Marijuana

Impacts Of Sessions’ Reversal Of DOJ Marijuana Policy

January 7, 2018 By Alicia Wallace, The Cannabist Educate! Jeff Sessions, Marijuana, Marijuana Legalization

The article below by Alicia Wallace a Denver, CO reporter for the Cannabist, describes the decisions by Attorney General Sessions to re-state the Department of Justice policy on marijuana law enforcement in states that have legalized marijuana and examines the legal, investment and business impacts of the decision. Essentially, Sessions has moved decison making to US Attorneys responsible for states that have put in place legal marijuana systems. Each US Attorney in those areas will need to evaluate the situation and decide how to proceed. No doubt they will meet with federal drug enforcement officials as well as state officials before deciding what to do. At this point, prosecutors are being vague in their pronouncements, as seen in Massachusetts.

Session’s Anti-Marijuana Move Might Be Good For Legalization

January 7, 2018 Tom Angell for MarijuanaMoment.net. Educate! DOJ, Drug War, Marijuana

For the past several years, the marijuana industry and its customers have been relying on a piece of paper — an Obama-era document known as the Cole memo — to indulge in their business and pleasure mostly without fear of arrest by federal agents. On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded that document. Observers took it as a sign that a large-scale cannabis crackdown could be on the way. But could Sessions’s move actually turn out to be good news for legalization supporters? The development generated immediate and intense pushback from federal and state officials, from both sides of the aisle. And it wasn’t just the usual suspects of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus chiming in.

Sessions Reverses DOJ Policy, Allows Marijuana Prosecutions In Legal States

January 5, 2018 Sadie Gurman, Apnews.com Educate! Criminalization, DOJ, Jeff Sessions, Legislation, Marijuana, Marijuana Legalization

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration threw the burgeoning movement to legalize marijuana into uncertainty Thursday as it lifted an Obama-era policy that kept federal authorities from cracking down on the pot trade in states where the drug is legal. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will now leave it up to federal prosecutors to decide what to do when state rules collide with federal drug law. Sessions’ action, just three days after a legalization law went into effect in California, threatened the future of the young industry, created confusion in states where the drug is legal and outraged both marijuana advocates and some members of Congress, including Sessions’ fellow Republicans. Many conservatives are wary of what they see as federal intrusion in areas they believe must be left to the states.

LA Brings Social Equity To Marijuana Sellers

December 13, 2017 Thandisizwe Chimurenga, mintpressnews.com Create! Equity, Los Angeles, Marijuana

LOS ANGELES – Beginning in January in Los Angeles, individuals who are low-income and/or have had a conviction for a marijuana-related offense will enjoy priority status when it comes to applying for a license to legally sell the herb. Cultivators or manufacturers will also have such status, thanks to the Los Angeles City Council. On Wednesday the council voted to repeal a four-year-old ban on such businesses in the city, and that repeal is accompanied by what supporters are saying is the most aggressive and progressive “social equity” clause in the nation. In the movement to decriminalize marijuana, attempts to apply “social equity” standards to cannabis have been talked about but have not made much progress.

Non-Intoxicating CBD Is Under Attack: Police Raids & FDA Warnings

November 18, 2017 Martin A. Lee, projectcbd.org Resist! FDA, Marijuana, Police

By Martin A. Lee for Project CBD - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which defers to the DEA on cannabis-related matters, considers CBD to be an experimental pharmaceutical undergoing evaluation. In early November, the FDA sent letters to several companies selling hemp-derived CBD products warning that they were violating the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Acts. This was the third time in recent years that the FDA has issued warnings to CBD manufacturers and retailers, which market hemp-derived CBD products as nutraceuticals or food supplements. The most recent round of FDA warning letters did not involve false statements about the source of the CBD extracts. Instead, the agency objected to unsubstantiated medical claims allegedly made by four CBD oil producers: Greenroads Health, Natural Alchemist, That’s Natural! Marketing and Consulting, and last but not least, the Stanley Brothers. Some of these unsubstantiated claims, according to the FDA, included patient testimonials and assertions that CBD “may be effective in treating tumors from cancer” and other diseases. Thus far, however, there have been no FDA-approved clinical trials that might validate preclinical studies and anecdotal accounts of CBD’s anti-cancer properties. Today one can easily purchase unregulated CBD products online and at some supermarkets and storefronts across the nation.

Serving Life In Prison For $5 Worth Of Marijuana

November 2, 2017 Tana Ganeva, alternet.org Educate! Marijuana, Marijuana Legalization, Prison

By Tana Ganeva for AlterNet - Deedee Kirkwood is a hippie housewife in Camarillo, a scenic beach town in California outside of Los Angeles. When she was younger, she followed the Grateful Dead on tour and says she smoked copious amounts of pot “before and after." But her youthful indiscretions had no legal consequences. “I did a lot of stupid stuff, but as a white lady I got lucky,” she tells me over the phone. Kirkwood often writes letters to Fate Vincent Winslow, an inmate in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. He’s not as lucky as she was. In 2008, Winslow was homeless on the streets of Shreveport, Louisiana. One night, an undercover cop approached and asked him for “a girl” and some pot. Winslow got two dime bags of weed from a white dealer he knew and sold them to the officer. In all, he made five bucks from the sale, money he needed to buy food, he says. Police arrested Winslow, but not the dealer, even though he’d profited more handsomely from the sale; the marked $20 bill was found on him. During Winslow's trial, prosecutors pointed to his long criminal history as a reason to put him away. But court records show he was far from a criminal mastermind. He had two nonviolent priors and a drug charge, which is not uncommon for poor people living on and off the streets. Still, after the predominantly white jury voted guilty, he was deemed a habitual offender. Under Louisiana law, that meant an automatic sentence of hard labor without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence.

Feds Seek Information On Legal Medical Marijuana Patients

September 3, 2017 Staff, boston.cbslocal.com Resist! Marijuana, Medical Marijuana

By Staff for WBZ. The federal government is asking the state of Massachusetts to turn over information on the 40,000 patients who were prescribed medical marijuana. The request coming from the White House’s National Marijuana initiative. Governor Baker says no information will be turned over to the federal government that will compromise patients. “We just got the request. We won’t do anything that is going to violate anybody’s privacy. I can promise you that,” Baker said. Massachusetts isn’t the only state that has been contacted by the federal government. So far the state has complied and given general information like the age of the patient and date of the prescription, but not information on medical conditions. The state says that data could actually be used to identify the patient.

The Great Pot Monopoly Mystery

August 25, 2017 Amanda Chicago Lewis, www.gq.com Educate! Corporatism, Marijuana

By Amanda Chicago Lewis for GQ. The search for the hidden forces that might soon control the marijuana industry began, as many wild journeys do, in Las Vegas. It was last November, and I was party-hopping at the biggest weed-business gathering of the year, a week of overlapping conferences and decadent soirees. I was a few blocks off the Strip, celebrating a new line of bongs and pipes in a penthouse with chandeliers and dark-wood furniture, when I happened to meet a faunlike 40-something man named after a character from The Jungle Book: Mowgli Holmes. Holmes had something he needed to get off his chest—a quagmire that had been keeping him up at night for the better part of a year. He was soft-spoken but had an earnest intensity that made me lean in to hear him.

Marijuana Arrest Capital, NYC Police Focus On Black People

August 11, 2017 Phillip Smith, www.alternet.org Educate! Marijuana, New York (NY), New York City (NYC), NYC, Police, Racism

By Phillip Smith for AlterNet - Last month, the Drug Policy Alliance released a report noting that marijuana arrests under New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio continue to be marked by shocking racial disparities, much as they were under his predecessors, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Stung by the criticism, de Blasio is fighting back, but his response so far has consisted of attacking DPA as "legalizers" and comparing apples to oranges. The DPA report, Unjust and Unconstitutional: 60,000 Jim Crow Marijuana Arrests in Mayor de Blasio’s New York,noted that while pot possession arrests are down under de Blasio from the numbers achieved under Giuliani (more than 40,000 arrests in 2001) or Bloomberg (more than 50,000 arrests in 2011), NYPD still arrested more than 18,000 people for pot possession last year, and a whopping 86% of them were black or brown, maintaining the racial disparities so apparent in earlier administrations. That's "a far cry from the mayor's pledge to rein in NYPD's targeting of people of color," charged DPA New York State director Kassandra Frederique in the report. That de Blasio had managed to bring pot arrests down to an average of only 20,000 a year during his tenure shouldn't be portrayed as progress, argued Frederique, instead describing it as "slower injustice, but slower injustice is still injustice delivered."

Massachusetts Governor Signs Bill To Allow Recreational Pot

August 1, 2017 Reid Wilson, www.thehill.com Create! Legislation, Marijuana, Marijuana Legalization, Massachusetts

By Reid Wilson for The Hill - Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) has signed a new measure that sets in motion a nearly yearlong process to legalize marijuana for recreational use, after months of negotiations with the state legislature. The law comes nine months after voters in Massachusetts and three other states approved ballot measures to allow recreational marijuana. The first recreational pot shops are set to open in July 2018. “We appreciate the careful consideration the legislature took to balance input from lawmakers, educators, public safety officials and public health professionals, while honoring the will of the voters regarding the adult use of marijuana,” Baker said in a statement. The new legislation makes significant changes to the initiative Bay State voters passed last year, increasing sales taxes on legal marijuana from 12 percent to 20 percent. The state will levy a 17 percent tax, while municipalities will issue their own 3 percent tax. Massachusetts anticipates generating as much as $83 million in tax revenue from marijuana sales during the first year of legalization alone, the state Department of Revenue estimated earlier this year. Sales during the second year are expected to top out at more than $1 billion, generating tax revenue of up to $200 million.

Colorado’s Marijuana Tax Revenue Now Exceeds Half A Billion Dollars

July 20, 2017 Ryan Grenoble, www.huffingtonpost.com Create! Colorado, Marijuana, Taxes

By Ryan Grenoble for The Huffington Post - In the three-and-a-half years since the state began allowing adults to purchase marijuana for recreational use, cannabis has contributed more than half a billion dollars in tax revenue to both state and local coffers. That’s according to a report released Wednesday by the Denver-based marijuana consulting firm VS Strategies. Based on data from the Colorado Department of Revenue, the firm tabulated that cannabis-related taxes from 2014 through mid-2017 totaled $506,143,635. That includes the taxes on purchases of marijuana for recreational or medical use, as well as fees paid by cannabis businesses. The tax figure is substantially more than some experts predicted in 2012 when Colorado voters approved Amendment 64, which legalized recreational marijuana. At that time, some analysts projected the state would net between $5 and $22 million a year in taxes. VS Strategies spotlighted its report by presenting an oversize check for half a billion dollars Wednesday to Colorado state Rep. Jonathan Singer (D). A majority of money has gone to fund K-12 education (even with that, Colorado’s education funding badly lags behind most of the rest of the country). Amendment 64 requires the first $40 million in tax revenue be allotted for school construction.

Marijuana Legalization Is Decreasing Violent Crime In Border States

July 8, 2017 W. E. Messamore, www.ivn.us Educate! Border, Crime, Marijuana, Marijuana Legalization

By W. E. Messamore for IVN - In a paper published by The Economic Journal last month, a study by the Norwegian School of Economics in partnership with the Pennsylvania State University Department of Sociology and Criminology, found that marijuana legalization has led to a decrease in violent crime in U.S. states that border Mexico. Over the past several years, sweeping reforms to marijuana policies have reached a tipping point with legal medical marijuana now in more states (currently 29) than those that continue to prohibit the sale and consumption of the plant for medical or recreational purposes. The paper‘s authors say that not only is there a strong reduction in violent crime related to illegal drug trafficking in states and counties that border Mexico, but that when an inland state legalizes medical marijuana, there is a measurable reduction in violent drug trafficking crimes in the nearest border state: “We show that the introduction of medical marijuana laws (MMLs) leads to a decrease in violent crime in states that border Mexico. The reduction in crime is strongest for counties close to the border (less than 350km), and for crimes that relate to drug trafficking. In addition, we find that MMLs in inland states lead to a reduction in crime in the nearest border state.”

Nevada Becomes Fifth State Where You Can Buy Legal Marijuana

July 2, 2017 Matt Ferner , Nick Wing, www.huffingtonpost.com Create! Legalization, Marijuana

By Matt Ferner , Nick Wing for Huff Post. Adults who are at least 21 years old can now legally purchase recreational marijuana from select retail shops in Nevada. Sales began just after midnight on Saturday. There are a total of 44 licensed dispensaries around the state open for business so far, according to the Nevada Department of Taxation, which oversees the industry. Thirty-three shops in Las Vegas and four shops in Reno are among those that have licenses. Nevada joins Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska in rejecting marijuana prohibition and legalizing the sale of weed for recreational purposes. A total of eight states ― along with the District of Columbia, which does not allow sales ― have already enacted laws to legalize, regulate and tax recreational marijuana. Licensed dispensaries are expected to open for business next year in California, Maine and Massachusetts.

Small Marijuana Growers Create Marijuana Coops To Scale Up

June 30, 2017 Paul Roberts, www.leafly.com Create! Cooperatives, Marijuana, Marijuana Legalization

By Paul Roberts for Leafly - Markets, like ecosystems, respond to massive disruption with a wave of experimentation and adaptation—and that’s certainly been the story in California’s cannabis sector. Ever since legalization upended the decades-old status quo, players have scrambled to develop new business strategies to exploit the chaos—or simply survive it. By coordinating harvests and pooling crops, co-op members can deliver the bulk shipments that wholesalers increasingly demand. Some, like Jai Malloy, have scaled up. Others, like Sam Edwards in Sonoma, have moved to the other end of the scale continuum with a “craft” strategy. Yet the reality is that many existing cannabis farmers lack the resources or expertise to carry off either of these strategies—or, at least, carry it off all on their own. For many of these growers, the solution has been a strategy that borrows from both large- and small-scale producers—the cannabis co-operative. A case in point is Emerald Grown, a forty-member co-operative located in the town of Laytonville, in the Emerald Triangle’s Mendocino County. Founded three years ago by farmers Amber and Casey O’Neill, the co-operative follows a strategy of adaptive mimicry: using collective action to achieve the scale efficiencies of larger operators. By sharing seeds, expertise, and other resources, for example, co-op members can significantly boost their individual yields.

Police Searches Plummet In States That Legalize Weed, But…

June 25, 2017 Andy Campbell, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Marijuana, Police, Privacy, Racism

By Andy Campbell for the Huffington Post. Marijuana is often used as a tool by police officers to search your car. In many cases, the mere odor of weed serves as probable cause to pull you over and rifle through your belongings. States that have decriminalized it are still grappling with the legality of using marijuana for warrantless searches. In the case of Philando Castile, who was shot to death by a Minnesota police officer during a traffic stop last year, we saw the devastating effects the smell of marijuana can have on an officer’s perception of motorists. Though marijuana is decriminalized to some degree in the state, St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez would later tell investigators that he thought he was in danger because he smelled weed. It may come as no surprise, then, that states that have legalized marijuana are seeing a dramatic decline in warrantless searches.

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