Law The Cannabis Chronicles - Misc Cannabis News

[Baron23]

Even Michelle Malkin Likes Weed… Can She Convince Trump?

Some issues are nonpartisan. Guarantees of air that’s good to breathe and water that’s safe to drink and the assurance that there will be a planet suitable for human habitation in a century’s time are not. These are liberal ploys. They won’t make America great! Thus, they are bad.

But marijuana! Yes. Here we come together. Here is the common ground where the dirtbag left and the #MAGA gather to swap memes and exchange ideas in harmony.

This has happened before. Conservatives admitting the obvious and acknowledging the drug war has failed has led to bizarre alliances and incongruous scenes like far-left tree-huggers exhorting the virtues of Ron Paul (who wanted to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency) and medical marijuana entrepreneurs supporting such qualified, thoughtful individuals as Gary Johnson.

For ur-conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, the idea of a patriarchal society is nonsense, and peddlers of conspiracy theories like Project Veritas are great Americans. Hardcore conservative, and proud of it.

But Malkin is cool with weed. Not for herself, per se (or if she is, she won’t divulge), but she’s cool with giving it to sick people—including her own child.

Malkin is a self-admitted former “table-pounding crusader” for the War on Drugs (because sometimes big government is good, as long as it’s used to achieve your own personal aims). She used to work in Seattle, where, around 1999, she met a Navy vet with bone cancer—the patient whose suffering led to Washington’s medical marijuana law.

She now lives in Colorado—where she was among the first in line at Colorado’s recreational cannabis shops in order to buy weed for her mother-in-law, who was also suffering from cancer. Now, with one of her children stricken with a motor tic so bad that it causes her joints to dislocate, Malkin is on the pediatric pot kick, as she wrote in a recent piece published on the National Review.

Malkin’s story echoes all the other “medical marijuana changed my life” stories.

Her daughter, Veronica, fell ill. The doctors couldn’t figure it out. She tried powerful prescription pharmaceuticals. They were terrible—they didn’t work and sometimes made things worse. Here, though, is the pivot: a mainstream neurologist recommended Malkin and her husband give their daughter some CBD.

“Two physicians signed off on our daughter’s application for a medical-marijuana card,” she wrote. “She became one of more than 360 children under 18 to join Colorado’s medical-marijuana registry in 2015. And we became pediatric pot parents.”

Good! Yes. People should share stories like these, readily and proudly.

Cannabis is medicine. Even doctors and scientists agree with Michelle Malkin. The choir hears the sermon and loves it. Wonderful music. Now what about everyone else?

Why Malkin chose now to share her story with the world, with the conservative world—and not, say, during election season, or during confirmation hearings for her fellow social conservative Jeff Sessions, who is happy to use punitive drug laws in the pursuit of an authoritarian state—isn’t readily clear.

It is true that the New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study that confirmed what many of us already knew through studies, anecdotes and billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies patenting marijuana-derived medicine: CBD is good for neurological conditions. CBD is good for kids with epilepsy. Liberty-loving conservatives can like marijuana, etc.

So, maybe Donald Trump and his gang of do-gooders should stop fucking with it?

“The Trump administration has sent mixed signals on a medical marijuana crackdown,” wrote Malkin, for whom months of threats to dismantle the cannabis industry, gut research and putting nonviolent drug offenders back in jail for nonviolent drug offenses is a “mixed signal,” in the same way that exiting the Paris climate change accord means maybe you are secretly an environmentalist.

Look. It’s great marijuana has helped Malkin’s family. It’s nice she’s being (sort of) vocal about medical cannabis, at a time when 90 percent of her fellow Americans agree with her.

Taking the next logical step, and rightly condemning her conservative fellow travelers who don’t agree—and who very clearly want to reverse all this progress—would be really great.

Like I said, its the lions laying down with the lambs. Will miracles never cease? The shame is that it rather self-righteous ideologues (or either stripe but in this case we are talking about Malkin) are so self-centered that they can't see the issue clearly until it has impacted their immediate family. Whatever happened to empathy and compassion for others. Does it only clear and important if it happens to you, Malkin? That's awful.

 

[Baron23]

Hard Truth: No States Will Legalize Marijuana in 2017

“Progress” is rarely linear, as the wisdom of many old saws tells us (that is, if you accept the concept at all and aren’t beginning to suspect that—hey!—maybe things are getting worse). A good today can fill us with hope for a better tomorrow—which reveals itself to be the start of a total shit week instead.

So it appears to be with Americans’ overwhelming, undeniable and repeatedly stated desire to do away with marijuana prohibition.

Th year, 2017, is just about half in the bag, and with governors rejecting what state legislatures have failed to fumble away or punt, it seems clear that the next solid steps towards marijuana legalization will have to wait until 2018.

As Alternet’s Phillip Smith observed, despite bold predictions from all corners (including the pages of this august publication), the number of states to legalize marijuana in 2017 will be a figure that is both round and flat. That is—zero.

This is no huge shock.

After 2016—when marijuana absolutely dominated at the ballot box, with legalization winning in four out of five states and medical cannabis recording shock victories in Arkansas and North Dakota to go along with a comfortable win in Florida—2017 was always going to be a letdown. There was simply less at stake. Hopes were high, but expectations, realistic expectations, were much lower.

2017 had a serious handicap. It is not an election year.

Now, 2018. That is an election year.

Legalization happens during election years—and only in election years. To date, voters have had to shoulder nearly all of the work of legalizing cannabis, as lawmakers—too scared, too bought off–generally can’t be bothered.

Every successful effort to legalize marijuana (and most of the unsuccessful ones) has happened thanks to voters approving citizens’ initiatives. Every workable medical marijuana system is voter-created and voter-approved, and you should not be fooled into thinking it a coincidence that medical marijuana is more myth than reality in the places where it was “legalized” by a state legislature.

Really, even one state this year would have been big progress.

The best shot was in Vermont, where the state legislature passed a legalization bill that was confoundingly vetoed by the state’s Republican governor (who simultaneously voiced support for legalization as a general concept… just not now. Or something).

Everywhere else a legalization effort was mounted—Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and in federal Congress—the furthest it progressed was a committee hearing. In case it warrants mention, politicians powerful enough to score a committee chair did not achieve their stations in life by being pro-weed.

The extent to which political lifers are willing to go to block cannabis reform was most evident in Texas—where, despite apparent majority support for a medical cannabis bill on the floor of the state legislature, party shot-callers prevented the issue from even being called for a vote.

Interested groups have adjusted aims accordingly.

The Marijuana Policy Project, the main organizer of the successful legalization efforts in Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada, is now vowing to spend big to make progress in eight states—by 2019.

Two whole years!

By then, the 2020 reelection campaign will be in full swing. We might have a President Pence. Or Putin.

Still. This is almost certainly an instance of us getting too greedy and wanting too much all at once. That’s what happens when you win, win again and then win some more—you get used to it.

The main thing to keep in mind is what ground has been lost.

Here, too, the figure is zero—so far, at least.

It is true that legalization has been implemented with widely varying degrees of zeal. Though voters in the two states approved the idea at the same time, there will be legal recreational marijuana sales on the Las Vegas Strip, while lawmakers in Boston still toy with exactly how to do it. And in Florida, state lawmakers literally abdicated their constitutional responsibility to create rules for medical marijuana.

But with cannabis reform, at least, the arc of the moral universe is long and clear. It’s just a matter of when and how, though it still can’t be soon enough.

 

[t-dub]

The shame is that it rather self-righteous ideologues (or either stripe but in this case we are talking about Malkin) are so self-centered that they can't see the issue clearly until it has impacted their immediate family. Whatever happened to empathy and compassion for others. Does it only clear and important if it happens to you, Malkin? That's awful.

That is what I have always said to staunch, indoctrinated by the government, older anti cannabis types that know nothing about our medicine. I look at them, smile, and say "you know . . . some day you will become sick and start to die. It happens to everyone. Too bad you won't have access to something that could ease your pains or maybe even help you because of your irrational attitude towards a medicinal plant."

When they themselves become sick, the judges, politicians etc they will see the error of their ways, however it will be too late for them and they will have harmed millions in the process.

This is why I have not been invited back to a lot of dinner parties with the muckie-mucks in my town.

 

[Baron23]

This is why I have not been invited back to a lot of dinner parties with the muckie-mucks in my town.

Sounds like an upgrade to your social life, to me!

Congress Passes Financial CHOICE Act Without Marijuana Banking Amendment
Politicians who support banking services for legalized marijuana businesses were surprised this week when two lawmakers added a pro-pot banking amendment to a controversial bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The amendment, filed by Florida representatives Matt Gaetz and Darren Soto, was attached to the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017, which will undo much of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, an Obama-era law that tightened financial regulations in response to the economic crisis of 2008. The bill was approved by the House on June 8 — but not before the pro-pot amendment was shot down by the House Rules Committee.

The action around that amendment shows some of the dysfunction in political efforts to provide banking services for mostly all-cash marijuana businesses in Colorado and other legal states.

A few Colorado politicians who have voiced the need for federal marijuana banking protections hadn't even heard of the Gaetz-Soto amendment, which was marked by the House Rules Committee as a late submission and received little attention until a MassRoots article published on June 5 highlighted the upcoming hearing.

Gaetz and Soto had tried to loosen marijuana's federally illegal status before, putting forward a bill in April to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III.

Colorado lawmakers who had heard of the proposal told Westword the four-page amendment was rushed and didn't provide enough protection for financial institutions. Representative Ed Perlmutter, an advocate for legal marijuana banking services, opposed the amendment — but for different reasons than some Democrats.

"Congress needs to align our federal and state laws with respect to marijuana banking, but unfortunately, adding this amendment to legislation that essentially repeals Dodd-Frank is not in anyone’s best interest," he said in a statement sent to Westword.

From the start, the Financial CHOICE Act was expected to pass in the Republican-led House, which could be why the Gaetz-Soto amendment was added, to sweeten a bitter deal.

Still, as Perlmutter's response showed, attaching a marijuana banking amendment to a largely partisan bill is hardly the way to unify legalization efforts — especially when ithe amendment goes down.

This should not come as a surprise nor be cause for disappointment, IMO. Actually, I view it as a miracle that such a rider was even attached to a bill this session. It will come back up and eventually it will be resolved in favor of MJ....just don't know how long.

 

[Baron23]

Lawmakers Still Haven’t Done Their Jobs And Legalized Marijuana
In between collecting campaign contributions from our oligarchical betters and cashing out their morals in exchange for more power, lawmakers also occasionally make laws.

Eventually, lawmakers may even make a law supported by almost two-thirds of their bosses—us—and pass a law that legalizes marijuana, rather than leaving the job up to voters. Which is what they’ve been content to do so far.

To date, every state that’s legalized marijuana has done so at the ballot box. Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Massachusetts, Maine—in each state where cannabis is legal for adults 21 and over, it’s legal because of a voter initiative, despite massive public support for cannabis legalization.

For some reason, our nation’s professional full-time lawmakers (if you want to call a job with multiple recesses a year “full-time”) are unable or unwilling to do the logical thing and make a law to please this majority. Measures to legalize and tax cannabis sales were introduced in the legislatures of 17 states earlier this year, as the Los Angeles Times noted.

Yet nearly all have met the fate of any similar measure introduced in Congress—limbo, death by neglect, the netherworld between introduction and the committee hearing that never comes.

In Rhode Island, lawmakers have decided they’ve had something better to do than consider marijuana legalization for three years running—and now you can make it four. Rather than even vote on Sen. Josh Miller’s plan to legalize and tax recreational marijuana sales, Miller’s colleagues instead created a 15-member “commission” to “study” the matter—a neat way of saying, “We’d rather not deal with this right now.”

Miller is obviously frustrated.

“This should and needs to happen,” he said, according to the Times.

In Connecticut, where lawmakers are well aware of their constituents’ plans to drive north to buy legal marijuana in Massachusetts as soon as they are able, a few Democrats tacked on a legalization measure into the state’s annual budget—which they’ll soon have to strip away since they can’t get fellow Democrats to support it.

In New Jersey, a state senator’s long-awaited plan to legalize marijuana is finally at least on public record, but will have to wait until after this fall’s governor’s race to start making its way through the “becoming law” process.

And in Vermont, a popular marijuana legalization measure did in fact pass through the legislature, after multiple tries in years prior—only to be vetoed by the state’s Republican governor. Not that Gov. Phil Scott is anti-weed. He’s just not for this legalization measure, he said in his veto message. It’s not you. It’s weed.

This should not be this way. Legalizing marijuana is neither unpopular, nor is it hard.

Last fall, polling from Gallup revealed 60 percent of Americans are in support of marijuana legalization. To say that 60 percent of voters would fall behind any and all marijuana legalization efforts is a stretch—support often hinges on how cannabis is legalized, and how tight restrictions are—but it’s no stretch to declare that many more Americans want marijuana legalized than want to keep the plant illegal.

And since most marijuana legalization plans follow either a plan cooked up by another state—like Colorado, Washington or Oregon—that’s similar in size and scope to how alcohol is handled, it’s not as if this is uncharted territory.

The easiest and most obvious explanation for this bizarrely consistent intransigence is fear.

Lawmakers are still convinced that support for legalizing marijuana can be converted into political attack ads. Legalization supporters have indeed been blasted as being soft on crime or interested in poisoning children—all complete nonsense, of course, but as this last election cycle demonstrated, you do not need to be logical, consistent or even cogent to go very far in American politics, particularly if you truck in scaring people. And scare tactics have been part of the prohibitionists’ scripts from the very beginning.

And lawmakers are rightly scared of losing campaign contributions.

Some of the bigger bankrollers of Arizona’s anti-marijuana legalization campaign included billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and Insys Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company. Anyone running afoul of forces such as these with a legalization measure could find themselves drowned in money during their next election campaign—money donated to their opponent.

Some of the more powerful special interests out there are public-safety employee unions—cops, prison guards, sheriff’s deputies. None of these folks are marijuana legalization fans. It’s not for nothing than even Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the UK Labour Party, is calling for more cops on the streets.

But these aren’t good reasons. They’re excuses and cop-outs. Or, they’re demonstrations of for whom lawmakers really work for—and it’s not a majority of voters, who, every time they’re asked, have made their desires clear.

Cogent, concise, and provides another view why the electorate doesn't care what it gets as long as its not more from the same group of paternalistic a-holes.

 

[Baron23]

Boulder's Stashlogix, maker of pot carrying cases, under fire as feds confiscate product

Federal officials have seized 1,000 bags from Boulder-based Stashlogix after identifying the product — lockable, odor-blocking containers used to store marijuana or other medications — as drug paraphernalia.

Company officials said the decision will cost them tens of thousands of dollars and force them to bring manufacturing into the U.S. to avoid customs.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, in April sent a letter to Stashlogix which said the bags could not be imported. Two weeks ago, the company received another letter stating that its most recent order had been confiscated at the Long Beach port. Stashlogix is pursuing an appeal.

Stashlogix founder Skip Stone said the bags themselves cost $15,500. The company had to forfeit an additional $18,000 worth of raw materials overseas, which also means they need to find a U.S. manufacturer, and fast.

"We have about four months of inventory on-hand (that) we can sell in order to get production started in the U.S.," Stone said. "We've laid off everybody; we're just trying to survive."

Under federal law, drug paraphernalia is defined as "any equipment, product or material of any kind which is primarily intended or designed for use in manufacturing, compounding, converting, concealing, producing, processing, preparing, injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing into the human body a controlled substance."

Marijuana is legal for medicinal or recreational use, or both, in 29 states and the District of Columbia. Jaime Ruiz, a public affairs agent with the CBP, said that because it remains illegal under federal law, importing any drug or associated products into the country is prohibited, even if it comes through a port in a state where pot is allowed.

Ruiz declined to comment on the specific case because it is ongoing.

When it comes to drugs and related products, he said, "we're enforcing (Drug Enforcement Administration) guidance. So if it looks like drug paraphernalia, they'll stop and inspect it and make the best determination."

The Stashlogix bags, at first blush, don't appear to be drug-related. Made from durable fabric in neutral colors, they resemble personal travel kits. The company's logo is the only insignia; no pot leaves or plumes of smoke adorn the bags or their contents. Inside, they are divided into compartments, much like a camera or makeup case, and include an odor-absorbing pack and ultraviolet-proof glass jars.

But Miami-based attorney Denise Celle said the legal process for customs takes into account more than just the appearance of the product. Officers also look at instructions for use of the item, marketing materials and media accounts, and real-world examples of how it's used by customers.

"The government takes the position of, 'We don't care what you claim it as, we care what the consumer thinks it is,'" Celle said. "Customs takes an entire investigative approach, (so) if somebody on Instagram posts 'This is a great place to store my stash,' they would consider that."

CBP cited reviews from Stoner Mom and The Weed Blog in its ruling, as well as comparisons to similar products on the market used to conceal or store marijuana. A link on the Stashlogix website that described the bags' Odorpax as being cannabis odor absorbers was also cited in the letters, copies of which were obtained by the Camera. (Stone disputes the website made any mention of cannabis.)

"Standing alone, the Stashlogix storage case can be viewed as a multi-purpose storage case with no association with or to controlled substances," it read. "Yet there is no evidence in the form of marketing or community usage that would dispel the finding that Stashlogix cases have a legitimate use other than to store, carry or conceal marijuana."

Stashlogix has imported a dozen orders from China in the past two years without incident. Stone said he didn't know what triggered the seizure, but previously told the Camera that concerns over a marijuana-unfriendly federal government was pushing him to look outside the U.S. for growth opportunity.

"I thought of all the things that do get through — vaporizers, bongs — we'd be one of the last to get flagged," he said. "We're not sure if it's just bad luck or a sign of things to come" under the current presidential administration.

Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said she was not aware of a recent uptick in paraphernalia seizures. The incident points to one of the many problems caused by conflicting state and national guidelines, she said.

"It's absurd, though, that packaging designed for adults to safely and responsibly store a product that is legal under state law — keeping it out of the hands of children — is being treated as drug paraphernalia."


How asinine can all of this get!!?? Wow.

 

[Baron23]

DEA Chief: Why is Chuck Rosenberg Still Here?
We are already six months into the Trump administration and most Obama-era appointees have been booted out and very few have been replaced.

In fact, the Trump government is running on a skeletal crew, which seems to shrink daily. For example, hurricane season is upon us, and Trump hasn’t hired a director for FEMA yet.

With these huge gaps in his cabinet and hundreds of jobs yet to fill, it is extremely disappointing that the most anti-weed leftover from the Obama administration is still hanging in there.

DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, an anti-marijuana zealot and drug war proponent, is unfortunately in a strong position to push his prohibitionist values on the budding weed industry.

Under the Obama administration, Rosenberg and his team not only denied millions of people access to the medical marijuana they needed, but he also pulled a fast one when the DEA amended its already bizarre classification of weed as a Schedule I drug, by adding all extracts, including cannabidiol (CBD).

And who could forget when Rosenberg called medical marijuana a joke? Ignorant and kind of hurtful, especially if it was curtailing or stopping your epileptic child’s seizures.

The question now is how can we have an intelligent conversation when the head of a governmental agency hasn’t taken the time to analyze the numerous authoritative reports on medical marijuana?

This denial of science and willful ignorance seem to be the hallmarks of the Trump administration.

Such attitudes threaten to hobble the forward motion of medical marijuana, as well as undermine the common knowledge that recreational weed is not dangerous to anyone’s health.

Antiquated ideas espoused by people who should know better (Rosenberg holds degrees from Tufts, Harvard and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia) make one wonder what their motives are.

Why so many closed minds?

One guess is that they are in a hurry to fill up the for-profit prisons. They don’t seem to mind that the vast majority of the inmates happen to be black and brown people being punished for non-violent, minor weed possession.

While Trump continues to bumble around and not fill positions in his government (maybe he thinks he might be gone soon himself?), some fear that he will put an even worse person in to run the DEA. He’s got plenty to choose from.

Even if Rosenberg had a moment of truth and felt the urge to consider science and avoid silly remarks like calling MMJ a joke, it is still difficult to see how the DEA can make reasonable decisions with the likes of Attorney General Jeff Session hovering around.

But there is another story: the fate of Jeff Sessions.

Keep the popcorn flowing. The Trump show is just getting started.

Now the title of this article is a question I ask myself everyday! My one objection to this article is this statement "This denial of science and willful ignorance seem to be the hallmarks of the Trump administration" which seems to overlook that Rosenberg was appointed and retained by the Obama administration including when Rosenberg modified the definitions of the scheduling of MJ to include CBC. None of these gutless, slave to the polls, politicians (of either party) are clean in this stupidity.

 

[Baron23]

Trump and Sessions break up – Good for cannabis?

For marijuana enthusiasts, Sessions is the most hated man in the Trump camp. But could the tides be turning in their favor?

Recent leaks from within the White House, as well as mainstream reporting, reveal tension levels between Trump and Sessions are at an all-time high. While the tension itself does not have anything to do with marijuana, it could certainly have positive implications for our favorite plant.

We have all seen the ramifications for disappointing the Donald. Chris Christie, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, and most recently FBI Director Comey have all suffered catastrophically once they have crossed President Trump.

And it may be time to celebrate, as an article in Vanity Fair put it, “Now It’s Jeff Sessions’s Turn To Be Trump’s Whipping Boy.”

According to the New York Times, the bad blood began to build when Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia Investigation. In President Trump’s eyes, this emboldened the nay-sayers accusing him of wrong doing, and was seen as a betrayal of confidence committed by Sessions, one of his earliest supporters during the campaign.

Additionally, as reported by the New York Times, the president blamed Sessions’s recusal for leading his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, to appoint special counsel to oversee the Russia inquiry.

More recently, the tension has begun to boil over due to the reemergence of Trump’s attempted travel ban, and the Department of Justice’s involvement in it. Trump recently commented that “The Justice Department should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version the submitted to the Supreme Court,” he seethed.

According to law professor and occasional Trump apologist Alan Dershowitz, Trump is acting like any angry client who wants better results from his legal team.

The combination of these grave sins against President Trump exploded further, with CNN reporting that Sessions threatened to quit his post amid the repeated clashes. Even more telling, was Trump’s silence after a reporter asked if he still had confidence in Sessions. “Thank you,” he responded, as he began heading towards his helicopter.

Based on the two logical outcomes of the feud, there are a few implications for marijuana – mostly being positive.

This article is more in the line of a gossip summary and tea leaf reading, but it would be nice to see Sessions go as I find him to be the most objectionable appointment made by the Trump admin.

Now look at this....this is Artie Johnson on Laugh-in in his Nazi character. Remind you of anybody...hmmm? LOL

 

[Baron23]

Imperial Brands names cannabis expert to board


Tobacco company Imperial Brands has named an expert in medicinal cannabis to its board of directors, it said on Tuesday, the latest example of tobacco companies moving beyond their traditional products.

The maker of Gauloises and Winston cigarettes said it had appointed Simon Langelier, chairman of PharmaCielo Ltd, to its board on June 12. PharmaCielo is a Canadian-based supplier of medicinal-grade cannabis oil extracts and related products.

Analysts estimate the cannabis market could exceed $50 billion over the next decade, fuelled by growing acceptance in North America for uses ranging from pharmaceutical to recreational.

Langelier also worked at tobacco company Philip Morris International for 30 years, where one of his jobs was president of the company's next-generation products, which include e-cigarettes and those that heat tobacco enough to create vapour but not smoke.

Imperial's chairman Mark Williamson said Langelier's extensive international experience in tobacco and other consumer areas would be an asset to the board.

Unlike Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International, Imperial has stayed away from heated tobacco products in the race for cigarette alternatives. But it has tested other products, such as mouth strips that deliver caffeine. (Reporting by Martinne Geller. Editing by Jane Merriman)

And the race to the feeding trough by large corporate entities is starting. sigh

 

[Baron23]

Congress Set to Revive CARERS Act on Thursday

Members of Congress are expected to introduce a revised version of the CARERS Act on Capitol Hill tomorrow afternoon. It would be the second introduction of the bill since its debut in 2015. The new version waters down two of the bill’s key elements, which could give it a better chance at a committee hearing.

Both chambers are in on the bill. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rand Paul (R-KY), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK, pictured above), and Al Franken (D-MN) will introduce in the upper house, while a group of Congress members including Rep. Don Young (R-AK), will introduce the House bill.

CARERS stands for Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States. The original version of the bill would have ended the drug war, at least with regard to cannabis. This latest version is softer.

New Jersey’s Sen. Cory Booker first introduced the CARERS Act in March 2015. That version would have rescheduled cannabis, a Schedule I drug, to Schedule II, where the bulk of the more heavily controlled pharmaceuticals are kept.

It would have also protected banks who choose to deal with cannabis businesses, perhaps the industry’s most broad-reaching problem.

The bill expected to be introduced tomorrow will have neither of those elements.

Still, the second try of the CARERS Act would clean up several of the problems plaguing cannabis consumers and the states that legalized cannabis. The bill seems more medically focused than the last version, which had a commercial flavor in the banking section.

What the New Act Would Do
In effect, the new bill would take four major actions, each aimed at allowing states to make their own decisions:

First, CARERS would change the Controlled Substances Act to allow states to make their own medical cannabis laws. States already do this – 30 of them, so far – but the modification to the CSA would stop the federal government from prosecuting anybody in states where cannabis is medically legal. Right now there are no concrete protections, aside from the temporary Rohrabacher-Blumenauer budget amendment, and states operate under vague threats and hints from federal officials.

The CARERS Act would also cure one of the state-caused bottlenecks in medical supply chains. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration groups cannabidiol (CBD) with the other Schedule I cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant. Many states specifically allow medical CBD, which can treat nervous diseases including epilepsy, but don’t allow for its production. The resulting nationwide confusion has led to raids and seizures, even in states where the far more psychoactive cannabinoid THC is legal. The CARERS Act would strip CBD out of the Controlled Substances Act so states could import it.

Along the same patient access lines, CARERS would allow veterans to get prescriptions for cannabis from their Veterans Affairs doctors. Because of federal laws, current VA physicians are not allowed to talk about cannabis with veterans.

Finally, the bill would simplify how researchers can get their hands on cannabis for studies. Right now, nearly all researchers are legally bound to use poor-quality cannabis grown at the University of Mississippi.

Whether or not the bill’s new terms will help is anyone’s guess. Last time, the bill didn’t do so well – both the House and the Senate shunted it off into a handful of subcommittees, and not a single one of them gave the bill a hearing.

Most cannabis-related bills share the same fate, both historically and recently. Californian Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher introduced the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2015 in April of that year. Like the CARERS Act, the House sliced it up among half a dozen subcommittees, and nothing has ever come of it.

So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance…
This time, there is a little more steam behind the effort.

The new bill has more power players than it did before. Utah Sen. Mike Lee is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Most long time cannabis advocates see the Judiciary Committee as the biggest hurdle in Congress, guarded closely by chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) – who most of those advocates say is cannabis legalization’s biggest enemy, with the exception of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski brings some muscle as well. She sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee – the one Sessions asked just a few days ago to remove a rider that forbids the Department of Justice from going after cannabis in state where it’s legal.

The bill is also getting more love from both sides of the aisle. Support for the CARERS Act is starting to look decidedly more purple than in previous years. On the Senate side, the sponsoring legislators are half GOP – Sens. Rand Paul (KY), Mike Lee (UT), and Lisa Murkowski (AK). This is part of a larger trend in Washington, where more and more Republicans are backing cannabis measures, or at least showing themselves more receptive to hearing the arguments in favor of legalization. Traditional conservative issues like state rights and free markets are now as much a part of the conversation as medical access.

Whether it gets a hearing anytime soon is almost beside the point – the CARERS Act shows that cannabis is slowly getting Congress on its side.

 

[Baron23]

Understand, this article is from Scientific America...a prestigous, peer reviewed, non-political scientific publication. This ain't a grocery store check out isle magazine, yeah?

Science Calls Out Jeff Sessions on Medical Marijuana and the "Historic Drug Epidemic"

Amid a drug crisis that kills 91 people in the U.S. each day, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked Congress to help roll back protections that have shielded medical marijuana dispensaries from federal prosecutors since 2014, according to a letter made public this week. Those legal controls—which bar Sessions’s Justice Department from funding crackdowns on the medical cannabis programs legalized by 29 states and Washington, D.C.—jeopardize the DoJ’s ability to combat the country’s “historic drug epidemic” and control dangerous drug traffickers, the attorney general wrote in the letter sent to lawmakers.

The catch, however, is that this epidemic is one of addiction and overdose deaths fueled by opioids—heroin, fentanyl and prescription painkillers—not marijuana. In fact, places where the U.S. has legalized medical marijuana have lower rates of opioid overdose deaths.

A review of the scientific literature indicates marijuana is far less addictive than prescription painkillers. A 2016 survey from University of Michigan researchers, published in the The Journal of Pain, found that chronic pain suffers who used cannabis reported a 64 percent drop in opioid use as well as fewer negative side effects and a better quality of life than they experienced under opioids. In a 2014 study reported in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, the authors found that annual opioid overdose deaths were about 25 percent lower on average in states that allowed medical cannabis compared with those that did not.

Marijuana can be habit-forming, at least psychologically, but the risks are not in the same league as opioids. A 20-year epidemiological review of studies concluded that more than nine out of 10 people who try marijuana do not become dependent on the drug. The review paper, published in 2014, said the “lifetime risk of developing dependence among those who have ever used cannabis was estimated at 9 percent in the United States in the early 1990s as against 32 percent for nicotine, 23 percent for heroin, 17 percent for cocaine, 15 percent for alcohol and 11 percent for stimulants.” (cont)

 

[Baron23]

NORML Promises Fight After Latest Trump Minion Hints of Marijuana Crackdown
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is sending a clear signal to the administration of President Donald Trump following the latest negative words and deeds aimed at legal marijuana in Colorado and beyond by Justice Department officials Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein. In the words of NORML policy director Justin Strekal, "Should the Department of Justice decide to throw out the Tenth Amendment and respect for states' rights as they govern their own intrastate commerce, they're going to have a fight on their hands."

Attorney General Sessions was supposed to speak at a U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee yesterday, June 13, but that appearance didn't happen, because he was called before a different body, the Senate Intelligence Committee, to supposedly answer but mostly dodge questions about alleged collusion between the Russian government and assorted Trump forces related to the 2016 presidential election.

For that reason, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appeared in his place — and he responded to an inquiry about medical marijuana from Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski like so: "We do have a conflict between federal law and the law in some states. It’s a difficult issue for parents like me, who have to provide guidance to our kids.... I’ve talked to Chuck Rosenberg, the administrator of the DEA, and we follow the law and the science. And from a legal and scientific perspective, marijuana is an unlawful drug. It’s properly scheduled under Schedule I. And therefore we have this conflict."

The scheduling topic is a hot one: As we've reported, there are multiple bills before Congress that aim to move marijuana from Schedule I, a Drug Enforcement Administration designation that includes heroin and acknowledges no medical benefits, to Schedule II or Schedule III, or even to remove it from the DEA schedule entirely.

Strekal, who favors de-scheduling, is hardly shocked by Rosenstein's statements.

"Right now, we're hearing nothing that we haven't heard already coming out of the Justice Department," he says. "It is still along the lines of officials dancing around the idea of maintaining the existing status quo, where the federal government isn't interfering with legal state marijuana law. But the deputy attorney general doubled down on non-commitment. And this is coming just a couple of days before the president's commission on the opioid crisis is due to meet," on Friday, June 16.

"NORML members have been contacting the Office of National Drug Control Policy" about the commission's get-together, Strekal continues. "Thousands of them have been writing letters and making phone calls, saying medical marijuana has to be part of our national response to the catastrophic crisis of opioid addiction and the ravages it's wreaked on our citizens. There are real people who are dealing with this crisis. But in the meantime, Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein still want to play games, and want to continue this failed drug war."

During the 2016 campaign, Trump had positive things to say about medical marijuana even as he ripped recreational cannabis laws like those in Colorado. However, Strekal believes that with Trump so distracted by the scandals that have swamped his administration during its early days, that Sessions, a notable anti-pot zealot, is being allowed to push his agenda regarding marijuana virtually unchecked.

"It's just a continuation of Jeff Sessions's dedication — and by extension, Donald Trump's dedication — not to advance meaningful reform in marijuana policy," he allows. "And he's continuing to ignore all the medical journals and studies about marijuana out there. One of the largest divides I see is when we have people say, 'We don't have enough evidence about medicinal benefits. We don't have enough information. We need to study more.' But there are more than 25,000 articles on marijuana — and conversely, for Adderall, which is being prescribed to so many of our children, there are just over 200. When I learned that statistic, my jaw dropped over the disparity between education and policy."

Sessions, for his part, may not have been focusing on marijuana this week, but his opinions were heard loud and clear thanks to the release (by Marijuana Majority leader and frequent Westword interview subject Tom Angell) of a letter from the attorney general to congressional leaders that attacks a federal law preventing federal dollars from being used to fund a medical marijuana crackdown.

"They're continuing to leave breadcrumbs and build their case both in public and in private that it is nearly time to crack down on the existing developments of legal marijuana," Strekal believes. "We need to recognize that we have no legal protections from this administration — and if you have an administration that refuses to recognize a law authored by a co-equal branch of the government, you have a very dangerous situation."

 

[Baron23]

This man may be legal weed’s best hope
One of the most notorious dirty tricksters in American politics has a new cause: Convincing Donald Trump to legalize marijuana.

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend and ally who’s a prominent figure in the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, has formed the United States Cannabis Coalition, a new political organization whose stated purpose is to “lobby the Trump administration from the top on down to recognize the medicinal value and potential of cannabis.”

Trump said on the campaign trail that he thinks marijuana “should be a state issue,” and Stone told VICE News his “first and foremost” goal is to “urge the president to keep his pledge and direct the Justice Department to reflect the views you stated in the campaign.”

That might prove tricky.

Trump’s views on marijuana policy are still hazy — he called Colorado’s recreational pot law “bad” last year and said it caused “some big problems” for the state — and his cabinet is stacked with anti-weed hardliners like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who believes that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.” Sessions oversees the DEA and recently asked Congress for permission to go after the medical marijuana industry, heightening fears of a federal crackdown.

It’s also unclear whether the 64-year-old Stone still wields any influence over Trump. A longtime Republican operative who was a protege of Richard Nixon and helped elect Ronald Reagan, Stone encouraged Trump to launch his political career and started the Committee to Restore America’s Greatness, a pro-Trump super-PAC. Stone, however, is caught up in the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.

In March, Stone claimed to have a “perfectly legal back channel” to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and suggested he knew about hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign before they were leaked. Stone also has longstanding ties to former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, another key figure in the Russia probe.

Trump tweeted on May 10 that he had not spoken to Stone “in a long time,” but Stone said in March that “they had been in contact since the inauguration.” Stone also claimed on May 5 that he and Trump had talked “less than a week ago.” Asked by VICE News whether he has discussed marijuana legalization with the president, Stone said he has a policy of “not discussing the frequency or the content or the scope of the conversation I’ve had with him since he was a candidate or since he was president.”

Stone did say that he and Trump talked about weed 15 to 20 years ago. According to Stone’s recollection, Trump was at the time in favor of ending the war on drugs.

“His argument then, as I recall, was put the cartels and the bad guys out of business,” Stone said. “Beyond that, I’m not going to characterize any conversations I would have [with Trump]. Obviously, I would use any legal means at my disposal to reverse course if Sessions is planning a crackdown.”

Stone filed paperwork with the IRS on Tuesday to formally create the United States Cannabis Coalition. It’s registered as a political organization with 527 status, the same tax-exempt classification used by super-PACs and other groups formed to influence elections. The address of the headquarters is in Hollywood, Florida, and two Stone associates are named as the treasurer and director.

Stone is expected to reveal more details about the group on Friday during a speech at a marijuana business convention in New York City. He said he’s not being paid to deliver the speech and characterized his new organization as a “nonprofit with the ability to both lobby and to aggressively mobilize activists and run advertising on this issue.” The group’s newly launched website seeks donations from the public.

He told VICE News the members of the group’s “advisory board” would not be finalized until Thursday night. Asked whether his “coalition” would include existing advocacy groups and individuals from across the political spectrum, Stone replied, “I’ll work with anybody — Democrat, liberal, Green Party, libertarian — if we agree on this issue.”

A career Republican who proudly calls Nixon — the progenitor of the war on drugs — his “mentor,” Stone is surprisingly progressive when it comes to drug policy issues. He’s been speaking out in favor of marijuana legalization for years, and he describes himself as “a libertarian convert” on the issue.

“It’s been an expensive, ignominious, racist failure,” Stone said of the drug war. “It’s not working. Drug abuse has to be treated as a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue.”

Stone said the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws was one of the groups he contacted about joining his coalition, but Justin Strekal, NORML’s political director, was unaware of any discussions between Stone and the group until he was informed by VICE News. After consulting with other members of the organization, Strekal confirmed that Stone had reached out to a member of NORML’s board of directors. “There were no commitments made, to my knowledge,” Strekal said.

“We’re happy to have another voice join the chorus,” he added. “It’s my understanding that Mr. Stone has some sort of relationship with the president, and how he’ll be able to translate that into any meaningful change, I’m interested to see how that develops.”

Other leading groups that lobby for marijuana legalization were also in the dark about Stone’s new project. Mason Tvert, spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project, said his organization hadn’t yet heard from Stone, but said they would be willing to collaborate.

“Nobody really knows what’s going to gain traction with President Trump — he just is all over the place.”

“This is someone who obviously has the ear of folks within the administration and has the ability to get the message out to a lot of supporters,” Tvert said. “If he’s interested in taking reasonable actions toward sensible reform, we’re all for it.”

Howard Woolridge, a co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which has a sizable contingent of conservative and libertarian members, said it could be valuable to have a prominent Trump ally like Stone pushing for marijuana legalization.

“Nobody really knows what’s going to gain traction with President Trump — he just is all over the place every other day,” Woolridge said. “A Trump supporter talking to Trump people is going to be well-received and can be influential. Regardless of what [Stone] did or didn’t do with Wikileaks or the Russians or whatever, to the people we need to convince, which is the Republicans and specifically the Trump people in the White House, we need guys like that.”

Stone said his group’s goals also include lifting barriers to medical and scientific research on marijuana, easing restrictions on banking for state-legal cannabis businesses, and removing pot from the list of Schedule I controlled substances, a restrictive category that includes heroin and other dangerous drugs. But mostly he wanted to portray himself as a counterbalance to the influence of Sessions and others drug warriors in the Trump administration, including Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

“Sessions and Kelly may see him every day, but they’re doing him a disservice,” Stone said. “I’d urge him to keep faith with the voters who voted for him on the basis of this pledge [to respect state policies on marijuana]. At the end of the day, he’s the decider.”

 

[Baron23]

Trump and Sessions Need to Take a Deep Breath (and Perhaps Inhale) When It Comes to Pot Regulations
While there is much discussion and concern that the Trump administration will upset state law permitting medical and recreational marijuana use, there are numerous compelling arguments that any attempts can and should fail.

First, in December 2014, the United States Congress’ appropriations bill funding the federal government included the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which provides:

None of the funds made available in this Act to the Department of Justice may be used, with respect to the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, to prevent such States from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.

This provision, known as Section 542, is included in subsequent appropriation bills.

Further, in United States v. McIntosh, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that § 542 prohibited the Department of Justice from spending funds on the prosecution of individuals who were engaging in conduct permitted by state law, provided that those individuals fully complied with the state law. In doing so, the Court explained that:

Congress has enacted an appropriations rider that specifically restricts DOJ from spending money to pursue certain activities. It is “emphatically … the exclusive province of the Congress not only to formulate legislative policies and mandate programs and projects, but also to establish their relative priority for the Nation. Once Congress, exercising its delegated powers, has decided the order of priorities in a given area, it is for … the courts to enforce them when enforcement is sought.” A “court sitting in equity cannot ‘ignore the judgment of Congress, deliberately expressed in legislation.’”

The Court further recognized Congress’ exclusive role in appropriating funds in accord with the United States Constitution, which provides the “straightforward and explicit command … that no money can be paid out of the Treasury unless it has been appropriated by an act of Congress.”

The McIntosh Court thereafter recognized the fundamental doctrines governing the separation of powers and statutory construction:

The Appropriations Clause plays a critical role in the Constitution’s separation of powers among the three branches of government and the checks and balances between them. “Any exercise of a power granted by the Constitution to one of the other branches of Government is limited by a valid reservation of congressional control over funds in the Treasury.” The Clause has a “fundamental and comprehensive purpose … to assure that public funds will be spent according to the letter of the difficult judgments reached by Congress as to the common good and not according to the individual favor of Government agents.” Without it, Justice Story explained, “the executive would possess an unbounded power over the public purse of the nation; and might apply all its moneyed resources at his pleasure.”

Thus, if DOJ were spending money in violation of § 542, it would be drawing funds from the Treasury without authorization by statute and thus violating the Appropriations Clause. That Clause constitutes a separation-of-powers limitation that Appellants can invoke to challenge their prosecutions.

Applying these basic concepts, the Court concluded that “at a minimum, § 542 prohibits DOJ from spending funds from relevant appropriations acts for the prosecution of individuals who engaged in conduct permitted by the State Medical Marijuana Laws and who fully complied with such laws.”

Second, on August 29, 2013, the Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole issued a memorandum entitled “Guidance Regarding Marijuana Enforcement” (AKA the “Cole Memorandum”), which expanded upon the Guidance Memoranda issued in October 2009 and June 2011. The Cole Memo recognized that the DOJ has “limited investigative and prosecutorial resources to address the most significant threats in the most effective, consistent, and rational way.”

Accordingly, the memo identified eight priorities for enforcement:

• Preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors;
• Preventing revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels;
• Preventing the diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal under state law in some form to other states;
• Preventing state-authorized marijuana activity from being used as a cover or pretext for the trafficking of other illegal drugs or other illegal activity;
• Preventing violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana;
• Preventing drugged driving and the exacerbation of other adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use;
• Preventing the growing of marijuana on public lands and the attendant public safety and environmental dangers posed by marijuana production on public lands; and
• Preventing marijuana possession or use on federal property.

The memorandum expressly defers to states to enforce their own laws governing marijuana with the “expectation that states and local governments that have enacted laws authorizing marijuana-related conduct will implement strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems that will address the threat those state laws could pose to public safety, public health, and other law enforcement interests.” The Cole Memorandum further recognized that a state with a sufficiently “robust” regulatory system “is less likely to threaten the federal priorities set forth above.”

Third, Republican administrations consistently refer to “states’ rights” in legislative and policy decision-making. Generally speaking, the concept of states’ rights requires deference to states, permitting them to govern with their own discretion and limiting federal intrusion into local matters. The doctrine dates back to the Federalist Papers, in which Alexander Hamilton explained that while the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause dictates that federal law shall be the supreme law of the land:

…it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.

Although the concept of “states’ rights” historically was used to defend racial segregation, in more recent times it has been relied upon to argue that the federal government should defer to states in matters concerning education, assisted-suicide, gun control, abortion rights, the death penalty and same-sex marriage, among others. Reasonably, therefore, proponents of states’ rights also must defer to states regarding cannabis regulation as well—just as the Cole Memo recommends.

Finally, and perhaps most compellingly, states are now dependent on the significant tax revenue generated from cannabis. These funds are directed toward infrastructure, education, housing and other critical areas. Depriving states of this revenue is, in effect, an unsubsidized state mandate—a concept typically deemed repugnant to Republican lawmakers.

Joshua S. Bauchner, Esq. is a partner with the law firm of Ansell Grimm & Aaron, PC where he is co-chair of the Litigation Department and head of the Cannabis Law Practice Group which may be followed @THCCounselors.

 

[Baron23]

Cannabis industry org forms to “be ready” for national legalization

The National Association of Cannabis Businesses taps D.C. insider Andrew Kline to helm self-regulatory group

By Alex Pasquariello, The Cannabist Staff

Cannabis is joining the ranks of the financial, advertising, real estate and alcohol industries with the formation of its first self-regulatory organization.

The National Association of Cannabis Businesses (NACB) launched Thursday with a powerhouse leadership team and an ambitious plan: Develop and enforce national standards that will increase compliance and transparency, spur growth, and shape future federal regulations. The NACB’s slogan is “Be ready,” in anticipation of federal legalization of cannabis.

The cannabis industry is on a historic growth trajectory even as its businesses operate in a fractured regulatory environment and in the face of uncertain federal policy, NACB president Andrew Kline told The Cannabist.

“What we’re saying is, ‘Let’s take control,'” he said. “Let’s set our own standards so we’re not limited by varying state regulations or subject to what the feds come up with.”

Andrew Kline, president of the National Association of Cannabis Businesses. (Courtesy NACB)
“The formation of NACB is absolutely a coming of age moment for cannabis,” said Ean Seeb, co-founder of Denver Relief Consulting and a member of the group’s advisory panel. “The industry has reached a stage where businesses are no longer only beholden to state regulations and obligations. It’s time to take the next step to be proactive so that when – not if – marijuana is legalized, we’re prepared.”

Self-regulatory organizations (SROs) are industry-financed, non-governmental groups working to supplement and replace regulatory activities that might otherwise emanate from local, state, and/or federal agencies.

Kline brings decades of experience operating in highly regulated environments, having previously served as a special counsel in the Federal Communications Commission’s enforcement bureau. Prior to that, he was a senior advisor to Vice President Joseph Biden; he also was an assistant U.S. attorney.

More on regulations

• Under pressure, Massachusetts lawmakers delay vote on recreational marijuana revisions
• Nevada liquor lobby battles medical marijuana distributors with July 1 sales start at risk
• Los Angeles sets wide cannabis business buffer zones in draft regs
• Regulating cannabis edibles presents challenge for lawmakers, industry
• Update: Florida Legislature reaches agreement on medical marijuana regs

A D.C. insider and self-described “student of history,” Kline said he was drawn to the position because, “Cannabis legalization is the purest form of democracy I’ve ever seen.”

Related: International org takes on creating safety standards for cannabis industry

Colorado businesses and the lessons they’ve learned from the state’s “mature” regulatory regime will play an important part in the NACB’s initial efforts, Kline said.

“The state has been at it longer than anybody else, so it provides the largest window into what works and what hasn’t worked,” he said.

As the NACB concept developed over the last three years, the group enlisted two prominent players in Colorado’s cannabis industry to serve on its six-member advisory panel: Ean Seeb, co-founder of Denver Relief Consulting, and Adam Orens, co-founder of Marijuana Policy Group.

Seeb cited Colorado’s pesticide testing and enforcement as an example of a state-developed system that could be exported to a national level. “The state recognized early that clean cannabis was a public safety issue,” he said. “And the testing standards it developed are replicable in other states as we see in Oregon, for instance. But it’s also scalable to a national level,” he said.

Three Colorado businesses are among the NACB’s seven founding members: Boulder’s Green Dot Labs, Denver’s Local Product of Colorado and Pueblo’s Mesa Organics.

The founding businesses are models of state-level compliance and they’ll be pioneers in the NACB’s development of a first-of-its type digital compliance certification platform, NACB chief legal officer Douglas Fischer told The Cannabist. The technology is being built in partnership with IBM and will provide member businesses with real-time compliance management and supply chain tracking.

“It will create an auditable and transparent trail of data for consumers, state regulators, investors and — someday — federal agencies, that shows the business is compliant now and has been compliant historically,” he said.

Beyond providing financial institutions with the data to complete their due diligence, developing a national compliance regime and digital compliance platform that is efficient and effective has the potential to unleash the cannabis industry, said Jim Parco, owner of Mesa Organics and an economics professor at Colorado College.

“Compliance is expensive and time-consuming,” he said. “We’re not in the cannabis business; we’re in the compliance business. If we do it right, we get to sell some cannabis. You wouldn’t believe what I go through to get a clone from my greenhouse to our store, for instance.”

Jumping into the type of self-regulatory environment favored by the financial, advertising and alcohol industries doesn’t faze Parco. He said he was encouraged that the industry would look to Wall Street where the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) regulates the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ and the American Stock Exchange.

“Cannabis cannot be so insular that we miss an opportunity to learn from other highly regulated industries how to make our own (industry) better,” he said.

A cannabis SRO could learn from the history of the Distilled Spirits Council, Seeb noted. That SRO formed in 1970 when three Prohibition-era alcohol-industry groups merged.

“Similar to cannabis, those founding SROs represented a substance that was legal and then made illegal through prohibition,” Seeb said. “When prohibition was overturned, these groups helped spirits navigate the new regulatory and taxation landscape.”

Ultimately, cannabis has been legalized at the state level because voters have approved of doing so in a regulated fashion, Kline said. The nascent cannabis SRO is a logical next step in nationalizing standards to help shore up that consumer and voter confidence.

“It’s an exciting time and a rare opportunity where an industry with such amazing growth potential is on the verge of professionalizing,” he said. “If we do this right, we can take the industry to a place where national standards and regulatory certainty allow businesses to do what they do best.”


Oh, goody....yet another K Street lobbyist. sigh.

 

[Baron23]

Federalism: Republican Utah Senator Supports States’ Rights

On May 25, Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) enjoyed a rather thought provoking conversation with C-Span’s Neal Katyal regarding the 10th Amendment, federalism, government overreach, and the complex issue of voter-approved state marijuana laws.

A timely issue for states that have reformed their counterproductive pot laws, Sen. Lee’s new book scrutinized the federal government’s overreach and assessed just how ‘The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government’ would have reacted to a United States Atty. Gen. threatening the sovereignty of individual states – for simply legalizing a peaceful herb.

For his new book, “Written Out of History: The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government,” the Utah Senator evokes the powerful philosophy that motivated our seemingly forgotten forefathers who fought valiantly against an overly burdensome federal government.

When asked during the interview whether or not Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and the rest of our founding fathers would have allowed the individual states to legalize marijuana, the Utah Republican answered succinctly – ‘Yes.’


“Most certainly, it would have been a matter of first principles.”

The junior Sen. from Utah explained: “I think deciding whether or not you’re going to allow a particular treatment, a particular pharmaceutical product for example; specifically if that product can be produced and sold entirely within the state in question, that a state ought to have that power.”

Sen. Lee, a trailblazer within the GOP, has continuously searched for alternatives to stiff sentences for those accused of low-level crimes. During his 2010 campaign, Sen. Lee continually shared the disheartening story of Weldon Angelos. Sentenced to 55 years in 2004, Angelos was handed what was essentially a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his first marijuana distribution charge.

Once an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Sen. Lee felt the extended sentence was little more than institutionalized cruelty. Instrumental in obtaining the Utah man’s early release from a federal correction facility, Lee’s intervention was paramount in getting Angelos released from prison after 12 long years.

With marijuana decriminalized by a majority of voters in roughly 70% of U.S. states, the will of the people is currently trumping those outdated policies in the nation’s capital. However, with the new ‘law and order’ administration seizing power and threatening all states with federal marijuana enforcement, the tension between legal states and the federal government remains extremely high.

As more states try and legalize cannabis while the federal government moves enthusiastically to enforce their laws against it, many anticipate this debate to spark a constitutional conundrum over the federal government’s ridiculous prohibition.

 

[Baron23]

Mexico Officially Legalizes Medical Marijuana

Today, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto officially published a bill that makes medical marijuana available and legal in Mexico. The historic change in policy for this critical Latin American nation marks another country that has welcomed cannabis as an important tool for healing the sick.

On Friday, April 28, Mexico’s lower house in parliament overwhelmingly passed the bill with a 374-7 vote. It was then up to the leader of the country to officially sign and turn it into law, which the President finally executed today.

In December of last year, the bill received incredible support from the Mexican Senate, with a yes vote of 98-7.

The recent passing of the bill in parliament was publicly endorsed by Mexico’s Secretary of Health, Dr. José Narro Robles, who stated: “I welcome the adoption of the therapeutic use of cannabis in Mexico.”

The bill will now authorize the Health Ministry to create regulations around medical marijuana use, including the production of related pharmaceuticals that contain cannabis. Products with one percent THC or lower will be allowed at this point. As well, cannabis cultivation for medical and scientific purposes will not be punishable.

Further, before any potential therapy or drug is created, Mexico’s General Health Council must be made aware of the therapeutic or medicinal value of the product being produced.

The Health Ministry will be creating more guidelines and a framework for cultivation and distribution in the coming weeks as Mexico moves forward with this new era of medical cannabis for those in need.

For the moment, supporters of this bill can celebrate with the knowledge that cannabis reform in the Latin American nation has taken a huge step forward.

Well, ain't this some shit as we sit here with our putz in our hands waiting for the dim light of intelligence on MJ to light in the mind of our Federal Government, a consistent track record no matter the party in power.

 

[Baron23]

Marijuana Policy Project’s bank closing account amid fears of DOJ crackdown


By Nicole Lewis, The Washington Post

One of the nation’s leading marijuana legalization groups says PNC Bank has notified it that it will close the organization’s 22-year-old accounts, a sign of growing concerns in the financial industry that the Trump administration will crack down on the marijuana industry in states that have legalized it.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) lobbies to eliminate punishments for marijuana use but is not involved in growing or distributing the drug – an important distinction for federally regulated banks and other institutions that do business with such advocacy groups.

Nick Field, MPP’s chief operating officer, said a PNC Bank representative told him in May that the organization’s bank accounts would be permanently closed July 7 because an audit of the organization’s accounts revealed it received funding from marijuana businesses that handle the plant directly.

“They told me it is too risky. The bank can’t assume the risk,” Field said.

Although marijuana businesses are legal in some states, many banks will not provide services to sellers or growers of the drug because it is banned at the federal level.

But policy and advocacy organizations such as MPP are spared. A bank’s severing ties with an organization that accepts donations from such businesses signals a new level of concern in the banking industry.

PNC bank declined to discuss its relationship with MPP, but a spokeswoman said that “as a federally regulated financial institution, PNC complies with all applicable federal laws and regulations.”

The bank has held MPP’s accounts since the organization was formed in 1995.

Some advocacy groups say the abrupt closing of MPP’s accounts is an unpleasant side effect of growing uncertainty about protections for the marijuana industry in states that have legalized it. The industry enjoys loose protection via a combination of legislative amendments and memos from the Justice Department that effectively allow states to operate medical and recreational marijuana businesses without federal interference. But many advocates worry that the Trump administration is changing course to enforce federal laws and dismantle key protections for the expanding industry.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a longtime opponent of marijuana legalization. During a Senate drug hearing in April 2016, Sessions – then a Republican senator from Alabama – said, “We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it’s in fact a very real danger.”

When asked during his confirmation hearing in January whether he would enforce federal drug laws as attorney general, Sessions replied, “I won’t commit to never enforcing federal law.”

The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment. (cont)

 

[Baron23]

Majority of Americans want Trump to respect state marijuana laws
A strong majority of Americans say individual states should be able to enact their own laws on marijuana, without interference from the federal government.

Seventy-six percent of American adults want President Donald Trump to respect state marijuana laws, according to a new poll published Thursday from Survey USA, commissioned by the drug policy reform group Marijuana Majority.

Majorities of Republicans, Democrats, independents and respondents of every age group agreed that the feds should not interfere with state marijuana laws.

It’s the strongest support to date for such laws, three points higher than an April survey from Quinnipiac University asking a similar question.

Legal recreational marijuana has been approved in eight states and Washington, D.C. (although the district continues to ban sales of marijuana, unlike the state programs). A total of 29 states, as well as D.C., have legalized marijuana for medical purposes.

Yet despite many states’ continued efforts to decriminalize the use, cultivation and sale of the plant, marijuana remains illegal federally.

Former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department allowed states to forge their own marijuana policy, issuing guidance that urged federal prosecutors to refrain from targeting state-legal marijuana operations. But this guidance is not law and can be reversed by the Trump administration.

As a candidate, Trump said he was in favor of permitting medical cannabis, adding that he would respect states’ rights on marijuana legalization. But Trump’s attorney general is Jeff Sessions, an anti-marijuana hard-liner, whose appointment was deeply troubling to those who favor progressive drug laws.

Sessions has issued some ominous warnings to states that have legalized marijuana, suggesting a federal crackdown could be on the way. And while he’s said the Obama-era marijuana guidance is “not too far from good policy” and it remains in effect for now, Sessions is expected to make some changes to the guidance.

In May, Sessions asked Congress to undo federal protections for states that have legalized medical marijuana so he could prosecute medical marijuana providers. While Congress ultimately didn’t grant Sessions’ request, Trump appeared to reserve the right to enforce federal prohibition laws in a statement he issued upon signing the budget bill that re-implemented the protections.

“It’s clear that Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration would face a huge backlash from across the political spectrum if they broke the president’s campaign pledge to respect state marijuana policies and started arresting consumers and providers who are following local law,” said Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority.


“The more the attorney general threatens to ramp up federal enforcement, the more public opinion seems to harden against his outdated ‘Reefer Madness’ mindset,” Angell added.

The poll also found that more Americans support, rather than oppose, the consumption of marijuana by professional athletes (46 percent), journalists (50 percent) and gun owners (48 percent) if those individuals live in a state where it is legal for them to do so without punishment.

Some news organizations administer pre-employment drug tests to journalists. Marijuana use is banned by numerous professional sports leagues in the U.S., with athletes facing fines or suspension if they are found to have consumed marijuana. State-legal marijuana users are banned from purchasing firearms under federal law.

The Survey USA poll was conducted between June 19-20 with 1,500 cellphone and landline respondents.

Ole Jefferson is going to be in for a political ass whipping if he keeps trying to go in the path he has threatened (see Mom....not even any personal insults in this one! LOL)

 

[Baron23]

Even Koch network thinks Trump admin heading wrong direction on marijuana
"You are never going to win the war on drugs. Drugs won," Mark Holden told reporters

By John Frank, The Denver Post

COLORADO SPRINGS — The Trump administration’s tough talk on marijuana is creating an unusual alliance: pot smokers and the conservative Koch political network.

Mark Holden, one of the influential network’s top leaders, decried President Donald Trump’s administration for returning to the “harsh sentencing era of the war on drugs.”

“You are never going to win the war on drugs. Drugs won,” he told reporters as the network opened a three-day retreat Saturday at The Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ directive to re-evaluate marijuana policies is a particular problem. Even though it remains a federal crime to possess and use marijuana, he said, “it’s legal in a number of states, so we have to come to grips with that somehow.”

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  • Jeff Sessions could have power to unilaterally write federal drug policy, say critics of new bill
  • Trump administration’s cannabis obsession in face of opioid epidemic is absurd
  • Battling the racial roadblocks to joining the legalized cannabis industry

Earlier this month, Sessions asked Congress to repeal federal protections for medical marijuana, citing a “historic drug epidemic” related to opiates. The 2014 policy prohibits the Justice Department from using federal dollars to block states from legalizing the “use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana.”

When it comes to medical marijuana, Holden argued it “should be off-limits” to a federal law enforcement crackdown.

Holden, the general counsel for Koch Industries who leads a network-backed effort to address overcriminalization and criminal justice reform, was cautious about reading too much into his stance.

“I’m not here to say our position is legalize drugs or anything else,” he said, adding: “But I don’t think that we should criminalize those types of things and we should let the states decide.”

The approach fits with the conservative philosophies advanced by Charles and David Koch as part of their policy and political work. Holden suggested Sessions’ position represents a “failed big government top-down approach.”

“It’s based on fear and emotion in my opinion,” he added.

I'm trying hard to remember if anybody has come out publically in support of Jeff Sessions on this issue....other than true believers like the so-called "Smart Approach to Marijuana" anti-MJ lobby group.