Latest Cannabis News: October 26, 2021
Latest Cannabis News: October 26, 2021
Stay up to date with the latest legalization and cannabis news with the CB Advisors. Every week, we will release a snippet of what’s happening with each state in the cannabis industry. Did you miss last week? No worries – click here for last week’s cannabis news.
Medical
Alabama: The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission has decided not to request to move the date that people can apply for medical cannabis licenses after saying it might do so last month.
Vice Chairman of the commission Rex Vaughn says that there is too much to do to push for an earlier license application date. Physicians must be trained and rules must be established, and a database to register patients must be created by next September.
Growers and distributors cannot apply for licenses until September of 2022, leading supporters of medical marijuana to believe that the substance won’t be available until 2023.
Mississippi: Mississippi lawmakers are revising a proposal to create a medical marijuana program. But, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is not saying when he will call a special session to put it into law. The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports a new version of a bill would allow larger growing facilities. It also would restructure the excise tax on medical marijuana products and limit the state Agriculture Department’s regulatory role. Legislators want to create a medical marijuana program to replace an initiative voters approved in November. The state Supreme Court overturned the initiative in May by ruling that Mississippi’s initiative process is outdated and unworkable.
Source: https://www.wcbi.com/mississippi-legislators-revising-medical-marijuana-proposal/
New Hampshire: The New Hampshire House Criminal Justice Committee rejected proposals Wednesday that would legalize and tax marijuana, and allow people to cultivate up to six plants per household. The votes mostly fell along party lines, with Republicans opposed and Democrats in favor. “There is a version of recreational cannabis I will support,” Committee Chairman Darryl Abbas, Republican of Salem, told colleagues. “But I don’t support a sales tax on anything and I’m not going to support a sales tax on this.” New Hampshire is the only state in northern New England to have rejected its legalization for recreational use.
Source: https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2021-10-21/nh-house-rejects-marijuana-legalization
Pennsylvania: Multiple proposals to legalize marijuana for adult use started circulating in the Pennsylvania legislature after Republican State Sen. Mike Regan announced he has changed his position on the issue and now plans to introduce a marijuana legalization proposal.
Another bipartisan marijuana bill has been announced in the State Senate, sponsored by State Sens. Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) and Dan Laughlin (R-Erie). Unfortunately, although a few Republican senators have now signaled some support for one proposal or another, Republican House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, who controls the lower chamber’s agenda, recently said he doesn’t view marijuana legalization as a priority.
Rhode Island: Even as an appeal by a prospective dispensary owner drags on, the R.I. Department of Business Regulation has decided to hold a random lottery next Friday to award five out of six new medical marijuana dispensary licenses.
The event will be highly choreographed, with the use of official numbered balls from the R.I. Lottery, a tumbler borrowed from the DBR will randomly award the licenses to the qualified applicants in the previously selected geographic Zones 1 to 5, holding off on awarding any licenses in Zone 6 because of the ongoing appeal. A total of 37 applications from 23 companies will be in play for the five coveted licenses.
South Dakota: Last Tuesday South Dakota lawmakers advanced a proposal to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults while repealing much of the state’s new medical marijuana law. The Adult-Use Marijuana Study Subcommittee, which has been studying the issue since June, voted to recommend a bill that would allow people over 21 to purchase up to 1 ounce (28 grams) of cannabis for recreational use. It would repeal most aspects of the medical marijuana law that voters passed last year, but still contain provisions for people under 21 to use marijuana for medical purposes.
The bill would still need to be cleared by a pair of legislative committees, the full Legislature next year and the governor’s desk to become law. But lawmakers’ willingness to advance the issue showed a growing acknowledgment in the Republican-controlled Statehouse that recreational marijuana legalization has popular support. A committee studying both recreational and medical pot will consider the bill next week.
Recreational
Colorado: Colorado marijuana regulators are reassessing taxes on wholesale marijuana transactions as the likelihood of federal legalization increases.
Bills proposing federal marijuana legalization are still far away from passing Congress, but both Colorado’s marijuana industry and state officials believe it’s more of a matter of when, not if. Federal legalization measures could include excise taxes on recreational marijuana production or wholesale transactions as high as 25 percent, but Colorado currently imposes a 15 percent excise tax on the same thing. As one of six states allowing retail marijuana to already have an excise tax on wholesale transactions, this could put Colorado growers at a disadvantage, according to marijuana business owners.
House Bill 1301, a successful 2021 bill that loosens outdoor growing laws for commercial marijuana, included language that required the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division to examine existing rules and tax laws for recreational marijuana’s wholesale cultivation market in an effort to be competitive if marijuana is legal under federal law.
Connecticut: The Department of Consumer Protection increased the amount from 2.5 to 3 ounces per month. It won’t be taxed like recreational cannabis which is legal now but won’t be available for purchase until 2022.
“We have 18 dispensaries facilities which are serving our medical patients and they can deliver,” DCP Commissioner Michelle Seagull says. Seagull says none of the dispensaries have applied for delivery service.
“There’s a lot of people in Connecticut with some seriously debilitating conditions who are benefitting from this medical program,” Seagull says. The state is also now allowing patients to use any of the 18 dispensaries throughout the state. They used to have to choose one.
Illinois: The Illinois Supreme Court ordered the consolidation of lawsuits filed by cannabis dispensary license applicants in an attempt to resolve multiple claims challenging the fairness of the licensing process.
At the request of the Illinois attorney general’s office, the court ordered that several cases be heard together, which could help decide the fate of all 185 new recreational marijuana retail licenses.
The awarding of those licenses have been held up indefinitely by Cook County Judge Moshe Jacobius while he decides a case involving two applicants, WAH Group LLC and HAAAYY LLC vs. Bret Bender, deputy director of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR), which awards the licenses.
Massachusetts: In Massachusetts, the State Treasurer announced five new members to the Cannabis Advisory Board. The Board consists of 25 members who study and make recommendations to the Cannabis Control Commission regarding the regulation and taxation of marijuana in Massachusetts. The members are experts in marijuana cultivation, retail, manufacturing, laboratory sciences and toxicology, and providing legal services to cannabis businesses. According to a news release sent from the State Treasurer’s office, the following members are new appointees and reappointments to the Cannabis Advisory Board, alongside their area of expertise:
Amanda Rositano: Product manufacturing
Dr. Alan Balsam: Laboratory sciences and toxicology
Dr. Marion McNabb: Retailing
Michael Dundas: Cultivation
Laury C. Lucien: Providing legal services to marijuana businesses
Vermont: The Vermont Cannabis Control Board set a rule Friday prohibiting retail marijuana stores within 500 feet walking distance from a school. “I’m not sure if it matters if a cannabis establishment is through the woods, beyond the athletic field,” board member Julie Hulburd said.
Prevention Works, a substance abuse prevention coalition, recommended a buffer zone of 1,000 feet between schools and a retail cannabis establishment. The rule adopted by the board will allow towns to reduce buffer zones or expand them to up to 1,000 feet.
Source: https://vtdigger.org/2021/10/22/vermont-cannabis-control-board-sets-buffer-zones-for-pot-shops/
Washington, D.C.: Legislation that has blocked adult-use cannabis sales in Washington, D.C. for seven years has been omitted from this year’s Senate appropriations bill in a move by lawmakers that could clear the way for sales of recreational marijuana in the nation’s capital. Ever since Washington, D.C. voters legalized the personal possession and cultivation of marijuana by adults in 2014, Congress has used budget legislation to block the city government from regulating recreational cannabis sales. Known as the Harris Rider for its author, Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris, the attachment to appropriations bills prevents the District of Columbia from legalizing recreational cannabis and regulating commerce in adult-use marijuana.
Washington, D.C. civic leaders are calling on Congress to hold the line and leave the Harris Rider out of future versions of the bill as lawmakers negotiate its terms. If that happens, the will of the voters in the nation’s capital as expressed in 2014 could finally be realized.
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