Van Wingerden, owner of SunMed Growers in Warwick, Maryland, said he’s getting $2,000-$3,000 a pound, depending on potency and quality.

Ted Rebholz

Ted Rebholz, founder and CEO of Temescal in Framingham, Massachusetts, said the average wholesale price for a pound of flower in his state is $3,800 a pound, about $400 higher than a year ago.

Brandon Pollock

Brandon Pollock, CEO of Theory Wellness in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, also said prices are on the rise, and he’s seeing $2,700-$3,800 for a pound of flower, based on quality.

Scaling proves taxing

Other executives and growers in Eastern states that don’t have wholesale flower markets reported experiencing hurdles for their cannabis companies, including scaling up, working with regulators and balancing the supply chain.

Mike Smullen

Mike Smullen, co-founder and chair of Apollo Beach, Florida-based AltMed, said the biggest challenge in his cultivation operation is maintaining quality while the company expands its facility from 52,000 square feet to 180,000 square feet.

“Scaling up our operations while ensuring the highest standards … certainly is a challenge but one we are confidently and successfully meeting,” he added.

Kim Rivers

Also in Florida, Tallahassee-based Trulieve is trying to keep pace with the rapid growth of the market, which is adding 3,000 patients each week, according to CEO Kim Rivers.

“Continuing to grow our team, improve our systems, increase our cultivation and manufacturing space is a constant focus,” she added.

“We have a commitment to the patients of Florida to have our large retail network stocked with a large selection of high-quality cannabis products.”

The biggest challenge to Trulieve’s cultivation division is keeping up with patient demand, Rivers said.

“The rate of expansion and current growth trajectory can be somewhat chaotic to manage at times,” she noted.

Patrick Nightingale

Pittsburgh-based Patrick Nightingale, executive director of the Medical Cannabis Society, pointed out that Pennsylvania is a closed marketplace with a limited number of medical marijuana permits for growers/processors (which is 25).

Other challenges he is hearing from growers include high startup costs and a highly regulated environment.

“While patients seem to prefer flower, cultivation facilities seem to be moving away from flower,” Nightingale added.

To the northeast, Nicholas Vita, CEO of New York-based cannabis company Columbia Care, said one of his company’s main obstacles is balancing the supply chain to allocate flower among its portfolio of products to keep the right mix of offerings.

Nicholas Vita

“To combat this, we have amassed some of the best cultivation and strategic teams in the industry in order to ensure that we are providing consistent access to all of our cannabis-based health and wellness products,” he added.

‘Robust and growing’

Most of the respondents spoke favorably of the profitability in their respective state market.

In Maryland, Van Wingerden said the market is “robust and growing. We are profitable and expanding.”

Both Florida MMJ companies are bullish on the state market. Smullen at AltMed cited a deep patient pool that’s “enthusiastic” about medical cannabis and a supportive regulatory environment.

“AltMed Florida has been able to cash-flow our entire operation from revenues generated from our dispensaries,” he added.

Trulieve’s Rivers attributed her company’s success to financial discipline and continual process improvement.

“The current marketplace is a dynamic one with changing regulatory rules, rapid patient growth and increasing product preferences,” she added. “(It) keeps us continually innovating and raising the bar.”

In Pennsylvania, Nightingale also characterized the market as “robust,” attributing that to more than 200,000 registered patients and caregivers and an expanded list of qualifying conditions.

However, he said he has seen some patients leave the program because medical cannabis is not covered by insurance and they cannot afford $65 grams of concentrate and $65 eighths of flower.

“Too few cultivation facilities are operational, and prices remain high,” he noted.

Shaw at Marimed said heavy regulation and Section 280E of the tax code – which forbids businesses from deducting otherwise ordinary business expenses from gross income associated with the “trafficking” of Schedule I or II substances as defined by the Controlled Substances Act – continue to have a negative impact on cash flow in the markets he monitors and does business in.

“The cannabis industry is not the cash cow that the general public believes it to be,” he said.

 

[Baron23]

Mo' on the DEA announcement....a less cynical article, perhaps! haha

Certainly less cynical than I. To me, this is the KEY factor in this DEA reaction:

"The decision comes just two days before a key deadline in a lawsuit against the agency brought by cannabis researcher Dr. Sue Sisley of the Scottsdale Research Institute. Sisley had sought to end three years of stalling by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)."​

The DEA just made a huge change to how the government treats medical marijuana
A bland announcement in the Federal Register on Monday may mark the beginning of the end of federal drug cops' 50-year Reefer Madness crusade.

The federal government announced plans to expand cannabis research Monday, paving the way for the robust clinical trials cannabis experts believe will force the government to downgrade marijuana’s Controlled Substances Act classification.

The decision comes just two days before a key deadline in a lawsuit against the agency brought by cannabis researcher Dr. Sue Sisley of the Scottsdale Research Institute. Sisley had sought to end three years of stalling by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

Monday’s regulatory filing, and the warm remarks from Attorney General William Barr that accompanied it in a press release, effectively mean Dr. Sisley’s won. Coupled with Barr’s ardently anti-pot predecessor Jeff Sessions’ departure, progress toward looser federal treatment of cannabis may resume.

“Until today, no one could do anything. We were handcuffed, in limbo,” said Shane Pennington, a member of Dr. Sisley’s legal team. “Now they’ve done something. It’s a huge, huge deal.”

The actual notice published in the Federal Register is characteristically dry, but it says the DEA will soon unveil a proposed regulation to govern applications to grow cannabis for scientific and medical research. For half a century, only one grow was legally approved for such purposes — a University of Mississippi facility contracted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

That monopoly on production has hampered researchers like Dr. Sisley for years. The U-Miss project only produced a handful of strains of cannabis and their cultivation methods produced low-grade flower. Dr. Sisley’s research — which probes cannabis’s potential to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and focuses on combat veterans — required product of higher quality, more consistent quality, and a wider variety of chemical makeups. The subtleties of cannabis chemistry go far beyond the THC that produces a recreational high, and some researchers believe other attributes of the plant might have various psychological and physiological benefits.

A monopoly on production for research meant NIDA and the growers in Mississippi had no incentive to deliver what Dr. Sisley and her peers wanted for their studies.

Back in 2016, the DEA claimed to be ready to smash up NIDA’s single-actor control of research cannabis back. That announcement was greeted with great fanfare in the research and drug policy communities, and prompted Dr. Sisley to apply for a research-grow license from the DEA later that year.

But it was only a departmental policy. There was no follow-through. Nobody at the government would respond to her application or the dozens of others filed since. And because there were no federal regulations related to the 2016 policy memorandum, Dr. Sisley’s attorney explained, it was almost impossible to force the agency to do what it had promised.

“They asked for these applications, they acknowledged the importance of this research, and then they did nothing for years,” Shane Pennington said in an interview. But the rulemaking process announced Monday opens the floor to public comments, which in turn obligates the DEA to respond in writing. That writing will generate specific points of contention that courts can review. The final regulations will obligate the DEA to process applications in some specific fashion that will allow would-be research grows to appeal rejections to a federal judge if they believe they’ve been arbitrarily kept out of the market.

Despite the good news, Sisley cautioned Monday that the new regs leave the DEA plenty of room for further shennanigans.

“Now we just need to keep the DEA’s feet to the fire,” Sisley said in a statement. “DEA/DOJ can slow-roll this for many years to come, leaving progress of medical cannabis research in limbo indefinitely. But at least that door is now theoretically kicked open.”

The agency could have taken this step with no fanfare had it wished. But it got a full press rollout from the Department of Justice.

“I am pleased that DEA is moving forward with its review of applications for those who seek to grow marijuana legally to support research,” Attorney General Barr said in a statement on the agency’s move.

The good news for researchers, and those who suffer from the illnesses and difficulties they hope to cure with cannabis products, is only the beginning.

Monday’s announcement is likely to provide a major boost to the push for federal decriminalization or even legalization.

There’s a ping-pong logic at play here, Pennington explained. The DEA has insisted that cannabis remain a schedule I narcotic — the tightest category of criminal enforcement and pharmaceutical regulation under federal drug law — even as half the states in the nation have legalized it for either medical or recreational use. If clinicians like Dr. Sisley succeed in identifying specific medical uses of cannabis or its extracts, and the Food and Drug Administration certifies those findings, that would force the DEA to reschedule cannabis nationwide.

“The only thing keeping it schedule I at this point is that, according to the DEA, there is no acceptable medical use in the United States for marijuana,” Pennington said. “Now, how do you get that? Through clinical trials that show it’s safe and effective. And who’s the gatekeeper there? The DEA and the FDA.”

The DEA filing notes the agency “anticipates that additional strains of marihuana (sic) will be produced and made available to researchers” under the forthcoming regs, and anticipates the changes will “potentially aid in the development of safe and effective drug products that may be approved for marketing by the [FDA].”

That’s a recipe for moving cannabis down to schedule II, and a vindication of the confidence cannabis industry insiders have shown in recent years. The sheer amount of money being made thanks to state experiments with legalization has led many investors and entrepreneurs to view federal legalization as a matter of when, not if.

It’s important not to overstate the significance of potential cannabis rescheduling. State legalization has succeeded because two presidents in a row have decided to allow it to continue. If cannabis drops to schedule II, nothing would change legally about the current order of battle on legalization and retail sales.

But as a practical and political matter, rescheduling would be a major signal that the feds are closer than ever to giving up on the drug war’s most destructive lie. Ending federal prohibition isn’t the magic bullet for ending mass incarceration that some advocates have portrayed it as over the years. But it would fundamentally reset the relationship between police and drug users — and the communities where they currently interact as hostiles would stand to gain from the change.

Much like the NIDA monopoly on research growing has effectively locked in Nixon-era Reefer Madness ideas at the federal level by making proper medical research impossible, the DEA’s insistence that pot is so dangerous it must be classified alongside schedule I drugs like heroin has warped funding streams, enforcement priorities, civil forfeiture regimes, and other law enforcement practices with far-reaching effects on communities.

Now, the DEA’s formal announcement it plans to respond to research grow applications sets the stage for all that to change.

“They may deny many of [the applications], but if they register even some… It’ll be the end of the 50-year NIDA monopoly,” Pennington said. “That’s giant.”

 

[momofthegoons]

This article is from 2016... but has some interesting facts in it.



Patent No. 6,630,507: Why the U.S. government holds a patent on cannabis plant compounds


Marijuana proponents allege that the U.S. government is exhibiting hypocrisy by owning a cannabis-related patent while also denying marijuana's rescheduling. Pictured: In this 2014 file photo, Lafayette-based Centennial Seeds seed developer Ben Holmes displays his Otto II seeds, a high-cannabinoid strain of hemp he hoped to patent in the coming year. (Denver Post file)

It may not have quite the same ring to it as a certain seven-digit number made famous in song in 1981, but 6,630,507 has been growing increasingly internet-famous since last week.

Following the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s inaction on reschedulingmarijuana, legalization proponents have responded by taking to the internet to highlight Patent No. 6,630,507 — telling the DEA to “talk to the hand” by writing “6,630,507” on their palms, hashtagging the number and linking to past articles on the topic.

Since not all Americans are intimately familiar with patents — and because of the reams of misinformation out there regarding this patent in particular — here’s a handy explainer about Patent No. 6,630,507:

U.S. Patent No. 6,630,507 covers the potential use of non-psychoactive cannabinoids — chemical compounds found within the plant species cannabis sativa — to protect the brain from damage or degeneration caused by certain diseases, such as cirrhosis.

U.S. Patent No. 6,630,507 was granted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2003.

The recent social media flurry has consisted of posts varying in allegations and accuracy — some have claimed that the government patented the marijuana plant in its entirety. But the overall intent is one that is symbolic in nature, said Sam Mendez, an intellectual property and public policy lawyer who serves as the executive director of the University of Washington’s Cannabis Law & Policy Project.

“Naturally, it shows that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy that there is ‘no accepted medical use’ for cannabis according to federal law,” Mendez said. “And yet here you have the very same government owning a patent for, ostensibly a medical use for marijuana.

“It’s certainly hypocritical, but there’s no laws against doing so.”

Mendez, patent lawyers, the research arm of the HHS and the New York biopharmaceutical firm that’s working as an exclusive licensee under the patent also caution that the existence of Patent No. 6,630,507 isn’t necessarily so black and white.

“(The federal government is) a very large organization with hundreds of thousands of federal employees and innumerable number of departments,” he said. “It’s much more complicated than to think about them as a single organism. … The government is allowed to file and obtain patents, and that has no bearing on the Controlled Substances Act.”

More broadly, the existence of Patent No. 6,630,507 shines a light on what could result from legalization — an explosion of marijuana-related patents, he said.

No. 6,630,507’s inception
The National Institutes of Health has roughly 6,000 doctoral-level scientists in its employ, working mostly in Maryland, said Mark Rohrbaugh, who holds doctorates in biochemistry and law and is special adviser for technology transfer at the NIH. When one of those scientists invents a new technology or makes a new discovery, the NIH evaluates the result and determines whether to file for a patent.

In this case, the researchers discovered that non-psychoactive compounds in cannabis may potentially have antioxidant properties that could be beneficial in the treatment of certain neurological diseases, she said.

“This patent describes the therapeutic potential for cannabinoid chemical compounds that are structurally similar to THC, but without its psychoactive properties, thereby treating specific conditions without the adverse side effects associated with smoked marijuana,” Myles wrote via e-mail. “It should be noted that the patent is for the use of cannabinoid compounds similar to and including those that naturally occur in marijuana (cannabis), but not for the whole marijuana plant.”

The DEA’s decision has nothing to do with the NIH’s cannabis-related patent, Rohrbaugh said. The patent doesn’t yet prove the chemical compound is effective in the stated treatment, he said, adding that the compound would have to be purified, synthesized in a lab setting, subjected to extensive testing in animals and humans, and ultimately require U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to show that it’s safe and effective for the intended purpose.

The intent behind patenting and licensing NIH discoveries is to not have technology that could potentially benefit the public sit idle, he said.

To ensure this, it sometimes requires looping in the private sector, he said. Laws in the 1980s further established the technology-transfer capabilities of entities such as the federal government and universities to have discoveries accessible to others who are in a better position to progress research and potentially commercialize the developments. The entities behind the discoveries typically receive payments as part of the licensing agreement.

Willie Nelson holds up a container of his branded marijuana with “6630507” written on it. Following the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s inaction on rescheduling marijuana, legalization proponents have responded by taking to the internet to highlight Patent No. 6,630,507, which covers the potential use of non-psychoactive cannabinoids. (Photo courtesy of Willie’s Reserve)


NIH’s Technology Transfer Office advertises patents — including those related to cannabinoids — available for licensing on its website, and officials sometimes conduct outreach as well. The licenses often are packaged with some elements of exclusivity, Rohrbaugh said.

“It’s like a piece of land,” he said. “You wouldn’t build a million-dollar house on a piece of land you wouldn’t have some title to.”

DEA spokesman Russ Baer declined to comment about the patent, directing queries to the NIH.

The licensee
Five years ago, the NIH granted New York-based Kannalife Sciences Inc. an exclusive license to utilize part of the technology outlined in the patent to develop cannabinoid- and cannabidiol-based drugs for the treatment of hepatic encephalopathy — brain damage that could result from conditions such as cirrhosis. Kannalife also has a non-exclusive license to develop drugs to treat chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a rare and progressive degenerative brain condition likely caused by repeated head trauma, Myles said.

“NIH allows investigators inside and outside NIH to conduct ongoing research with the patented technology, and other companies may also apply for licenses to use this patented technology to develop drugs to treat other neurological diseases where antioxidant properties of cannabinoid drugs may be beneficial,” she said. “The patent expires on April 21, 2019, after which anyone would be free to develop drugs based on these cannabinoids that, like all drugs, would require FDA approval to demonstrate safety and effectiveness in humans.”

No other companies have yet licensed portions of the 6,630,507 patent, she said.

Headed by a former VP of the firm depicted in the film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Kannalife was recently featured in a football-related Sports Illustrated report regarding its CTE efforts.

Kannalife CEO Dean Petkanas did not disclose the specific terms of the license agreement, but he told The Cannabist this week that the agreement does include milestone payments, a percentage of sales as well as royalties in “the six figures” to the government. The patent is valid in several jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and Australia, he said.

Petkanas said his company “could not have gotten a better ruling” from the DEA.

“We’ve been building our business from the pharmaceutical side from Day One,” he said. “We want to be on the pharmaceutical side; everything we do has to be by the book.”

Kannalife is about to begin raising $15 million in private investments, which would allow it to start clinical trials related to hepatic encephalopathy as soon as the first quarter of 2018, he said, adding that Kannalife anticipates eventually seeking orphan drug status — a special FDA designation for treating rare conditions. Petkanas also is evaluating the potential of conducting CTE-related trials in Europe.

“Does marijuana have medicinal benefit? Well, yeah,” Petkanas said. “But it can’t be targeted and qualified for repetitive use (without the FDA-approved research).”

Petkanas said there is a concern that cannabinoid chemicals could exhibit toxicity at high dosing, so he believes additional research is beneficial.

Staking a claim
That one arm of the federal government is poised to make money from cannabis-derived compounds — and another arm has approved synthetic cannabinoid drugs such as Marinol and Syndros — tells a different story than that told by the DEA, which lumped together the hundreds of chemical compounds of cannabis as a Schedule I substance, said Gregory F. Wesner, a Seattle-based patent and trademark attorney for Lane Powell PC.

“The interesting thing here is basically the government being two-faced,” Wesner said.

Embodying that contradiction is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, he said. Patents have been granted for the utility of cannabinoids and other compounds.

However, the issuance of trademarks will be murky until the legalization of marijuana is resolved on a federal level, he said.


“That’s massive growth that does not occur every day or every year; That’s the kind of growth you’re talking about once in a generation,” he said of the potential sales growth in the industry. “As part of that, you’re going to see many people and many businesses research this far more intensely and file for patents.”

An analysis conducted by Christopher Freerks, a Lane Powell patent administrator, shows that the PTO already has granted at least four dozen cannabis-related utility patents, including HHS’ Patent No. 6,630,507. The analysis does not include plant patents, which have been tougher to come by for some cultivators.

Likely surge
Earlier this year, Vice took a deep dive into the “looming patent war” and examined Patent No. 9,095,554, the “first-ever patent for a plant containing significant amounts of THC:”

Concern is rising among legal-pot pioneers about the need to lawyer up to defend their creations from imitators and patent trolls, as well as from multinational corporations in the agriculture, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries that are thought to be watching the fast-growing industry from the sidelines, despite overt denials.
“If the laws change and the big companies move in, I think we’ll have a period of turmoil around ownership, patenting, the whole business,” said Erich Veitenheimer, a patent lawyer and partner at Cooley LLP in Washington, DC, who represented the patent holders of No. 9095554.

The Vice article noted the rise of the Open Cannabis Project, an organization that is cataloging and classifying marijuana strains already in existence and, hence, the public domain.

Patent attorney Dale C. Hunt, an Open Cannabis Project board member who has degrees in botany, genetics and biology, told The Cannabist that one would need to develop a completely new strain in order to land a patent. But beyond strains, legalization likely will open the doors to protection of intellectual property across all aspects of the industry, said Hunt, an attorney for Hahn Loeser’s office in San Diego.

“I think there will be a greater emphasis on innovation,” he said.

If legal, it’s realistic to believe that the innovation could carry on in the laboratories of NIH scientists; but for now, the federal government’s technology transfer and patenting actions around cannabis do not appear to be widespread, he said.

“This happens all the time,” Hunt said. “It obviously doesn’t happen all the time in cannabis.”

 

[Baron23]

Ok, this is part 2 of this article. Part one, posted above, can be found here: How cannabis companies can protect intellectual property in the wake of Phylos Bioscience uproar

How cannabis companies can protect intellectual property in the wake of Phylos Bioscience uproar
(This is the second story in a two-part series. Part 1 featured Phylos Bioscience’s announcement it was welcoming Big Ag into the cannabis industry and the subsequent reactions.)

Mod note: This post has been edited to remove copy written content. To view entire article, please follow link in title.

 

[Baron23]

President Trump Reiterates His Administration Will Let States Legalize Marijuana

President Donald Trump again said that his administration is allowing states to set their own marijuana policies.

At a press briefing on Friday, the president was asked by DC Examiner reporter Steven Nelson whether cannabis would be federally legalized while he was in office.

Nelson referenced studies showing that states with legal marijuana systems experience fewer opioid overdoses.

“We’re going to see what’s going on. It’s a very big subject and right now we are allowing states to make that decision,” Trump said. “A lot of states are making that decision, but we’re allowing states to make that decision.”

The comments come one day after the surgeon general issued a warning against the use of cannabis by adolescents and pregnant women—an advisory that neglected to mention that federal data shows that youth marijuana use has declined since states began enacting legalization laws.

Though this isn’t the first time that Trump has expressed support for a states’ rights approach to marijuana policy, it’s one of the very few times the president has been asked directly to weigh in on the issue.

During his presidential campaign, Trump said that he supports medical cannabis legalization and that broader legalization “should be a state issue, state-by-state.”

In June 2018, the president was asked—again by Nelson—about bipartisan legislation sponsored by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) that would protect states with legal cannabis systems from federal intervention. Trump said that he “really” supports the bill.

“I know exactly what he’s doing,” he said. “We’re looking at it.”

Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, has similarly expressed support for pursuing a legislative fix for conflicting state and federal marijuana laws, testifying at a Senate hearing in April that he would prefer for Congress to pass something like Gardner’s bill instead of maintaining the status quo.

The House passed an amendment to spending legislation in June that would protect all states with legal cannabis programs from federal intervention. But in the Senate, the fate of that measure—or other marijuana legislation such as Gardner’s bill—remains murky.

“The reiteration of a non-enforcement policy from the president is a clear sign that states should continue to defy the federal government when it comes to marijuana prohibition,” Justin Strekal, political director for NORML, told Marijuana Moment. “Congress should swiftly move pending legislation when it returns from the August recess to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and provide the legal relief needed to those individuals and businesses who are struggling under our nations cruel policy of criminalization.”

 

[Baron23]

This is such complete and utter bullshit. A very typical Washington, DC spin job.

His point is that more investigation needs to be done before legalization while completely ignoring that for decades on the U of Miss was allowed to grow research MJ and its complete and utter garbage, research cannot be done/very hard to do by any organization that receives Fed funds or who operates interstate, the DEA...after three fucking years....still has not approved any of the applications for research grows, etc, etc, etc. Same old chicken vs egg conudrum and this guy fucking KNOWS IT.

But as long as there is air in the lungs and lips to move, a politician can just keep on spinning and lying.

"Cornyn first talked generally about conflicting state and federal marijuana laws and expressed concerns about THC potency in products available in state-legal markets."

More complete BS...this guy was an anti-MJ warrior way before high potency THC was ever available. Its just the excuse de jour. I mean, what was his excuse 15 years ago?


GOP Senator Wants Hearing On Marijuana Legalization Dangers Before Fixing Banking Issue

Forcing marijuana businesses to operate on a largely cash-only basis is “a real threat,” anti-legalization Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) acknowledged in a recent interview. But the Senate should first hold a hearing on the “public health consequences” of ending cannabis prohibition before advancing legislation to resolve the financial services problem, he said.

Speaking at a Hudson Institute event on combating transnational crime last month, Cornyn first talked generally about conflicting state and federal marijuana laws and expressed concerns about THC potency in products available in state-legal markets.

“I think the mixed messages that we’re seeing as a result of the federal prohibition on marijuana possession, sales and transportation, and then the lack of enforcement at the state level because of initiatives taking place in those states that broaden the use from, let’s say, medical marijuana—whatever that is—to recreational, to other types of things. I think, you know, young people could understandably be confused about that,” he said.

The senator said he wants to hold a hearing before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, which he co-chairs, on the health impacts of legalization and specifically high-THC concentration products.

“It’s a new ballgame, with higher concentrations of the drugs, the challenges that brings to public safety, to individual mental health and also the consequences of being a gateway to some of these other drugs, certainly interacting with criminal organizations that peddle illegal drugs,” he said.

John Walters, the former White House drug czar and current chief operating officer of the Hudson Institute who led the discussion with Cornyn, brought up banking as an issue that could affect “the domestic expansion of marijuana.” He asked the senator what he thought of the prospects of passing a bill to fix the problem.

Cornyn said he recently spoke with Senate Banking Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID), whose panel held a hearing on marijuana banking last month, and that he was aware of testimony outlining the issues posed by the current situation.

“There’s huge cash. And obviously, the danger of that from a corruption standpoint or just a public safety standpoint, that’s a real threat,” he said. “They’re actually beginning to explore whether there ought to be some sort of carve-out or some sort of accommodation made where the proceeds of this, quote, ‘legal’ business at the state level can somehow enter the banking system.”

Crapo “was expressing to me that that’s no easy task,” Cornyn said, adding that he told the chair about his desire to hold a separate hearing on the impact of legalization before proceeding with a banking fix.

“Let’s have this hearing on the public safety consequences so people can go into this with their eyes open,” the senator said.

 

[Baron23]

Bernie Sanders Again Voices Opposition To Decriminalizing Drugs Beyond Marijuana

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says he’s “not there yet” on decriminalizing drugs other than marijuana.

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate addressed the issue during an interview with The Hill, which was published on Tuesday. While Sanders said that efforts to reduce arrests and treat addiction as a public health matter is “a movement in the right direction,” it doesn’t solve the core problem and he’s not on board with enacting a formal decriminalization policy.

“First of all, you have to ask the question, why is it that so many people are falling into drugs, into alcohol and into despair? That’s an issue altogether,” he said, adding that he believes the reason is that there’s “a lot of pain in this country, and I think people are running away from that pain.”

“I agree with those folks who are moving in the direction of a decriminalizing at least marijuana right now,” he said.

But pressed about proposals to extend that decriminalization policy to other drugs such as heroin, the senator replied, “I’m not there yet. I’m not there yet.”

The Hill’s Krystal Ball asked why Sanders was hesitant and he said it’s because “heroin is a killer.”

“You want to push heroin, sorry I’m not too tolerant to that,” he said.

Ball noted that the decriminalization proposals she was referencing wouldn’t extend to dealers but rather people suffering from addiction. Sanders replied simply that we “have to treat addiction” but didn’t indicate that he thought broad decriminalization would be part of that solution.

The exchange was similar to a conversation the senator had with podcaster Joe Rogan earlier this month, where he was also pressed on moving beyond cannabis reform. Rogan asked Sanders if he’d consider legalizing or decriminalizing all drugs as a means to disrupt the illicit market.

“Not at this point, no I wouldn’t,” he said.

Other Democratic presidential candidates are more open-minded about taking a decriminalization approach to the drug crisis. South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg included decriminalizing possession of all drugs in a mental health plan he released last week, for example. And Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) didn’t rule out the policy during a CNN town hall event in March.

In 2015, during the course of his last campaign, Sanders filed the U.S. Senate’s first-ever marijuana descheduling bill and became the first major presidential candidate to personally endorse cannabis legalization.